The Impact of Elections upon the Political Decision-Making Process

In: Res publica: politiek-wetenschappelijk tijdschrift van de Lage Landen ; driemaandelijks tijdschrift, Band 13, Heft 2, S. 285-297

Abstract

A report of a study by participant observation of the decision-making process in the Free-Democratic Party in the Berne Canton in Switzerland from Jan 1969 to Sep 1970. In May 1970 the parliament of the Berne Canton was elected. It is investigated whether the time distance to election day has any influence on the decision-making process in the Free-Democratic Party. The starting hyp's are: (1) The more the decision-makers anticipate the reactions of the voters, the more they anticipate that the result of the election will change their balance of rewards & punishments in a positive or negative way. (2) The more the decision-makers anticipate that the result of the election will change their balance of rewards & punishments in a positive or negative way, (a) the more they perceive their pol'al role as important, (b) the more they perceive their pol'al role as depending on the result of elections, (c) the more they anticipate that the next election could change their pol'al role, & (d) the more they perceive their pol'al party as an important group of reference. Further hyp's deal with the question of whether the time distance to election day has a conservative or a progressive influence on the decision-making process. Because the coding of the data is still in progress, the paper presents only the preliminary hyp's without any data. However, the hyp's are discussed re their relevance for democratic theory. AA.