THE ELECTRORAL PROCESS

Notes Prepared by Emmanuel Jimenez Bacud

ELECTIONS

ON DEMOCRACY: Arend Lijpharts path-breaking Patterns of Democracy distinguishes between majoritarian and
consensus democracies. One seminal idea behind this distinction is that countries differ in the inclusiveness of
their democratic process. Lijphart measures countries democratic inclusiveness along two empirical dimensions,
the executives-parties and the federal-unitary dimension, each consisting of five variables. The executives-parties
dimension includes an indicator for the inclusiveness of cabinets, which Lijphart considers to be conceptually
close to the essence of the majoritarian-consensus contrast.
A crucial feature of Lijpharts conceptual approach to democratic inclusiveness is that he focuses strongly
on the executive stage but neglects the legislative stage. Lijphart conceptualizes democratic types in terms of
two latent meta-principles, a consensus and a majoritarian principle. Two of the indicators derived from the
consensus principle measure the inclusiveness at the electoral stage: the disproportionality of the electoral system
and the effective number of parliamentary parties.7 A third indicator is meant to capture the inclusiveness at the
cabinet stage, where the consensus principle is to let all or most of the important parties share executive power
in a broad coalition. Lijphart states that this inclusiveness at the cabinet level is the "first and most important
characteristic of consensus democracy.

*According to Norris:
Adversarial democracy Consensus democracy
Based on majoritarian elections Based on PR elections
Elections should promote Elections should promote
ACCOUNTABILITY: decisive -CONSENSUS: decision-making,
elections, transparency of bargaining and
decision-making compromise
EFFECTIVENESS: single-party -PLURALISM: multiple
executives parties executives, responsible parties, parliamentary parties
SCRUTINY: effective unitary states
opposition parties and vigorous DECENTRALIZATION:
parliamentary debate, and dispersed decision-making
parties, diversity processes.
in legislature Yet dangers of ineffective
Yet dangers of elective elective governance, extreme multiparty
dictatorship, permanent fragmentation, lack of
majorities, lack of checks. accountability etc.

ELECTIONS AND DEMOCRACY: In a democracy, representative process is intrinsically linked to elections and
voting (Heywood, 2013). According to Joseph Schumpeters book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy
(1942), democracy is portrayed as institutional arrangement and as a means of filling public office by a
competitive struggle for the peoples vote (competitive elections). Elections is highly relevant to political
socialization and political integration.

ELECTIONS AND PUBLIC OFFICE: Elections are mechanisms through which politicians can be put in public
service to account and to be forced to introduce policies that somehow reflect public opinion.

ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL COMMUNICATION: Elections are means by which political individuals and parties
can communicate to the public. (Wojtasik, 2013) Elections are means of peaceful and legitimate transfer of
power in a democratic system.

*ELITE VIEW OF ELECTION: (Ginsberg, 1982), Elections are means through which political elites can exercise
control over their populations.

* Fundamental Questions that need to address regarding elections:

1.) Offices subjected to the elective principles?
2.) Who are the voters?
3.) How are votes cast/
4.) Quality of elections, competitive or non-competitive? Competitive elections (elections based of free and
free principles) determine the democratic legitimization of the exercise of public authority (Wojtasik, 2013)

*Fundamental Functions of Elections (Heywood)

1.) Recruiting politicians to public service
2.) Making government regimes (LEGITIMATIZED POLITICAL WILL)
3.) Providing Representation
*John Stuart Mills: Essay on Government (1823)
Four Models of Representation:
1.) Trustee Model: A trustee is a person who acts on behalf of others, using his or her superior knowledge,
better education or greater experience.
2.) Delegate Model: A Delegate is a person who acts as conduit conveying the views of others while
having little or no capacity to exercise his/her own preferences.
3.) Mandate Model: Group Politics- a party gains the popular mandate should be the authority in
government and in agenda-setting
4.) Resemblance Model: how effective the candidate typifies the group he claims to represent

4.) Influencing policy and political concerns

5.) Educating voters
6.) Building legitimacy to the government
7.) Strengthening elites

TYPES OF ELECTORAL SYSTEM:

According to Jones, the evolution of electoral politics is highly dependent on the evolving suffrage on the basis
of class, gender, race and age.

1.) SMP (Single-Member Plurality)

Model States: UK (house of Commons), USA (*at some instances because popular votes is not necessarily
reflective of the electoral votes) , Canada, India
-The winning candidate needs only to achieve a plurality of votes

2.) Second Ballot System

Model States: France, Austria, Chile, Russia
-This electoral system is usually performed in two phases to ensure the attainment of majority vote.

3.) Alternative Vote & Supplementary Vote (Majoritarian)

Model States: Australia, UK (London Mayor)
-Voting according to ranked preferences until the attainment of the majority vote

4.) Mixed-member Proportional & Additional Member System

Model States: Germany, Italy, New Zealand, UK (Scottish Parliament)- Proportional
-Elector cast two votes: one for candidate and one for the party

5.) Single-Transferable Vote System

Model States: Republic of Ireland
-Quota system & There is a flexible computation regarding the minimum number of votes needed to be in
office.

6.) Party-list System

Model State: Israel, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland
-Elector vote for parties not for candidates
*In the Philippines: RA 7941 (Party-list Law of the Philippines: each party must gain 2% votes and 50 seats in
the Philippine Congress; maximum of 3 seats per partylist)

ECONOMIC THEORY OF DEMOCRACY (ELECTIONS) BY ANTHONY DOWNS: The act of voting reflects an expression
of self-interest on the part of voters who select parties in much the same way as consumers select goods and
services for purchase.
THEORIES OF VOTING BEHAVIOR:
1.) Party-identification Model: sense of psychological attachment that people have to parties; Voting a
manifestation of partisanship. (School of Michigan; The American Voter by Miller and Strokes, 1960)
FINDINGS: The notion of partisanship, introduced in the study of voting behavior by Campbell et al. (1960), was
influenced by the concept of reference group (Hyman & Singer, 1968) and has similarities with the idea of
anticipatory socialization introduced by Merton and Kitt (1950) to define the situations in which individuals choose
a reference group to which they do not belong and begin to act according to what they perceive as the rules
of that group. According to these authors, partisanship is acquired through a socialization process, influenced by
the values and attitudes of family, colleagues and peers, a process that Miller and Shanks (1996) considered
similar to that which leads subjects to identify with a religion. This emotional link the subject to their political
party can be achieved with varying degrees of involvement in a process analogous to what happens with the
connection of individuals to a religion, manifested in ways as different as going from non-religious to deeply
religious. In this perspective, partisanship is a genuine form of social identification in which citizens have an
enduring sense of what sorts of people belong to various parties and whether they identify with these social
groups

2.) Sociological Model: Social attachments such as sameness in social class, gender, ethnicity, religion and
region (Attributed to the School of Columbia; The Peoples Choice by Lazarsfeld, et al 1944)
FINDINGS: The main finding of Lazarsfeld et al. (1944) was that the majority of voters voted according to
their original political predisposition. Of the 600 subjects who were included, only 54 changed their position
throughout the process. The association between electoral behavior and the social groups to which they
belonged was so strong that it was possible to explain the electoral choices using only the three factors that
defined the Index of Political Predisposition used in research: socio-economic status, religion and area of
residence.

3.) Rational Choice Model: Electors vote due to personal self-interest (issue-voting; Who is the candidate that
can solve the urgent issues of today?) (School of Rochester; An Economic Theory of Democracy by
Anthony Downs in 1957) *Election is equated with clientelism.
FINDINGS: The operation of the model is based on three fundamental premises: (1) all decisions those that are
made by voters and political parties are rational, ie, guided by self-interest and enforced in accordance with
the principle of maximization of actions utility; ( 2) the democratic political system implies a level of consistency
that supports predictions about the consequences of decisions made by voters and political parties, i.e, their
agents voters, parties and government are responsible and trustworthy, which makes it possible to make
predictions about the consequences that result from different choices, and (3) the democratic system assumes
despite the consistency stated in the previous point a level of uncertainty, sufficiently important to allow
different options.

4.) Dominant-ideology Model: Voters are voting for someone or for a party if the party conforms the tenets
of dominant ideology (E.g.: Anti-democratic leaders are hard to win elections in the democratic society)

Reference:
Antunes, Rui. (2010). Theoretical Model of Voting Behavior
Ganghof, S. (n.d). Understanding Democratic Inclusiveness: A Reinterpretation of Lijpharts Patterns of
Democracy. University of Potsdam. British Journal of Political Science
Heywood, Andrew. (2013). Politics. 4th Edition. Palgrave McMillan
Jones, D. S. (n.d.) Election and Voting. Natuonal University of Singapore
Norris, P. Electoral Systems. Harvard University
Wojtasik, W. (2013). Functions of Elections in Democratic Systems
 HISTORY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE ACADEMIC SPHERE

I.) MACRO-LEVEL
*Consider the Greek Politics as the SPRINGBOARD OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

II.) PHILIPPINE LEVEL