ABSTRACT
Voting is immediately intelligible as an act of citizenship that provides individuals with the opportunity to voice their views formally on issues and to select representation. Yet the local context of voting is complicated because individual or group voting is influenced by the existing social, economic, and political milieu. Moreover, the political or socio-economic climate can affect whether the outcome of an election is trivial or significant in effecting long-term change. Accordingly, we might raise the question as to whether voting enables individuals or groups to bring about change or create issues, or whether voting re-creates or passively reflects political and socio-economic preconditions. From the perspective of voting as a means of instituting social change, I will discuss die preceding chapters 10,11, and 12.
