Resource Mobilization and Elections

Abstract

The present research has been carried out with the objective of identification and determination of the effect of difference in the type of resources available to candidates on the victory of one candidate over other competitors. Two hypotheses have been used in order to achieve the above objective. The theoretical framework of research is based on theories and models which exist in the field of electoral behavior analysis where three perspectives are more prominent than other theories which are the sociological model, Psychological-political model and rational selection model (rational choice). Election is one of the most influential political phenomena in democracy systems. The prediction of election results and the chosen person is greatly important for both the political system and candidates’ fans and people. The main hypothesis of research is that “there is a relation between the use of a type of resource mobilization available to the candidate and the victory of one candidate over other competitors” and the objective of this study is identification and determination of the type of available resources for candidates and its relation with the victory of one candidate over other competitors using the approach of resource mobilization and its theories. This is a documentary and library research which reviews the relationship between resource mobilization (independent variable) and elections (the dependent variable). In general, Pearson correlation test was used to determine the relationship between independent and dependent variables where all four hypothesis of the research had moderately extreme relationship which was also obtained to be significant and the multivariate regression test was used to determine the level of effectiveness of independent variables on the dependent variable which was obtained using enter method. The value for multivariate regression correlation coefficient (R = 0.786) indicates strong correlation between the set of independent variables and the dependent variable. The value for Coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.618) indicated the above average ratio of dependent variable variance explained by four independent variables of the research. This means that by inclusion of all independent variables, about 62 percent of the variability of the victory of a candidate over to other competitors is determined by these factors.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n4S2p240