The East Asian democracy research team was founded in the 1970s by Academician Hu Fu of the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University and has a history of roughly half a century. In 1993 the team carried out the Comparative Study of Political Culture and Political Participation in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong together with scholars from China and Hong Kong, completing under that project the first nationwide probability-sample survey ever conducted in mainland China. From 1994, Academicians Hu Fu and Yun-han Chu were invited to join large international comparative research programmes, laying the foundation for social-science survey research at the University. In 2000, with support from the Ministry of Education's Program for Promoting Academic Excellence of Universities, Academician Yun-han Chu launched the East Asia Barometer as a cross-national collaboration; the work was funded again in 2006 under the Ministry's Aim for the Top University Project and continued as the Integrated Research Program on East Asian Democracy within the University's Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2012, driven by co-principal investigator Professor Yu-tzung Chang, the college-level Center for East Asia Democratic Studies was established as the home of the Asian Barometer Survey and a platform for integrating the University's related research resources and advancing the study of democracy in the region. In December 2018, during Professor Chang's directorship, the Center was renamed the Hu Fu Center for East Asia Democratic Studies in honour of Academician Hu Fu's outstanding contribution to its founding and development.
The Center currently runs two major projects funded by the National Science and Technology Council: the National Taiwan University Websurvey (NTUWS) and the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS).
An online survey platform funded by the National Science and Technology Council, founded and directed by Professor Yu-tzung Chang. Launched in July 2021, it has more than 50,000 registered members and has run over a hundred survey projects, giving Taiwan's social scientists a sample pool for testing causal claims with survey experiments.
websurvey.coss.ntu.edu.tw
An applied research programme on public opinion on political values, democracy and governance across Asia, coordinated by the Center. Since 2001 it has conducted face-to-face interviews with national probability samples on socio-economic modernization, regime transition and democratization, and changing political values. Seven waves have been conducted in 18 countries and territories, and the data are released to the public at regular intervals.
www.asianbarometer.org
Analyse ABS Waves 1–6 directly in the browser: 201 core questions across 18 countries and territories. Pick a question, countries and waves to get frequency distributions and summary statistics, or put a question to the analysis assistant in English or Chinese. Every result reports its sample size and scope so it can be checked.
hufucenter.ntu.edu.tw/abs-explorerDr Anna HenggePostdoctoral Fellow, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy; Lecturer in Political Science, Heidelberg University
15:00–16:30 ・ Room 512, College of Social Sciences, National Taiwan University (Hu Fu Center meeting room)
Welcoming scholars
from around the world
The Center welcomes scholars and doctoral candidates from Taiwan and abroad working on East Asian democratization, political culture, public-opinion surveys and survey experiments to apply for short- or long-term research visits. During the visit, scholars take part in the Center's academic activities and exchange with the ABS and NTUWS research teams.
