Party Cleavages in Georgia
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Date
2021-06
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Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi state university, Faculty of social and political sciences
Abstract
The paper deals with one of the most topical phenomena of the dividing lines of the parties-(party Cleavages); The field of research is the modern political culture; The paper describes specific examples, characteristics of the impact on elections and the electorate, and many other aspects that determine the fate of elections, in the political culture, where there is a shortage of programmatic and ideological electorate. The theoretical framework of the research is based on G. Almond and S. Verba's concept of civic culture, which discusses the electoral system and electoral behavior at three dimension of political orientation( parochial, subject, and participant).
In analyzing ideological and programmatic discourse, in the post-Soviet space and specifically in Georgia, where subordinate(subject) political culture dominates and there is no ideological and programmatic controversy, we rely on Lipsett and Rohan's theory of dividing lines to explain current events and expected outcomes. In Georgia, as in the post-Soviet republics, the loyal attitude of the electorate is influenced by the unreal image created by a political leader and populist, false promises;
In this case, the theoretical basis is the work of Roger-Gérard Schwartzenberg‟s "L'etat Spectacle ", which provides the basics of image-making and political Personification, as well as a better understanding of the issue, we need to know Manin's research of the "Audience Democracy", which speaks of the performers of politicians, also speaks about the unrealistic image created by politicians and the electorate's loyal attitude towards the fake person.
The scope of work is to look into the back stage of the politics, behind the iron curtains and bring the analysis of a state, as the democracy of auditorium as well as find out the response to the main questions regarding who are the real winners and why? What are the main differences between political parties, What motivates the electorate to vote for the specific political power?
As for conclusions and results, It was also expected, in a society where the vast majority of the electorate is not aware of pre-election programs, Does not know or know, but does not match his ideological views of the party‟s views, which he supports, there is a logical assumption, which research confirms that the majority of voters, When making a decision, it is guided by the image of a politician, a leader, which is often the fruit of false,or it is temporary and consulting or image services.
Through audio-visual aids, news broadcasters, and social networking, it is even easier for politicians to manipulate with a false image, due to voter loyal attitude and gets into deeper whirlpool of electoral opinion formation. In view of the abovementioned, the political leader himself is often the only or central dividing line between the parties, at this time the politician is the message and not the previous election program or the ideological course of the party. There is a complete shortage of ideological parties in Georgia, which was also revealed during the research. The party leaders and representatives themselves consider the ideological division as a time-consuming phenomenon and believe that they should not be bound by universal ideological visions, only a small part of the parties have a pre-election program. In Georgia, the vast majority of parties are concentrated around the leader and through image-making and personification as all-encompassing (catch-all party) parties, they reach the maximum segment of the electorate and are not limited to stratifying either the programmatic or the ideological electorate.
A qualitative polls conducted throughout Georgia (before the parliamentary elections of 2020) showed that the majority of parties that have a different (declared) ideology in relation to other parties, Their programatic part is completely identical and even in programs it is difficult to consider any goal or vision as a dividing line. The only difference in the programs of the existing parties is not the goal, but the means of achieving the goal; And a series of surveys borrowed from the NDI and the SRRS have shown that the party's main messageboxes address the most pressing issues facing the population in the run-up to the election, Even if it was completely and radically different from their ideology or previous programs.
In conclusion, it can be said that in the Georgian reality, the main actors and parties, operating on the political scene are not systematized according to the concepts of ideological orientation and vision of the future.
The pre-election rhetoric of party leaders is mainly based on populist promises of an immediate improvement in the socio-economic situation, and the choice of the electorate is based on unrealistic expectations.
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Keywords
Political culture, party system, dividing lines (party cleavages), ideology, electoral behavior, electoral program, orientation