Elections

Theories

With respect to theory, elections confer both power and legitimacy. The act of electing works at the instrumental level in the sense that it serves the purpose of selecting a governing agent, party, or coalition, but it also functions in a normative capacity in that the victorious earn their imprimatur via successful emergence from a fairly gathered crop of candidates. In this regard, elections are oriented more toward processes than results; the critical concern is not who was chosen, but that there was even a choice.

As this emphasis on process would suggest, elections are predicated on a free culture and objective operations. For both elections and games of sport, one expects to have established and neutral rules in place to govern the competition. An election should avoid Joseph Stalin's infamous appraisal—“It's not who gets the most votes that matters; it's who counts the votes that matters most.” Consequently, elections require clear policies and fair implementation with regard to such things as the terms of the franchise (who is allowed to vote), the mechanics of voting (the devices that will calculate the votes), and a previously agreed-upon formula or threshold for determining the winner.

Values

For elections to function effectively and consistently there must be concomitant values animating the architecture of the electoral process. There must be some genuine appreciation of—and demand for—republican liberty. Thus, there must be a pledge to accept the outcomes of the process, even if one is on the losing end, because the ultimate commitment is to something beyond the process—namely, the exercise of self-rule implicated in the freedom to choose. Elections are cyclical (annual or otherwise) reminders of citizens' awesome power to pursue their interests—organizing, bargaining, deliberating, and ultimately deciding the fate of the nation.

Institutions

Elections require, too, the design of institutions that can sustain the process. To apply the old expression “You reap what you sow” to the circumstances of elections, it is essential to realize that the outcomes of electoral contests are constituted by the institutional arrangements previously put in place. Paradoxically then, while elections are organized efforts to achieve control over the state apparatus, they are simultaneously shaped by the terms of state structures, laws, and practices already in place.

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