Do Cohorts Matter? Cohort Analysis and Value-Difference Impressions of a Rising China
| Author | Chung-li Wu,Alex Min-Wei Lin |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929919864781 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919864781
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(4) 391 –415
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929919864781
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Do Cohorts Matter? Cohort
Analysis and Value-Difference
Impressions of a Rising China
Chung-li Wu1 and Alex Min-Wei Lin2
Abstract
As an emerging first-tier world power, China is exerting an important influence on countries in
the Asia-Pacific region, especially Taiwan, with which it has a long history of often contentious
relations. This study investigates the impact of “intergenerational value change” on impressions
of China in 2017 among three political birth cohorts of Taiwanese. Based on a representative
survey of Taiwanese citizens, the study finds that cohort impressions can be classified according
to the extent to which they relate to the economic–political and the social–environmental dimensions,
suggesting that Taiwanese perceptions of China are not unidimensional and are more nuanced
than they first appear. The data by and large confirm the validity of cohort differences; members
of the first and oldest cohort hold more positive impressions of China with respect to social and
environmental issues than members of the second and middle cohort, while the third and youngest
cohort would regard China in a more positive light if their economic and political concerns
were addressed. A few variables remain statistically significant, including party identification and
unification versus independence preference, even after controlling for aging effects.
Keywords
rising China, value change, postmaterialism, political cohort, cross-Strait relations
Accepted: 20 December 2018
How best to view China’s dramatic economic transformation and its sociopolitical
response remains a controversial issue. To the United States and other democratic regimes,
stereotypes of a rising China are important for both theoretical and practical reasons.
According to image theory in international relations, the cognitive schemas of any given
country (regarding its goal compatibility, relative capability, cultural status, leadership,
and primary characteristics) are closely related to the decision-making that frames the
judgments which produce that country’s international image and the selection of its inter-
national policies (Herrmann, 1985; Herrmann et al., 1999; Jervis, 1970). Images of other
countries as either “allies” or “enemies” are well organized into we-group and they-group
1Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
2Department of Public Administration, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Corresponding author:
Chung-li Wu, Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Taipei 11529,
Taiwan.
Email: polclw@gate.sinica.edu.tw
864781PSW0010.1177/1478929919864781Political Studies ReviewWu and Lin
research-article2019
Article
392 Political Studies Review 17(4)
perceptions, with well-defined belief systems (Alexander et al., 2005; Herrmann and
Fischerkeller, 1995). Regarding another nation as an ally facilitates the inclination to
cooperate, while perceiving the other nation as an enemy serves to justify conflict escala-
tion and even to reduce moral restrictions on an attack. Interestingly, the ally and enemy
images that nation-states hold of each other are mirror images.
The dominant image of China is a critical topic in political science, yet it has received
little attention from a comparative perspective. Research has been limited to public attitudes
toward an emerging China in a few western countries (Aldrich et al., 2014; Xie and Page,
2010; Zhu and Lu, 2013), while systematic analyses of attitudes in Asia-Pacific countries
remain scarce (cf. Chu et al., 2015; Huang and Chu, 2015; Liu and Chu, 2015).
In contrast to the existing literature which mostly consists of multinational analyses,
this study is concerned with the Taiwanese public’s perceptions of China, focusing on two
interrelated issues. Based on the hypothesis of cohort effects, it examines the public
image of China among three political cohorts. Furthermore, employing the theory of
intergenerational value change, it attempts to dichotomize general attention toward China
into that concerned with traditional economic–political needs (including economic ben-
efit, national diplomacy, military security, and political agreement) and new noneconomic
or social–environmental goals (covering personal freedom, freedom of information, reli-
gious freedom, social equality, and environmental protection). It then evaluates the politi-
cal cohort differences among the Taiwanese people where economic–political and
social–environmental aspects of an emerging China are concerned. This study seeks to
advance the scholarship of “generational politics” in Taiwan, and the findings should
provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the Taiwanese public’s
views of China across various cohorts.
How Cohorts Matter: The Perspective of Value Change
Public opinion surveys provide considerable evidence that different age groups or cohorts
with dissimilar socialization experiences have different political attitudes and preferences
(Clarke and Dutt, 1991; Clarke et al., 1997; Davis and Davenport, 1999). Behavioral
research has employed a variety of measures and found that political cohort is closely
associated with a wide range of behaviors (Claggett, 1981; Converse, 1976; Glenn, 1977).
The theory of cohort effects refers to variations in political involvement across age groups
that are characteristic of the socializing experiences of each cohort. Individuals of a cer-
tain cohort share “a common location in the social and historical process. . ., predispos-
ing them for a certain characteristic mode of thought and experience, and a characteristic
type of historically relevant action” (Mannheim, 1952: 291). The classification of indi-
viduals as belonging to any given political cohort is based on “their common experiences,
the same decisive influences, [and] similar historic problems” (Neumann, 1965: 235;
quoted in Chang and Wang, 2005: 30–31).
Political cohort has been taken as a predictive variable of political behavior, because
cohort effects are strongly related to socialization (Converse, 1976; Jennings, 1987; Yang,
2008). A political cohort can thus be defined as a “group of people born around the same
time who . . . pass through events and experiences that destabilize the established cultural
and social norms of their society” (Rigger, 2011: 66), such as people born in the 1930s
who were called up to serve in World War II, or the baby boomers of the 1960s who grew
up in the postwar era of increasing economic growth. This is because historical events
(e.g. the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the social turmoil of the 1960s, and
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