Un nuevo marco conceptual para el análisis electoral

Laburpena

The conceptual framework currently in force when it comes to refer to the electoral laws arises, to a large extent, in the XIX century. Of course, the contributions in this field during the XX century have been considerable. In that line, Duverger, Rae, Sartori, Nohlen or Lijphart stand out, being some of the protagonists among the most relevant ones. However, such contributions have not distrust, or have not done it with enough rotundity, the inherited framework. In my research I start from the thesis that such permanence in certain obsolete categories rooted in nineteen century is precisely what explains the generalized dissatisfaction regarding the field of the electoral studies. Valuable contributions, as said, are acclaimed, but in spite of that, there is the perception that the electoral studies field is "underdeveloped" (Lijphart, 1985). The Political Science thinks this underdevelopment has been overcome thanks to certain contributions (Taagepera 1989 and Lijphart 1994, specially). In my opinion, the problem still persists. The reason is that all the academic contributions assume, probably without being completely conscious about it, the validity of certain terms and certain assumptions. These are used, consequently, in order to make such contributions incarnate. I am convinced that the problem lays in the use of such terms and in the steady assumption of such suppositions. From my point of view the current state of things just can be overcome through a substitution of the hidden presuppositions and premises in which all the current conception lays. Such presuppositions conform certain terms, certain questions and certain methods that make impossible to go beyond the frontiers of accumulated knowledge gathered by the discipline from decades. For this reason, it is absolutely necessary to configure from scratch the entire conceptual framework, to redefine the used terms, to introduce other new ones and to eliminate those which effect is already inexistent. Such work (the doctoral research) is offered as an alternative to the current paradigm (considerably chaotic, from my point of view) through which Politology tries to catch the complex electoral process. I think that this paradigm achieves several objectives that were not reached before: to eliminate the ambiguity of the used terms, to settle the logical relations among the different elements that conform an electoral structure and to extract the pertinent conclusions. It entails a careful insistence in the nomenclature, aiming the objective of getting rid of every track of ambiguity, and for a set of neologisms that make possible several references impracticable before. Both questions, together with others, aspire to reach just one objective: the accuracy, thoroughness and rigour characteristic of every knowledge, wherever is possible to elaborate a set of theories susceptible of being labeled as "scientific". In that sense, the model is that of the Theory of Voting developed by the Economic Science.