Title: STATE-CONTROLLED ELECTIONS: WHY THE CHARADE
Abstract: INTRODUCTION Some public choice economists and political scientists would argue that the distinction between classical elections, thought as free and competitive, and their unfree and noncompetitive variants is of little importance, as both are said to rely on the manipulation of the people's will. At best, elections are relatively free and competitive. Even in the most democratic countries of Western Europe and North America, there are regularly uncontested elections and elections with more or less predictable results where certain candidates have for years had no chance whatsoever of being elected (Tullock, 1987). Although it is not easy to define an electoral system as democratic simply by looking at the formal requirements of freedom and plurality of parties, the fact remains that there is a wide range of electoral practices in the Western Democracies. Three points constitute the most generally accepted criteria for distinguishing between classical and non-classical elections. They are freedom of voters, competition between candidates, and the effects that the elections have in government policies (Ball, 1977). Freedom of an election is judged by the voter's degree of freedom. It is indicated by the opportunity a voter has to cast his ballot free from external hindrance and to expect his ballot to be counted and reported accurately, even if it goes against the wishes of those in power. In the criteria of competition, it is reflected through the presence of several candidates for office or, in the case of referenda, through the existence of various options offered to the voters. However, economic and legal limitations make perfect electoral competition unrealistic. The economic limitations favor parties with supporters controlling large amounts of money, thus handicapping groups which are short of such support, and legal limitations may restrict or outlaw extreme right or left wing groups, or autonomist or separatist organization judged to be dangerous to national unity. The third criteria by which classical and non-classical elections can be distinguished is that, the control of office is normally determined by the outcome of the elections. Replacing office holders by the leaders of the opposition is possible and modifying government policies in a direction more in tune with the wishes of the electorate. The principle of alternating parties in government is the fundamental rule of the elective representative democracy. In authoritarian elections, results do not modify the control of power; power holders claim to stand above parties and electors, and elections provide only, at best, a political barometer, the readings of which don't create any obligations for the government. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: section 2 discusses the rationality of irrational behavior whereby elections are held even though the outcome is clear to all and in advance. Section 3 models this rationality whereby dictators hold elections and the response of the captive voters. Section 4 concludes and suggests directions for further research. STATE-CONTROLLED ELECTIONS: WHY BOTHER? The Rationality of Seemingly Irrational Behavior: A Discussion Non-competitive elections are not peculiar to authoritarian states alone. Elections in representative democracies are sometimes not the result of an autonomous choice on the part of voters. In the United States, within the bipartisan national party system, non-competitive elections are not rare. In some counties and towns, there is only one-party organization. Also noncompetitive elections don't have the same meaning in a complex industrialized society as they do in a predominantly peasant country, the population of which is largely homogenous and illiterate. They also have a different meaning according to the electoral history of each country. The fact that elections don't have the same meaning when they are without choice is not evidence that they lack any meaning. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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