Party Identification, Ambivalence, and the Issue of Vaccine Procurement in Taiwan

After the Covid-19 pandemic began to wreak havoc around the world in January 2020, Taiwan managed to stay mostly Covid-free due to swift and efficient action taken by the government to contain the outbreak. However, after the country experienced its first significant wave of domestically transmitted...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Asian and African studies (Leiden) 2023-03, Vol.58 (2), p.232-248
Main Authors: Lin, Alex Min-Wei, Wu, Chung-li
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambivalence
Citizens
COVID-19
COVID-19 vaccines
Dosage
Government
Immunization
Pandemics
Party identification
Political opposition
Purchasing
Supporters
Vaccines
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Summary:After the Covid-19 pandemic began to wreak havoc around the world in January 2020, Taiwan managed to stay mostly Covid-free due to swift and efficient action taken by the government to contain the outbreak. However, after the country experienced its first significant wave of domestically transmitted cases in May 2021, vaccines became a highly salient issue because Taiwan did not have enough doses to immunize all its citizens. In this study, we investigate how Taiwanese appraise the government’s overall efforts to acquire vaccines. We hypothesize that, apart from a partisan divergence of opinions, some citizens would hold ambivalent attitudes toward the way the government handled the vaccine procurement process. Results from multivariate regression analysis indicate that the effect of party identification on evaluations of government is conditionally dependent on citizens’ level of ambivalence. Specifically, increased ambivalence offsets the strong effect of party affiliation on government evaluation, especially for political independents and supporters of opposition parties.
ISSN:0021-9096
1745-2538
DOI:10.1177/00219096221137675