Vol. 2, Issue 8, Part C (2016)

Abstract
Elections are the particularly conspicuous and revealing aspects of most contemporary political systems as they serve to highlight and dramatize a political system, bringing its nature into sharp relief, and provide insights into the other aspects of the system, as also the basic nature and the actual functioning of the system as a whole. During an election so to speak a political system is on display even though the features that are most obviously on display may be only a small art of “the iceberg that lies beneath.” Elections are complex events involving individual and collective decisions which directly affect and are affected by the total political and social process. They open up channels between the individual and his government. They are major agencies of political socialization and political participation. The study of elections provides an opportunity to the student to understand a political system in action using the various techniques and the methods ranging from survey research and participant observation studies to the analysis of aggregate data. Elections may be studied from the point of view of both macro – and micro – political analyses, and of the linkages between these to forms of analysis. The present paper makes an analysis of elections held to Andhra Pradesh Assembly in 2014.