Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:54:23.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Support for the Institution of Elections by the Mass Public*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Jack Dennis
Jack Dennis*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The institution of elections is a significant feature of most present day political systems and is one of the most widely used of all of the political inventions of mankind. Rose and Mossawir have recently remarked that, “Elections are among the most ubiquitous of contemporary political institutions, and voting is the single act of political participation undertaken by a majority of adults in a majority of the nations in the world today.” The importance of elections is especially high in democratic systems. Both earlier and more contemporary discussions of the concept of democracy have employed elections as a primary definiendum and requisite feature of democracy. Indeed, if any single institution serves as popular democracy's sine qua non, it is that of elections.

The general argument that elections are “those most essential events in the democratic process” is often posed from the perspective of the importance of the functions they perform in the political system. The most widely remarked of these functions is to provide a mechanism by which the great mass of members of the system are able to choose their leaders—thus giving majority approval to the exercise of leadership. This is important both from the standpoint of solving the problem of legitimate leadership succession and as a means of potential relief from abuses or inadequacies of a present set of rulers. Secondly, elections may serve as an indication of public choice among government policies—although this function is probably less frequently performed than once was thought to be the case. In referenda, the function is direct; but even in the elections of candidates for public office there is on occasion a question of public decision among the broader aspects of policy programs. Furthermore, belief by future candidates in the possibility that voters may reject them at the next election because of their policies may lead them to anticipate public feeling, thus allowing indirect influence of elections upon policy formation. The latter may operate even in the absence of more direct control by the electorate. A third central function of elections is legitimation of a regime. An election serves as a device of public endorsement—or occasionally, of repudiation—of the system of government.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 819 - 835
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful for financial support from the National Science Foundation and the Research Committee of the Graduate School, University of Wisconsin, and for data collection services from the University of Wisconsin Survey Research Laboratory. Valuable computational assistance was provided by Keith Billingsley and Michael Kagay.

References

1 Rose, Richard and Mossawir, Harve, “Voting and Elections: A Functional Analysis,” Political Studies, 15 (1967), 173–201 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at page 173.

2 See, for example, Sartori, Giovanni, Democratic Theory (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 73 Google Scholar; Mackenzie, W. J. M., Free Elections (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958), p. 11 Google Scholar; Eckstein, Harry, Division and Cohesion in Democracy: A Study of Norway (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966), p. 229 Google Scholar; Moodie, Graeme C., The Government of Great Britain (London: Methuen, 1964), p. 188 Google Scholar; and Lipset, Seymour Martin, “Some Social Requisites for Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” this Review, 53 (1959), 69–105 Google Scholar.

3 This is not to say that elections are sufficient for the maintenance of popular democracy. The many totalitarian regimes where elections are held without free choice belies that judgment. One may suggest, however, that they are necessary to the existence of what is commonly understood by the concept in majoritarian, popiilistic and participant senses.

4 Butler, D. E., Elections Abroad (London: Macmillan, 1959), p. 9 Google Scholar.

5 Discussion of this and other system functions of elections is found in Rose and Mossawir, op. cit., and in Pomper, Gerald M., Elections in America (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968)Google Scholar.

6 Protection of the people as a central role of elections was put forcefully by James Madison: “As it is essential that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the [legislature] should have an immediate dependence on, and intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which the dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured”: The Federalist, No. 52, p. 343; quoted in Pomper, Gerald, “The Concept of Elections in Political Theory,” The Review of Politics, 29 (1967), 478–491, at p. 480CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 We do not need to go so far as to endorse the idea of “electoral mandates” to observe that in some elections policy issues may be of importance for the outcome. See, for example, Epstein, Leon D., “Electoral Decision and Policy Mandate: An Empirical Example,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 28 (1964), 564–572 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 See, for example, the discussion of the way this “law of anticipated reactions” operates in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives by Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E. in “Constituency Influence in Congress,” in Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E. and Stokes, Donald E., Elections and the Political Order (New York: Wiley, 1966), pp. 351–372 Google Scholar.

9 The legitimization function is especially prominent in the elections of Communist nations, See, for example, Z. Pelczynski, “Poland, 1957,” in Butler, op. cit., pp. 119–179, at p. 119, where he says that once power has been consolidated, the election's function “is to legitimise the revolution and to secure for the regime a stamp of popular approval.” Also see Wiatr, Jerzy J., “Elections and Voting Behavior in Poland,” in Ranney, Austin (ed.), Essays on the Behavioral Study of Politics (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1962), pp. 235–251 Google Scholar; and Swearer, Howard R., “The Functions of Soviet Local Elections,'” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 5 (1961), 129–149 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Lane, Robert E., Political Life (New York: Free Press, 1959), p. 47 Google Scholar.

11 See Key, V. O. Jr., Public Opinion and American Democracy (New York: Knopf, 1961) for detailing of this linkage—especially pp. 458–480 Google Scholar.

12 DeTocqueville traces some of these developments to the turn of the nineteenth century. He observes, for example, “The state of Maryland, which had been founded by great lords, was the first to proclaim universal suffrage in [1801 and 1809] and introduced the most democratic procedures throughout its government.” Democracy in America (New York: Harper, 1966), Vol. I., p. 70 Google Scholar.

13 Lane, op. cit., p. 319.

14 Huntington, Samuel P., “Political Development and Political Decay,” World Politics, 17 (1965), 386–430 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 12.

16 Irish, Marian D. and Prothro, James W., The Politics of American Democracy, Fourth Edition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 289 Google Scholar.

17 See Rae, Douglas, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1967), p. 134 Google Scholar.

18 On reform of campaign financing, see, for example, Heard, Alexander, The Costs of Democracy (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1960)Google Scholar. Electoral College reform has been proposed anew in the aftermath of the 1968 election. One must bear in mind in classifying this as an area of possible development, however, just how resistant to change this part of the system of elections has been—in spite of wide public support for reform for over 30 years. For example, in answer to a Gallup Poll question, “Do you think the president should be elected by popular vote or by electoral vote as at present?,” 63% of a national sample in June, 1936, preferred a popular vote whereas only 37% preferred an electoral vote: Cantril, Hadley and Strunk, Mildred, Public Opinion 1935–46 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 189 Google Scholar. In a 1967 Gallup Poll, 65% of a national sample said they would approve of an amendment to the constitution which would do away with the Electoral College and base the election of a President on the total vote cast throughout the nation. Only 22% disapproved of such an amendment: Gallup Poll Report, The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin, No. 27, 1967), p. 11 Google ScholarPubMed. By November, 1968, approval of the latter amendment had risen to 81%: Gallup Opinion Index, Report No. 52, October, 1969, p. 22 Google Scholar.

19 Op. cit., p. 7

20 DeTocqueville's estimates of American hypermajoritarianism can be found, for example, in op. cit., pp. 68–71

21 Lane, op. cit., p. 317.

22 Ibid., pp. 16–26; and Burnham, Walter Dean, “The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe,” this Review, 59 (1965), 7–28 Google Scholar. There is some disagreement about how contemporary turnout levels in the United States compare with other Western democracies. The Report of the President's Commission on Registration and Voting Participation (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963) observes, for example, that, “Even with adjusted figures, the plain fact remains that citizens of other democracies vote in greater relative numbers than Americans. The United States, leader of the free world, lags behind many other free countries in voter participation.” [page 8]. By contrast, William G. Andrews concludes on the basis of his calculations that, “This means that about 83.2 percent of the eligible, able electorate voted in 1960—a figure nearly 20 percent higher than the one generally used to indicate voting participation in the United States. One can reasonably conclude that between 80 and 85 percent of the American electorate voted in 1960”: “American Voting Participation,” The Western Political Quarterly, 19 (1966), 639–652, at p. 651CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Flanigan, William H., Political Behavior of the American Electorate (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1968), pp. 16–19 Google Scholar.

24 The kind of observation one meets increasingly in the press and elsewhere is exemplified by this statement on the demonstrations in Chicago at the time of the 1968 Democratic Party Convention: “The protesters never seriously sought to influence events inside the International Amphitheatre. From the start most of them regarded the Democratic Convention as rigged and the entire electoral process as bankrupt”: Ciccone, F. Richard, “Anatomy of Protest: Daley vs. New Left,” The Milwaukee Journal, Part I, September 1, 1968, pp. 1 and 4, at p. 4Google Scholar.

25 Equally, non-voting, abstention, boycotting, elections, voiding ballots, and the like are all imperfect indicators of feeling about the electoral process in that they may as often result from political apathy, disapproval of the regime, disgust with the present party system, the candidates or the issues at hand, than from disaffection from the electoral process.

26 The concept of diffuse support has been proposed and explicated theoretically by David Easton. See, for example, his A Systems Analysis of Political Life (New York: Wiley, 1965)Google Scholar. Empirical applications of the concept include: Dennis, Jack, “Support for the Party System by the Mass Public,” this Review, 60 (1966), 600–615 Google Scholar; Easton, David and Dennis, Jack, “The Child's Acquisition of Regime Norms: Political Efficacy,” this Review, 61 (1967), 25–38 Google Scholar; Boynton, G. R., Patterson, Samuel C., and Hedlund, Ronald D., “The Structure of Public Support for Legislative Institutions,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (1968), 163–180 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murphy, Walter F. and Tanenhaus, Joseph, “Public Opinion and the United States Supreme Court,” Law and Society Review, 2 (1968), pp. 357–384 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Easton, David and Dennis, Jack, Children in the Political System: Origins of Political Legitimacy (New York: McGraw-Hill 1969)Google Scholar.

27 Dennis, “Support for the Party System by the Mass Public,” loc. cit.

28 That majority rule is endorsed in general by the mass public at a nearly unanimous level is indicated in data found in Prothro, James W. and Grigg, Charles M., “Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and Disagreement,” Journal of Politics, 22 (1960), 276–294 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald and Miller, Warren, The Voter Decides (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1954), pp. 86, 194–199 Google Scholar.

30 Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1965), p. 62 Google Scholar.

31 “The Nature of Political Beliefs and the Relationship of the Individual to the Government,” American Behavioral Scientist, 12 (1968), 28–36, at p. 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 See Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 171 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Their five-nation data show Americans to be especially high relative to Britons, Germans, Italians, and Mexicans in mentioning voting as a response to the question of what role the ordinary man ought to play in his local community. This is not to say that the sense of obligation to vote is not high in these other democracies. Rose and Mossawir found, for example, in their Stockport, England, sample that “82% replied that they thought voting a duty,” when asked “whether you don't have to vote unless you feel like it, or whether voting is a duty.” [Op. cit., p. 189.]. Edinger presents data, moreover, which suggest that voting is at the top of the list of citizenship obligations felt by West Germans: Edinger, Lewis J., Politics in Germany (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 106 Google Scholar. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that voting is apt to be conceived more as a duty than as a right (and perhaps not as an effective means to influence public policy therefore). Some older American data (1944), showed in answer to the question, “Do you regard voting more as a duty you owe your country, or more as a right to use if you want to?”, that 59% chose duty and 36% right: National Opinion Research Center national sample; data available from the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research. A quite similar distribution was found in a 1953 national survey in France. See Stoetzel, Jean, “Voting Behavior in France,” British Journal of Sociology, 6 (1955), 104–122, at p. 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 Op. cit., p. 189.

34 These trends were pointed out earlier, using the Michigan Survey Research Center election study data, by Robert E. Lane. See “The Politics of Consensus in an Age of Affluence,” this Review, 59 (1965), 874–895, at p. 894Google Scholar.

35 Present day Americans are high in sense of duty to vote, not only in recent historical, but also comparative, contexts. For data on the latter, see Almond and Verba, op. cit., pp. 145–146.

36 Ibid.

37 Prothro and Grigg, op. cit., p. 285.

38 McClosky, Herbert, “Consensus and Ideology in American Politics,” this Review, 58 (1964), 361–382, at pp. 365 and 369Google Scholar. For comparative perspective, we might note that Rose and Mossawir's study in Stockport, England, similarily revealed a not high majority (57%) who judged that “most people do think about how they vote”: op. cit., p. 187.

39 Codebook of the 1952 Election Study, Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.

40 Codebook of the Five-Nation Study, Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.

41 Ibid. U.K. agreement is 83%, Germany 78%, U.S. 71%, Mexico 65%, and Italy 62%.

42 The interdependence of party and electoral systems is seen in such statements as this, by Coleman, James S. and Rosberg, Carl G. Jr., in Political Parties and National Integration in Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), p. 3 Google Scholar, “As noted elsewhere, however, formal political parties in the narrow sense denned herein did not appear until constitutional reforms were introduced providing for (1) the devolution by the imperial government of a sufficiently meaningful and attractive measure of power to induce or to provoke nationalist leaders to convert their movements into political parties and (2) the introduction or refinement of institutions and procedures, such as an electoral system, which would make it technically possible for parties to seek power constitutionally.” They add in the footnote to this statement: “The immediate point is, that with few exceptions, African political parties initially emerged through electoral competition.”

43 See Dennis, “Support for the Party System by the Mass Public,” loc. cit., pp. 603 and 605, for presentation of the diffuse support for the party system factor in the 1964 study.

44 Almond and Verba, op. cit., p. 171. For two other items which show a similar, if less extreme difference among countries, and between elections and parties as a perceived mode of influence, see Ibid., pp. 191 and 203. Also see Milbrath, “The Nature of Political Beliefs …,” loc. cit.

45 Codebook of the Survey Research Center 1964 Election Study, Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.

46 This contrast leaves out of account whether or not the two institutions are interrelated in the public mind. To test for such a relationship, a separate factor analysis of the party and electoral support dimensions was performed vising oblique rotation. The latter indicates the degree of relationship obtaining among factors, and thus among dimensions of orientation. What we observe is the following set of correlations:

These correlations constitute the oblique primary factor pattern matrix, using an independent cluster solution. Their item definitions vary slightly from those reported above, in that a 28 item matrix was used which included 9 items on general political efficacy and trust. Six factors were obtained in the principal component analysis, including the four above. These data show that there are, to a greater or lesser degree, some mutual effects among these various orientations to parties and elections. For example, party system support and approval of the electoral process covary to the highest degree, whereas voting duty and efficacy of elections are least associated.

47 Rosenberg, Morris, “Some Determinants of Political Apathy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 18 (1954–1955). 349–366, at p. 356CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Op. cit., p. 151.

49 The major items are:

50 Op. cit., pp. 101–110.

51 Other variables showing significant correlation with turnout are frequency of religious attendance—which shows that those who go to church more often vote less, and vice versa—and lack of mobility (percent of life spent in present place of residence). The latter is no doubt explained by the legal obstacles present for those who move their residence, and by the tendency of those who remain longest in a community to translate their greater stake in its affairs into higher participation. It is perhaps also interesting and surprising to see in this instance that those who are more mistrustful of politicians and government turn out to vote at a higher rate—perhaps to protect their interests in what for them is a more dangerous and uncertain political world.

52 Op. cit., p. 105.

53 For discussion of the symbolic and ritual aspects of voting, see Edelman, Murray, The Symbolic Uses of Politics (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.