The central concern of this
article is to acquaint the student with the concept of election and some other
basic issues that surround it. The post is divided into meanings and
characteristics. Under meanings we examine some definitions of the concept in
order to provide you with broad views. Under the characteristics we discuss the
political circumstances and situations that can produce elections
Table of Content
You should be able to do
the following at the end of this post:
1. Have an adequate insight
into the meaning of elections
2. Have good knowledge of
the kind of political process used in election
Definitions of Elections
Although elections are
fundamental and very common in modern political discourse and there is hardly
any dispute about their meaning, they have, like many other social science
concepts, been discussed from several perspectives. In what follows we consider
some of the definitions
A good one to begin with is
the definition by R. Dowse and J. Hughes (1972) who assert that “Elections are
one type of social mechanism, amongst others, for aggregating preferences of a
particular kind. An election is, therefore, a procedure recognized by the rules
of an organization, be it a state, a club, a voluntary organization or
whatever, where all, or some, of the members choose a smaller number of persons
to hold an office, or offices, of authority within that organization’'.
By analysis, this
definition assumes that every political organization is democratic, and goes
through the mechanism of elections in arriving at the smaller number of leaders
that hold her offices. It is quite easy to describe this definition as
impressionistic and hastily generalizing, considering the fact that it was
given in 1972 when only about forty two percent of world’s nations were
democratic and produced their leaders through elections.
Ball, A. (1977) can be
accused of similar thing based on his definition that “elections are the means
by which the people choose and exercise some degree of control over their
representatives”. This simply suggests that wherever people are chosen to lead
other people, the mechanism used is election.
5
Main Characteristics of Elections
It is quite important for
the behavioral scientist to clarify that to the extent that there are many
forms of political system, ranging from monarchy, to totalitarianism, election
is not, and cannot be the only way of choosing political leaders. The work
however, is made easier as it limits the scope of elections to government at
the level of the state.
We shall discuss the
circumstances of election in government in the following part.
1. Electoral System:
Elections often hold under clearly defined electoral system.
2. Suffrage:
The electorate does not generally include the entire population; for example,
many countries prohibit those judged mentally incompetent from voting, and all
jurisdictions require a minimum age for voting. While in Nigeria the voting age
is 18, in other countries it is sixteen.
2. Used in Democracy: Because
democracy is often regarded as government of the people by the people and for
the people, election is often the main mechanism used to endure that leadership
is arrived at based on the wish of the people. Under democracy, election often
means majority, mostly in number and sometimes in agreed forms of
representation. In democratic systems, elections are based on certain electoral
systems that are products of the evolution and history of the society. In the
electoral system voting pattern, vote counting and winner declaration are the
main issue. While we can have major electoral systems as proportional and
majoritarian, other ones include party-list proportional representation,
additional member system, First Past the Post (otherwise called relative
majority) and absolute majority.
4. Used in Constitutional
Monarchy: Elections are also used in constitutional monarchies
where leadership is not arrived at through voting, but heredity, but, at the
same time, operations of leaders are subjected to certain constitutional
provisions. Elections in this type of political arrangement may not therefore
necessarily follow any of the identified electoral systems
5.
Periodicity: Elections come periodically. While in
certain countries they are held every four years as in the United States and
Nigeria, other countries use five or six years. Nigeria at present is proposing
six years single term for political office holders. Whatever it is, the period
of elections is often also contained in a government’s constitution.
Read On: Definitions and Forms of Political Culture
Conclusion
on Definitions and Top Main Characteristics of Election
Whichever
way it is defined, what is certain is that elections are the means by which a
wider body of persons chooses a smaller group of representatives to undertake specified
tasks, and though it takes place in a wide array of human organizations
governmental and non-governmental, elections are used mainly in democratic
system and constitutional democracies. It also has certain characteristics,
some of which are suffrage and electoral system.
We
have discussed the concept of elections, highlighted some definitions and
restricted our scope to the governmental aspect. We also identified certain
characteristics and conditions under which elections operate.
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