Political Sophistication and Voting Behavior of Electorates of Bokod

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Region: South Asia, , language: English, abstract: The study was delimited to the political sophistication and voting behavior of the electorates of Bokod, Benguet during the calendar year 2017-2018. The study focused on the level of awareness and knowledge of the electorate's and its relationship in terms of political sophistication and the level of voting behavior of the electorate's in the municipality. The elections as an important agent in the development of democratic political systems, where political subjects actively participate in the creation of decisions for regulation of social relations and in this manner they gain legitimacy, are one of the central topics of the sociology of politics. Hence, the sociology of politics, in a relatively long period, monitors, observes and analyzes the electoral behavior of voters, which inter alia includes the turnout in the elections and the manner of voting. Etymologically speaking, Patterson cited that democracy was derived from the Greek words demos meaning people and 'kratis' which means to rule. In other words, democracy is an institution of the people, by the people, and for the people. That is why Ayson and Reyes, as cited by Gigawin, argued that the right to govern, within the context of democracy, emanates from the people through election. As a result, election is considered as one of the elements of modern democracies. Thus, the absence of election would definitely make the concept of modern democracy incomplete.