Da-Chi Liao

Does Facebook Promote Self-Interest? Enactment of Indiscriminate One-to-Many Communication on Online Social Networking Sites Decreases Prosocial Behavior

Abstract Communication tools on social networking sites (SNSs) provide users with an efficient way to distribute information to the public and/or their friends simultaneously. In this article, we show that this kind of indiscriminate one-to-many (i.e., monologue) communication, in which the diverse interests of recipients are not considered, may induce a tendency toward egocentrism that interferes with other-oriented concerns, resulting in a reduced inclination to display prosocial behavior. In Experiment 1, participants induced to post a public communication subsequently allocated less money to anonymous strangers in the dictator game than did control participants. In Experiment 2, participants directing a post about participation in an experiment to their Facebook friends volunteered to help code fewer data sheets than did controls. Moreover, an egocentric state was shown to mediate the relationship between indiscriminate one-to-many communication and helping behavior. We provide the first demonstration that indiscriminate one-to-many communication on online social networks may be associated with a tendency toward self-interest. Our results suggest that the prevalence of monologue communication on SNSs may induce an egocentric tendency that undermines the likelihood of prosocial behavior.

Testing the Immune System of a Newly Born Democracy: The 2004 Presidential Election in Taiwan

This article examines the closely fought March 2004 Taiwan presidential election, in which the difference between the winner and the runner-up was a mere 0.22 percent, and which was characterized by a high level of partisan passions and distrust. This election was also notable because the rules governing disputes during presidential elections had never been used, since the 2004 presidential election was only the third instance of a popular election of a president. The article examines the context and structure of electoral contest and the various dimensions of the controversy, identifies the avenues for ”electoral dispute settlement,” the role played by different political and social actors, as well as that of various institutions in this heated electoral drama. The authors show that three sets of agents played a role in increasing the legitimacy of a legal solution to the problem, and thus to remove the possibility of greater political conflict, namely the United States, the mass media and the general public, and third and most critically, leaders from both camps, who made compromises and concessions at crucial moments. In contrast with the latter actors, the military, the judiciary, and the Central Election Committee (CEC) managed to remain neutral. The authors conclude that the newly installed Taiwanese democracy is probably less fragile than it appears to be, as it passed the litmus test of acceptance by electoral losers of a dispute settlement mechanism and of a ”verdict.” Thus, despite sustained mass mobilization, unauthorized mass rallies, acute political polarization, and vitriolic exchanges between the leading contenders, the electoral dispute was resolved by the judiciary.

Strengthening Democracy: Development of the iVoter Website in Taiwan

This chapter introduces Taiwan’s first VAA—iVoter, including its application and ongoing development. The name iVoter is intended to refer to “I vote,” “informed vote,” “intelligent vote,” and “internet vote.” This system was first used for the 2012 eighth term Legislative Yuan elections. From October 2011, when the iVoter site officially went online, until 2012, 1,400 people became iVoter members and completed issue position diagnostic registration, while over 40,000 people (from different IP addresses) have visited the website.

A Review of: “Corruption by Design: Building Clean Government in Mainland China and Hong Kong by Melanie Manion”

Writing a book that focuses on how to build clean government in China requires both braveness and brightness. China is culturally clientelist and has recently been enjoying an economic boom due to its policy adjustment from a socialist-planned economy to a kind of semi-capitalist market one, but still under a Leninist party rule. All these make even the concept of corruption in China complicated and even more so any attempt to remedy the so-called ‘‘corruption’’ problem. Professor Melanie Manion, however, may just set a good example for doing so by her book Corruption by Design: Building Clean Government in Mainland China and Hong Kong. As the book title has shown, Manion’s braveness is demonstrated not only by her tackling China’s corruption problems, but also by her attempt to find solutions for healing the wound. Moreover, the solutions she suggests in the book are mainly derived from the experience of Hong Kong, which may cause doubts both from academics and the Chinese central government for its comparability with the Mainland China (apple and orange? master and subject?). Hong Kong and Mainland China may not be viewed as comparable by some orthodox methodological paradigm, but Manion succeeds in comparing the two by a method not written in textbooks regarding comparative politics. Manion dares to do something beyond paradigmatic constraints and her success is evidence of her wisdom. Manion makes at least four good choices in writing this book. First is her choice of the book title: Corruption by Design, rather than Clean Government by Design. Actually, from the concluding Chapter Six on ‘‘Institutional Design for Clean Government,’’ one may easily get an impression that the author’s main purpose of the book is to recommend alternative institutional designs, drawn from the International Public Management Journal