Karl Ho

Political Science Computing: A Review of Trends in Computer Evolution and Political Science Research

ABSTRACT The increase in computing power in the last four decades has had an enormous impact upon the way political scientists conduct research. In this article, we review the development of computing resources and the lifting of computational limitations of the use of political methodologies. Using descriptive analysis, we demonstrate that Moores Law, or the doubling of power in computing hardware every 18 months, is closely associated with the adoption of advanced statistical methods and database availability in political science research. Our findings are surely not startling to researchers, but our analyses do highlight and provide important details as to the evolution of the profession over the last few decades. We aim to provide hints as to the future direction of political science research as computational capabilities continue to grow.

A Comparative Study of the China Factor in Taiwan and Hong Kong Elections

This chapter probes the economic dimension of the China factor in Taiwan and Hong Kong politics. We discuss how economic integration efforts affect elections and party competitions in smaller states neighboring China. Research on globalization suggests that freer international trade redistributes wealth among big and small states and reshapes local or regional political cleavages. Growing inequalities among and within these states could consequently reinforce localist identities and pro-independence movements. In the case of China, economic integration manifested in recent free trade treaties with Taiwan and Hong Kong coincides with the rise of localism and state-wide protests against further integration. In this study, we examine the micro-level connections between economic integration and political disintegration using new survey data about public perceptions of China in these societies.

Against Everything Involving China? Two Types of Sinophobia in Taiwan:

This paper develops a two-dimensional concept of Sinophobia (恐中) to study Taiwanese attitudes toward mainland China as well as their sources and political consequences. Taiwanese skepticism toward China has grown in recent years, concomitant with increasing cross-Strait interactions and exchanges. This has been widely characterized as a “Sinophobia syndrome.” To investigate this phenomenon, we divide Sinophobia into two types—“group-difference-driven” and “risk-driven”—and investigate whether the two types exert different effects on individual preferences regarding policies involving China. Multivariate analyses show that a model that distinguishes between the two types of Sinophobia fits the data very well and that the risk-driven attitude influences decisions on issues related to China more strongly than does the group-difference-driven attitude. This finding suggests that although perceptions of group difference may prompt fears of China, it is not a powerful determinant of policy preferences. Additional analyses reveal that the risk-driven attitude also influences other policy-relevant attitudes and behavior, including voting in the 2012 presidential election.