Administrative resource is the ability of political candidates (and parties

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

) to use their official positions or connections to government institutions to influence the outcome of election

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

s.

The term is widely used in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 and other former USSR countries, because the practice is widespread, is well known and is openly discussed by public and media. In these countries, the administrative resource is one of the major factors in most elections. Similar practices are used to a varying degree all over the world, including countries that are usually considered democratic.

The administrative resource is only one part that determines the election outcome. Two other major factors are the ideology

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

 (candidate's agenda) and the use of political technologies (PR

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

, campaign organisation, etc.).

Among many different ways the administrative resource can be applied are:

• Mobilisation of organisational and financial resources. The authorities can easily pressure businessmen to fund preferred candidates and parties. Before Russian parliamentary elections the money is often used to create "authorities parties", based not on a particular ideology but on affiliation with the government and easy access to money.
• The laws can be selectively applied to assist friendly candidates, by hindering their competition. The authorities can use frequent tax inspections, police searches and arrests to punish businessmen who fund the competing candidates.
• The authorities can use the election laws to their advantage, for example, by creating a pretext for appealing the results later if the unfavourable candidate is winning. Another option is to stop from voting some groups of people who are likely to vote against the preferred candidate.
• Government controlled organisations, such as the army, prisons, hospitals, public schools, etc. can be mobilised for signature collection and other goals. They can also pressure their employees and customers for voting for particular candidates and exercise control over votes by housing the polling stations.
• Redistribution of budget funds. The authorities can bribe the electorate indirectly by repaying pension debts, indexing salaries, etc. The federal government can control governors by measuring donations to their regions.
• Controlling the mass media
  Mass media
  Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
  
  . The heads of states or regions can easily create news topics for media, getting free publicity and circumventing the limits for TV advertisements imposed on all candidates. This method was used with particular effectiveness in Russian presidential election, 2004
  Russian presidential election, 2004
  Presidential elections were held in Russia on 14 March 2004. Incumbent Vladimir Putin was seeking a second full four-year term. He was re-elected with 71.31% of the vote.-Sergey Glazyev:...
  
  .
• Falsifying the election results. Additional ballots can be introduced under the names of those who didn't vote, ballots for "wrong" candidate can be invalidated by damaging them, ballots can be replaced. The authorities can also control the staff of the election committees and prevent control by independent observers.

Further reading

• Virtual Politics - Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (book) by Andrew Wilson
  Andrew Wilson (historian)
  Andrew Wilson is a historian and political scientist specializing in Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine. He is a senior lecturer in Ukrainian studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London...
  
  , Yale University Press
  Yale University Press
  Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
  
  , 2005, ISBN 0-300-09545-7