Abstract
For those who assume that elections are an opportunity for the citizen to express freely his preference for alternative leadership and programmes, the question tends to be, ‘Why elections at all when the rulers are unlikely to give up their power whatever the outcome?’1 Our assumption here is that if there are elections they must have some functions from the point of view of the leadership of the country, and some consequences for the political system, and the voters mut have some reason to participate in them. Any adequate analysis of elections would have to answer the following list of questions.
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(1)
What functions do those elections have from the point of view of the rulers, both explicitly in their statements and implicitly in their minds?
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(2)
What consequences do such elections actually have for the political system, whether intended or unintended, functional or dysfunctional?
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(3)
What motivates voters to participate in non-competitive and semicompetitive elections and plebiscites? Their motivations may or may not be in accord with the reasons why the rulers require their participation.
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(4)
What consequences does participation have for voters independently of their intent?
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(5)
What is the significance of the electoral process for the candidates in non-competitive and semi-competitive elections?
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Notes
Karl Dietrich Bracher, Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz, Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung (Cologne: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1960).
Edward N. Peterson, The Limits of Hitler’s Power (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1969).
See, for example, Sandor Brunauer, Communist Use of the Franchise in Hungary (New York: Mid-European Studies Center, 1954)
J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: Praeger, 1961).
James R. Townsend, Political Participation in Communist China (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972)
Richard R. Fagen, The Transformation of Political Culture in Cuba (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969).
But see Hermann-Otto Leng, Die allgemeine Wahl im bolschewistischen Staat. Theorie — Praxis — Genesis (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1973).
Max E. Mote, Soviet Local and Republic Elections: A description of the 1963 Elections in Leningrad Based on Official Documents, Press Accounts, and Private Interviews (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1965).
See Charles L. Taylor and Michael C. Heidean, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972) pp. 54–8.
Carl Schmitt, Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus (Berlin: Duncker Humblot, 1926; repr. 1969) p. 22.
Georg Simmel, ‘Superordination and Subordination’, in The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. and ed. Kurt H. Wolff (Glencoe, NY: Free Press, 1950) pp. 242–4.
Zbigniew Pelczynski, ‘Poland 1957’, in Elections Abroad, ed. D. E. Butler (London: Macmillan, 1959) pp. 119 –79.
Susan Beth Kaufman, ‘Decision-making in an authoritarian regime: the politics of profit-sharing in Mexico’, Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1970.
See Juan J. Linz, ‘Some Notes Toward a Comparative Study of Fascism in Sociological and Historical Perspective’, in A Readers’ Guide to Fascism, ed. Walter Laqueur (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1976) pp. 3–121,
See Bela Vago, The Shadow of the Swastika. The Rise of Fascism and Anti-Semitism in the Danube Basin, 1936–1939 (Farnborough, Hants: Saxon House, 1975)
Jozo Tomasevich, Peasants, Politics and Economic Change in Yugoslavia (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1955) pp. 240–7.
See J. J. Linz, ‘Opposition in and under an Authoritarian Regime: the Case of Spain’, in Regimes and Oppositions, ed. Robert A. Dahl (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973) pp. 171–259.
See Philippe C. Schmitter, Corporatism and Public Policy in Authoritarian Portugal, Sage Professional Papers, Contemporary Political Sociology Series, no. 06-011 (London, 1975) pp. 24–37
Harry M. Makler, ‘The Portuguese Industrial Elite and its Corporative Relations: A Study of Compartmentalization in an Authoritarian Regime’, in Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. xxiv, no. 3 (Apr 1976) 495–526.
Juan J. Linz and Amando de Miguel, Los Empresarios ante el Poder Publico (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Politicos, 1966) esp. ch. 6 on formal and informal leadership in the business community.
See, for example, Jose Maria Maravall, ‘Students and Politics in Contemporary Spain’, Government and Opposition, xi, no. 2 (Spring 1976) 156–79.
Juan J. Linz, ‘From Falange to Movimiento-Organization: The Spanish Single Party and the Franco Regime, 1936–1968’, in Authoritarian Politics in Modern Society, ed. S. P. Huntington and C. H. Moore (New York: Basic Books, 1970) pp. 128–203.
Marcus Faria Figueiredo and Peter McDonough, Towards a Theory of Political Control: Coercion and Cooptation in Brazil, a paper of the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 1975).
Walter F. Weiker, Political Tutelage and Democracy in Turkey. The Free Party and its Aftermath (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973)
and Kemel H. Karpat, Turkey’s Politics: The Transition to a Multiparty System (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959)
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Linz, J.J. (1978). Non-Competitive Elections in Europe. In: Hermet, G., Rose, R., Rouquié, A. (eds) Elections Without Choice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03342-3_3
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