相較西部，東部的邊陲性極為明顯，國家機器對東部的發展有強烈的主導性。為彌補台灣學界長期對東部研究的疏離和空缺，本文企圖究明和詮釋東台灣的區域政治性格，運用中央研究院主持的「公民意識與社會正義」問卷調查結果，藉此思考所謂的「後山意識」是否仍然存在？以及這類意識對公民政治參與的影響。研究結果發現「後山意識」確實是東台灣這個特定空間下的普遍存在。將後山意識與社會人口變項交叉，發現後山意識與性別、年齡、教育程度、父母籍貫、職業、家庭月收入（經濟狀況），乃至於政黨傾向均有相關。換言之，後山意識在花東地區並非均質性的呈現。研究結果進一步發現，後山意識對於花東民眾政治態度的影響並不顯著。其原因在於，後山意識並非集體相對剝奪感，花東民眾又可藉由移居他地而取得社會向上流動的可能性，致使後山意識無法順利轉化成為集體行動的動力，較低的投票率顯示設籍在花東卻不住在當地的公民不需透過政治參與即可取得改變社會位置的機會，而長住當地的居民因為地方發展極度仰賴國家財政挹注，反抗國家政策的集體行動力便顯得不必要，這或可說明後山意識的背後有其異質性。「後山人」因為社會價值的變動而存在各種多樣性，「後山意識」有著某種由外而內進入、移植、內化的過程。本文闡明後山意識與集體行動之間的影響變數，論證東部後山的確存在不同「後山意識」的競合現象，應有助於日後東台灣政治與社會現象的相關研究。

Contrasting with west Taiwan, east Taiwan (Hualien and Taitung) is at the periphery of national development. Moreover, the ”state apparatus” has great influence on the development of east Taiwan. In order to fill up the knowledge gap, this study would like to interpret the political characteristic of east Taiwan by analyzing the survey data of the ”Civic Consciousness and Social Justice Project” conducted by Academia Sinica. The primary purpose of this study is to find out whether the ”back-mountain consciousness” exists or not and, if it exists, how does the ”back-mountain consciousness” influence the political participation of the people who live in east Taiwan. The research findings indicate that back-mountain consciousness is a universal phenomenon in east Taiwan, which associates with sex, age, education level, ethnic origin, occupation, socio-economic status, and party identification. However, although back-mountain consciousness is a universal phenomenon in east Taiwan, it does not have a significant association with political participation. This may be partly because back-mountain consciousness is not a sense of group relative deprivation and therefore unable to be transformed into a force to drive collective actions. Hence, it is concluded that although back-mountain consciousness looks like to be common in east Taiwan, it is in fact a result of interest competition. People in east Taiwan with dissimilar socio-economic and political backgrounds will have different self-interpretations on ”unfairness”, which is the thoughtfulness of back-mountain consciousness. The authors believe that the research findings of this study will be helpful to the future studies of political and social phenomena of east Taiwan.