Author: DOBRONRAVOV A.V.
Communicology. 2016. Vol.4. No.5
DOBRONRAVOV Andrey Vladimirovich, Postgraduate of the UNESCO Department at the Institute for Public Administration and Management, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
Abstract: The question of legitimating of power in elections is important. This is due to distrust of results of the election campaign with a significant portion of Russian society in connection with the bureaucratization of the electoral process and pervasive influence of mass media, and in connection with the transition to information technology in the voting process, the reliability and safety of which is conditional. The essence of elections as a means of legitimating of power can be realized through the symbolic ritual embodiment of their potential. Personal choice of the person, integrated into a common collective socio-political choices carried out in a regulated «ritual» of voting, can strengthen social cohesion and social security, to replace open social clashes with social-symbolic safe treatments and, ultimately, to legitimize authority, which is established as the result of this choice. The credibility of election results as the indicator of the legitimating of authority is also provided by the technologies of voting and vote counting. Overall Informatization of society, acquiring currently global in nature, undoubtedly increases the status of remote electronic voting and the credibility of its results. With obvious ergonomic advantages of remote electronic elections, ensuring the reliable public control over the counting process, the credibility of the election results, is becoming the key issue. The development of modern IT allows not only to violate the secrecy of choice of the voter, but to change the results. No complicated system of passwords and certificates can guarantee the reliability of control compared with public control, which means elections as a tool of legitimization of power does not fulfill its purpose. If the form of remote electronic voting seems to be destroying the symbolic essence of the procedure of selection, then the form of electronic counting of votes strengthens this aspect side of the vote.
Key words: election; rite; symbolic meaning; legitimating; electronic voting
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