Spatial analysis of political participation pattern in the fourth City Council elections (2013), Amol

Introduction Contribution of people in election of councils is the sign of development in providing and fulfilling the needs of residents of the cities. By the advent of democracy and development of public right of vote, election has become one of the important display of political life in the current world. It is one of the political development criteria and illustrates the role of people in government. Election rules, their execution and the rate of people contribution in election explain the relationship of government and people and also represent the social condition of that community. There is a wide range of factors in terms of geographical and situational issues overshadowing the type of election decisions. The current research, with the analysis of the number and proportion of casted vote and displaying the effective areas from the political contribution of citizens in the fourth city election (2003) can show the relationship between various social-economical parameters and rate of contribution and also investigation on conceptual analysis of the impact of neighboring areas on the election of city councils in political culture of citizens.   Theoretical principle Council is totally regarded as a democratic organization which undertakes the responsibilities to discuss, investigate, and decide on the issues concerning daily life and public affairs. It can be said that city council is a policy maker, decision maker and to some extent law maker in local urban management. It must have comprehensive features and be able to do responsibilities related to policy making and supervision in all the issues concerning urban affairs and respective organizations. Election is a continuous measurement and process within particular geographical area in a set limited time. Foundation and theme of geographical election is based on the concepts such as democracy, political contribution, election, decision making, and election field. The most geographical election impacts are related to election behavior and election patterns. Political contribution has some consequences and impacts on executive system because the consistency and efficiency in all political systems needs people’s approval and knowing them as valid. It is possible to know election as the most prominent political contribution that can be measured and can be considered as a criterion to evaluate power distribution in society. Since elections are regarded as criteria to recognize viewpoints, interpretations, bottlenecks and problems of society the distribution of election result on the map displays the differences of spatial behavior.   Methodology This research with the aim of practical and descriptive-analytical design was carried out to analyze spatial pattern of the fourth city council election in Amol City. The needed information was collected by studying documents and referring to offices of municipalities and statistics center. The statistical society of this research is the polling station of Islamic Council of Amol. The design of analysis and interpretation of the data is quantity- concerned and by space analysis and statistics, the data are alayzed  to see the effective impact of citizens’ contribution in the election and also the significant factors in the election of the member of the city council in the previous election of city council of Amol.   Findings Election in the council of Amol city experienced many ups and downs in a way that the rate of contribution had the downward trend from 74% in 1998 to 41% in 2015. The proportion of the elected person in the whole votes is very low in a way that the greatest majority among the whole candidates within all rounds is 36. In the following round, this rate was decreased and displaying the phenomenon of “single vote” or voting based on individual recognition. The pattern of vote distribution is dispersed and in the adjacent neighbors no consistency exists in terms of space. Moran Space Criterion shows that only in district 21 the votes are consistent and similar and in other districts there is no significant relationship between the votes. In addition, the graph of Moran shows inconsistency of these criteria, because Moran Criterion is near to the point of -0.7 to -1. Besides, the distribution of the space vote shows the majority of votes were in eastern and western districts of Amol City. Despite the few polling stations in these districts, the votes are more than central district with more polling stations. The literacy variance shows that in the district with low literacy level the rate of distribution is higher and more educated areas were not so willing to participate in the election. Identifying the address and polling stations with higher votes indicated that in all issues there was a relationship between these two variables and the greater majority vote for the selected persons was related to their residence.   Conclusion The analysis of 4 round of election in Amol City shows that the rate of contribution in election of the third round was 54% and this value was 62% for the fourth round. One of the particular features of election of city council is the “impact of neighboring” on election behavior of the voters that has a clear space in political map of city. In fact, in this condition the political culture of some part of the city has the features in which we have the concept of general city identity, party inclination, effective political contribution, and citizen orientation. The findings of the research show that there is significant relationship between the economical situation and rate of political contribution. Based on the findings, although the invalid votes are higher in educated areas than less educated areas, the educated people have more contribution compared with the illiterate people. On the other hand, as much as the educational level increases, the level of contribution decreases. Consistency between the map of invalid vote of distribution with level of literacy shows that educated people do not trust the map and instruction of the council in advancing the city management system.