The term "Election" originates with the Latin verb "eligere", which translates as "to pick out". Etymologically, this verb is very close to another Latin verb, namely "seligere", which translates as "to select, to choose". The term "elite" also derives from "eligere", and then a democracy is an "elective polyarchy" in a descriptive sense and a "selective polyarchy" in a normative sense.

On the vertical axis, we canfind the continuum which goes from the individual voter to the community of voters, defined as citizen and people. On the horizontal axis, there are party and leadership, namely the collective and the individual actor which play relevant roles in the structuring process of the competition and of the voters' choice in a democratic political system.