Fortress of the Fearful: Identity Anxiety and Institutional Security-Seeking in Taiwan

This study investigates how identity anxiety shapes patterns of institutional trust in a threatened democracy. Drawing on the case of Taiwan, where external security threats and democratic accountability coexist, the paper conceptualizes identity anxiety as a form of ontological insecurity that reshapes citizens’ orientation toward state institutions. Integrating psychological theory with institutional analysis, the study formulates five hypotheses linking identity anxiety, perceived threats, and oversight mechanisms to trust redistribution across military and civil institutions. Using data from Waves 3–6 of the Asian Barometer Survey, it applies hierarchical regressions, non-linear generalized additive models, and latent class analysis to test the dynamic interaction between anxiety, supervision, and institutional trust. The results show that while identity anxiety initially erodes defensive trust in the military, its effect becomes positive under strong oversight and perceived transparency, indicating an adaptive redistribution from defensive to integrative forms of trust. Moreover, oversight and integrity function as psychological thresholds that absorb anxiety and convert it into renewed confidence in democratic institutions. Taiwan thus exemplifies a threatened democracy in which institutional resilience derives not from the absence of fear, but from its managed absorption. The findings suggest that democratic stability under persistent threat depends on the system’s capacity to transform identity anxiety into institutionalized trust, offering broader implications for political psychology and the study of security-seeking behavior in fragile democracies.