This research investigation involves surveys on political culture and political participation in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong during the winter of 1993-1994. The research provides the first empirical data on behavior and culture under these three regimes collected under a common analytic program. The project is designed around two core analytical issues. First, in these three political systems rapid changes are occurring in both political institutions and political culture (values and beliefs). The political behavior of citizens (voting, contacting government officials for favors, etc.) is also changing. By studying members of a single historical culture who are living in settings that have different developmental levels, institutional systems, and political sub-cultures, the project is able to determine whether cultural changes or insitutional changes have stronger effects on changes in individual citizens' political behavior. Second, the project analyzes the cultural dimension of regime. change. The investigation looks at citizens' attitudes in each political system toward the political authorities, the regime, and the nation, especially attitudes concerning regime legitimacy and citizen's political identifications. The researchers explore whether each political system has internal consensus or disagreement over major values; what the major issues of political value cleavage are; and, whether disagreements fall along elite- mass lines or are located among sectors of the mass population. Many of the data are designed to permit comparison with data collected in the United States, Western Europe, Russia, Japan, and elsewhere. The project provides a baseline for future studies of change in the three Chinese political systems.
