「政治功效意識」可說是僅次於政黨認同外，相當受到學界關注 的研究範疇（ Abramson, 1983 : 135 ）。本研究的目的在於探討台灣民 眾政黨輪替前後政治功效意識的持續與變遷、以及影響之因素。 就政治功效意識的趨勢變化上，本研究發現，民眾的內在功效意 識，長期趨勢較為穩定，但呈現略微衰退的現象，而外在功效意識則 在政黨輪替之後出現了顯著的正成長，顯示民眾對於政治體系回應力 的成受，在象徵邁向民主鞏固的首次政黨輪替後，產生了系統性的改 變，從政治文化角度而言，此對於我國民主政治的未來發展，無疑帶 來正面與積極的訊息，但另一方面值得憂慮、的是，大多數的民眾自認 為對於政治過程的暸解能力，仍較為不足。 進一步探討影響民眾政治功故意識的因素，筆者發現，「內在功 效意識」所指涉的是民眾長期且穩固的心理態度，跨年影響的因素與 方向相當一致，但近年來開始與特定的政治價值出現關聯性﹔至於 「外在功效意識」則是主要隨著個人所屬的社會團體，色括原生的省 籍背景，及政黨認同與統獨立場等政治價值，在既有體象的相對政治 位置而定。另外也嘗試對於內在功效意識與外在功效意識提出理論上的連結，希望能提供往後相關研究者另一個思考方向。

As Abramson (1983: I 35) noted: Next to party identification, no political attitude has been studied more extensively than feelings of political effectiveness. In this study, I employ longitudinal data to explore the political efficacy in Taiwan, placing emphasis on the changing pattern, and demonstrate the factors influencing this attitude from 1998 to 2003, before and after the alternation of power. From our findings, first, we showed the distribution of Taiwanese political efficacy. The internal efficacy was relatively stable for this period, but the decreasing trend has appeared. On the other hand, the external efficacy increased after the Democratic Progressive Party (OPP) won the 2000 presidential election. It means that the feelings of government responsiveness grow up after the alternation of ruling party in Taiwan. However, the decline of internal efficacy has shown that the mass public still think the politics was too complicated to understand. Second, I demonstrate some factors influencing the internal efficacy and external efficacy. The former indicated the political orientation of personal political competence for long terms. The Empirical result showed that the affected factors and coefficient direction were relatively similar over time. The latter, however, was influenced by social groups, included the ethnic backgrounds, party identification and the independence/unification issue positions. In addition, we tried to explain the theorical linkage between internal efficacy and external efficacy. That provides some possible suggestions in future studies.