Taiwanese Support for Self-Defense after the Russo–Ukrainian War

What impact does the Russo–Ukrainian War have on Taiwanese citizens’ attitudes toward the country’s self-defense? We used seven waves of representative surveys by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research between September 2021 and March 2023 (n = 10,869) in Taiwan. We tested two major hypotheses: that support for self-defense should increase for all citizens after the Ukraine crisis; and that the effect should be visible only among certain partisans. Using two surveys fielded before and after the Russian invasion, respectively, we found that support for war did not change significantly. Instead, we found a pattern of polarization based on partisanship. Subsequent analyses using seven waves reached the same conclusion. The partisan hypothesis also received additional support from a robustness test. Overall, the paper highlights the importance of context in studying public reactions to security threats. Policy and theoretical implications were discussed at the end of the paper.