Solving an asian puzzle

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 21, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 114-122

  Chu, Yun Han ^a   Huang, Min Hua ^b  

^a NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY   (Taiwan)

^b TEXAS A AND M UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77958553448     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: 10863214     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2010.0009     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. This item has been also employed by Latinobarómetro, Afrobarometer, Arab Democracy Barometer, New Europe Barometer, and World Values Survey.
2. For the exact wording of this battery, please refer to Yutzung Chang, Yun-han Chu, and Chong-min Park, "Authoritarian Nostalgia in East Asia," Journal of Democracy 18 (July 2007): 66-80.
3. This battery contains the following seven items: 1) Government leaders are like the head of a family; we should all follow their decisions; 2) The government should decide whether certain ideas should be allowed to be discussed in society; 3) Harmony of the community will be disrupted if people organize many groups; 4) When judges decide important cases, they should accept the view of the executive branch; 5) If the government is constantly checked by the legislature, it cannot possibly accomplish great things; 6) If we have political leaders who are morally upright, we can let them decide everything; and 7) If people have too many different ways of thinking, society will be chaotic.
4. Objection to these statements is taken as a liberal-democratic orientation, while approval is coded as an authoritarian orientation. For an elaboration of the liberal-democratic value scale, please refer to Fu Hu and Yun-han Chu, "Neo-authoritarianism, Polarized Conflict and Populism in a Newly Democratizing Regime: Taiwan's Emerging Mass Politics," Journal of Contemporary China 5 (March 1996): 23-41.
5. Factor analysis shows that the two scales (latent variables) are virtually independent (orthogonal) of each other with a very small correlation coefficient (r = -0.085).
6. This result suggests the appropriateness of the typological analysis. For both scales, we use the grand mean as the cutoff point for classifying cases into a High/Low dichotomy.
7. There are several alternative ways of defining the cutoff point along each scale. By using the grand mean, we define the High/Low dichotomy in relative terms, that is, the upper half versus the lower half of the region's overall distribution.
8. The distribution of the four types will shift if one moves the cutoff point up or down, but the relative position of each country's profile will remain the same. For example, it is always the case that Japan has the largest proportion of Consistent Democrats relative to other Asian countries, regardless of which cutoff point one uses.
9. We use Mplus 4.12 to formulate a factor scale with the function of missing-value imputation.
10. Except for the cases in which none of the questions has a valid answer, each factor scale will generate a score for the latent trait behind the measuring items.
11. The factor score is derived as a posterior Bayesian estimate given the independent and dependent variables, which is commonly called "the regression method." Please see Muthén, B.O. (1998-2004). Mplus Technical Appendices. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén, 47-48.