Quality Of Economic Development And Civic Participation

Whether the quality of economic development promotes civic participation is an important research issue.Based on the micro survey data of 2015 Taiwan communication survey database and the matching macro statistical data of Taiwan Province of China,this study puts the discussion of the relationship between the quality of economic development and citizen participation in the context of Taiwan society,and makes empirical analysis and examination.Considering that there may be two-way causal effect and missing variable bias between regional economic situation and public affairs participation,in addition to widely controlling the demographic characteristics,economic and social status,psychological and political participation experience and other variables of the respondents,this paper also takes the geographical average slope of cities and counties in Taiwan Province and the total rainfall of counties and cities caused by Typhoon Morakot as the instrumental variables to alleviate endogenous problems.Our study combines theoretical analysis with empirical research.And there are following contributions:The first one is to summarize the relevant theoretical models of citizen participation,which is helpful to study the motivation of participation in various public affairs.The second and major contribution lies in data and empirical research.For the first time,this paper uses the fourth survey data from the first period of TCS in 2015,focusing on the relationship between individual income and citizen participation,as well as how citizen participation is affected by other factors.In the past,there is a lack of high-quality empirical research on Citizen Participation Based on individual micro data.This paper supplements this part of literature.Furthermore,in view of the different measurement dimensions of economic development quality,this paper uses the micro and macro data for quantitative analysis to judge the impact of economic development quality on citizen participation from a more comprehensive perspective.The research shows that the quality of economic development has a significant negative impact on the frequency of citizens’ participation in public affairs,both at the micro individual level and at the macro regional level.Specifically speaking,at the micro individual level,the higher the income,the lower the frequency of people participating in public affairs.At the macro regional level,the higher the living standard of residents,the lower the frequency of citizens’ participation in public affairs;the more stable the economic development,the lower the frequency of citizens’participation in public affairs;and the more competitive the business,the lower the frequency of citizens’participation in public affairs.Besides,we find that the education level,political efficacy,online public affairs discussion and other factors have a positive effect on the citizens’ participation behavior.