CATEGORY «ELECTORAL CULTURE»

UDC 32.019 DOI 10.21564/2075-7190.41.168228 P o lish ch u k Ig o r O leksiiovych , Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Professor of the Department of Sociology and Political Science of the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Kharkiv, Ukraine e-mail: ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6864-4425 S a k h a n O lena M ykolaivna, PhD (Sociology), Associate Professor, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology and Political Science of the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Kharkiv, Ukraine e-mail: ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3212-031X CATEGORY “ELECTORAL CULTURE” The article reveals the content o f the category “electoral culture ” and the subordination between this concept and the category “political culture”. The authors describe the discrepancies between “electoral culture”: “culture o f political elections”, “culture o f voters”, “culture o f electoral process”. Electoral culture is an important part ofpolitical culture that separates it with the passing o f time, when political elections as a procedure gain the necessary weight. It is noted that during the conduct o f election campaigns the meaning field ofpolitical culture is narrowed to its effective fragment - electoral culture. The article reveals the influence o f electoral culture on the national political process. Authors define electoral culture as a set o f typical, relatively consistent knowledge, representations, guides, beliefs, values, symbols, orientations, skills and patterns o f behavior manifested in the electoral process and transmittedfrom generation to generation o f a particular nation, having significant transformational potential and appearing in the activities o f electoral subjects and in the functioning o f democratic institutions. Keywords: electoral culture, political culture, political elections, historical tradition, political process, democratization. P roblem description. On the eve o f a regular electoral cycle in Ukraine, the actualization of the entire complex of problems associated with political elections is being objectively carried out. Among others, the problem of electoral culture, which is exacerbated in transitive societies, where the forms o f real political participation are extremely limited and undeveloped, is put forward to the fore. The 52 © Polishchuk I. O., Sakhan O. M., 2019 Політологія conceptualization of electoral culture as the basic category of political science is determined by its increasing role in the processes of democratization of transition societies. This necessitates a fundamental study and thorough analysis o f the electoral culture in the context of identifying the underlying factors that cause social transformations. It is the electoral culture that acts as one of the dominant factors that influences the course of the electoral process in Ukraine, which determines the peculiarity of the state-building processes in general. In the outlined context, there is an urgent need to study the specifics of electoral culture in the post-socialist space, to which Ukraine belongs. If in countries with developed liberal democracy elections are only a form of civil activity, in transitional society, as practice shows, this is almost the only “public affair” that gives an idea of the political culture of an individual or society as a whole. Traditionally, other indicators of the person’s involvement in the political process remain the fate of a few, that is, the elite. Political elections in modern Ukraine are in fact an indicative form of mass participation in politics, therefore the political culture of transition society is often reduced to a narrower sphere - the electoral culture. Ukrainian society is at the stage of political and regime transformation, with electoral competitions playing a key role of anchors for changes in the prevailing political practices. It is the changes in the electoral culture of a transitive society that allows us to ascertain how much it has advanced on the path of real (instead of fictional) democratization. According to A. I. Sushko, recently in Ukraine, a number of legislative acts aimed at involving citizens in different forms of decision-making have been adopted, efforts are being made to create a system o f democratic institutions. On this basis, the process of reforming the system of public administration has been initiated. This will change the tendency to reduce the proportion of citizens who are subjective involvement in social and political life [8, p. 163]. A nalysis o f up-to-date research. The problem is based on the results of scientific research in various spheres of social and political knowledge. For this work, the concepts devoted to revealing the specifics of the course of the electoral process in the context of the democratization of a transitional society (V Helman, V. Yeliezarov, J. MacAlister, M. Popesku, H. Tok, D. Farrell, R. Rose, N. Manro and others). The definition of theoretical and methodological principles of electoral research has been greatly influenced by the works devoted to the analysis of political culture (G. Almond, S. Verba, R. Inghelhart, L. Pye, R. Tucker, J. Habermas, S. Huntington and others). O f great value for the study of electoral processes are concepts devoted to the explication of various aspects of the issues of electoral behavior and electoral culture (F. Hohel, I. Homerov, E. Downs, O. Zubchenko, B. Idrisov, P. Lazarsfeld, S. Lipset, G. Pocheptsov and others). The works of Ukrainian scholars that highlight a wide range of issues of the current democratization processes in Ukraine (V. Bakirov, Yu. Barabash, V. Burdiak, 53 Вісник Національного юридичного університету імені Ярослава Мудрого Яв 2 (41) 2019 A. Hetman, I. Kresina, M. M ykhalchenko, M. Primush, N. Rotar, V Fisanov, V. Tatsiy and others) are of great importance for defining the strategies of the study of electoral practices. Election technologies in the electoral process of transitive societies are studied by N. Arzhanov, O. Balakirieva, A. Balashova, S. Balikov, B. Bakhtieiev, A. Bidenko, 0 . Valevskyi, M. Varii, O. Vynnykov, V. Halynovskyi, S. Halushko, V Holovchenko, H. Hrachov, V Hrechaninov, A. Dzhabasov, T. Dzhyha, V Dubytska, D. Dutsyk, 1. Zhdanov, P. Zhuk, O. Zaiarna, A. Zinchenko, F. Iliasov, O. Kordun, N. Kostenko, P. Kraliuk, Yu. Krasnokutska, M. Kuzmienkova, O. Kulieshova, R. Pavlenko, A. Kuptsov, A. Kurtov, Z. Karpenko, L. Leontieva, V. Lysenko, O. Lytvynenko, N. Lihachova, V Lisnichyi, Yu. Litvinova, V Luhovska, A. Maksymov, R. Marutian, O. M ekh, O. N azarenko, G. N apolitan, D. N arizhnyi, A. N ovokreshchenov, L. Novokhatko, V. Parsiak, O. Petrov, M. Pobokin, Yu. Surmin, M. Tararukhina, L. Chornyi and Yu. Yanovska. Various factors influencing the electoral process in post-socialist societies are analyzed by M. Avksentiev, L. Amdzhadin, T. Andrushchenko, O. Baranovskyi, I. Vilenta, O. Hriaznova, O. Derhachov, L. O. Kochubei, N. Likarchuk, S. Novykov, V. Petrenko, Yu. Pryvalov, R. Starovoitenko a (...truncated)