Philosophical and Historical Perspective of the Development of Electoral Technologies

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to characterise the philosophical and historical perspective of the de- velopment of electoral technologies. The methodological basis of the research is conditioned by the pecu- liarities of the research subject, its interdisciplinary nature and expediency of a combination of sociologi- cal, historical-philosophical, political science and other approaches. Philosophical and historical analysis showed that electoral technologies should be understood as a kind of political communication used to ma- nipulate public opinion. In turn, this makes it possible for politicians to have a monopoly on the manage- ment of the electorate in order to obtain its support in the elections. Considering electoral technologies, we must consider their connection and combination with the totality of electoral technologies. That is, it should be noted that the actual electoral process involves the passage of two mega stages: 1) the preparato- ry (pre-election) stage, at which pre-election technologies are applied, and 2) the official election cam- paign itself (purely electoral stage), in the process of which the actual electoral technologies are used.