Jessen & Richter (Eds.) Read Online Free Page A

of consensus and demonstra-
    tive proof of loyalty, even if many only did so reluctantly and involuntarily.
    The interpretation of elections as a ritual opens up a view on the way
    dictatorial systems function because “rituals assert normative standards of
    belief and behavior and thus the boundaries of what may be deemed so-
    cially and politically acceptable” (O’Gorman 2000, 164; see also Edelman
    1964; Land 1981; Rytlewski and Kraa 1987; Bizeul 2000; Crewe 2006).
    Looking at it in terms of materiality, however, it becomes clear to what
    extent power is exercised, distributed or denied by means of ballot papers
    and the ballot box. Ballot papers or voting booths may indeed be con-
    structed by people and represent social value systems, but to refer to
    Latour’s terminology, they can also be analyzed as “actants”, which
    develop their own dynamics (Latour 1995, 14; see also Schatzki 2003, 89).
    The inclusion of materiality and technology into the approach can be
    linked to Foucault’s concept of power, which then leads to the third point
    in favor of a cultural history approach. As with Latour, in Foucault’s theory
    material objects are allocated a role in social practices: architecture, ma-
    chines, bodies, technology or the gaze can create power relations (Foucault
    1977). This complex concept of power also includes the observation of
    interaction from above and below . Therefore, power is to be interpreted as social interactions among those who rule, as well as between the rulers and
    the ruled, between discourses, objects and structures. For all the impor-
    tance that political pressure and coercion played in the elections in dicta-
    torships, they were productions whose impact was due to the fact that all
    the participants played the roles to which they had been allocated.

    20
    R A L P H J E S S E N A N D H E D W I G R I C H T E R
    Fields of Study
    From these initial considerations, three different research areas can be
    identified which thematize the two-way interaction between the ruling
    powers and the population, albeit in different ways. In the following, these
    three areas will be linked to empirical observations and theoretical delib-
    erations. The first relates to the legitimizing effect of the elections, the
    second to their disciplinary function, and the third to how the electorate
    reacted to the imposition of elections without choice.
    Legitimization and Ambivalent Modernity
    Elections should also serve to legitimize authority in dictatorships. They
    are suitable for this task because first of all, unlike almost any other political technology they symbolize modernity. Since the “first wave” of democratization (Huntington), they have become an indispensable prerequisite if a
    state wishes to present itself as modern . Already in the 19th century, and then after the First World War, in the perception of most of the political public,
    elections and democracy became linked to modernity , the cultural state , and civility (Bryce 1921, 3–14; Kaisenberg 1930, 161 f.; see also Brandt 1998, 68; Lipset and Lakin 2004). Even the anti-liberal, totalitarian systems could not
    avoid this logic and connected their official master narrative of unity be-
    tween people, state, and ruling Party to the claim that this unity was mani-
    fested in elections and plebiscites.
    The orientation towards western symbols of modernity went so far that
    dictatorships as a rule maintained the complex system of the Australian
    Ballo t or even, as was the case with Stalin, introduced it for the first time.
    When Stalin established the new Soviet constitution with its general, equal,
    direct and secret voting system, the effect this step had overseas played an
    important role in his calculations (Getty 1991, 19; see also the article by
    Merl). In fact Stalin’s constitution and its apparently modern electoral system was met with euphoria among some western intellectuals (see Smith;
    Bayerlein 2009). Theoretically the