Empowering the Silent: Institutional Designs for Translating Latent Political Preferences

This paper emphasises the overlooked role of loners, individuals who oppose government positions but refrain from public participation due to social pressures, political risks, or personal constraints. Derived from game theory, an institution design is proposed to enable silent or risk-averse individuals to translate latent preferences into concrete political effects.

Drawing on a comparative study of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Movement and Taiwan’s 2025 Anti-Recall Campaign, although surveys show that in both Hong Kong and Taiwan over 60% of the public opposed the government’s position (Lai and Sing, 2020; TPOF, 2025), the outcomes diverged sharply: Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition movement failed whereas Taiwan’s Anti-Recall campaign succeeded. The key distinction lies in the institutional structures that govern political decision-making. First, Hong Kong lacks a tradition of referendums for resolving major social controversies whereas Taiwan has institutionalised mechanisms for issue-based voting, meaning that opposites in Hong Kong can only be expressed by demonstrations or protests which require visible participation and thus tended to be avoided by loners; while voting in Taiwan is anonymous and demands minimal effort from loners. Second, Hong Kong has no turnout or vote-share thresholds for all elections, i.e., the electoral invalidation thresholds, while Taiwan imposes clear legal requirements: a 25% participation threshold for referendums to be deemed valid (MOJ, 2025). In this case, loners’ preferences can be expressed through abstention, thereby effectively influencing outcomes by rendering elections invalid.

This paper proposes a reconfiguration of political institutions to enhance the influence of politically passive individuals. Given that loners exhibit low intrinsic motivation for public political expression, institutional mechanisms, such as electoral invalidation thresholds, can ensure that their latent preferences are effectively translated into collective outcomes. Through case studies and a proposed quantification model, the paper analyses electoral outcomes and the proportion of loners in selected regions’ polities; and devises an optimal invalidation thresholds tailored to the prevalence of political disengagement.

Beyond politics, this logic can extend to various social contexts where individuals hesitate to voice dissent publicly. Such institutional design can allow their views to be captured and generate more accurate representations of collective preference.