Welfare attitude and economic developmentalism in new democratic developmental welfare state: an examination of the Taiwanese case

Do political democratization and the worsening income inequality result in the increase in public support for redistribution in East Asian democratic developmental welfare states? This study aims to examine atypical case of new democratic developmental welfare state, Taiwan, through quantitative analysis. Our empirical findings demonstrated that the perception of income inequality will cause dissatisfaction with the performance of the democratic regime, and then, erode public support for redistribution. This study argues that the mitigation of income inequality would be helpful to increase political satisfaction and for welfare state building for new democracies.