Politics Ontology
type: Ontology
comment: An ontology which describes a model for politics, specifically in terms of local government and elections. This is an evolving spec, originally designed to cope with UK (England and Northern Ireland) Local, and European Elections in May 2014.
date: 2014-01-06
modified: 2026-05-28
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
canonical location: https://github.com/bbc/common-metadata/raw/refs/heads/master/ontologies/politics.ttl
change reason: METADATA-2098 Replacement RDF type for contestsElectionsIn
public: true
slug: politics
version: 1.3
imports: coreconcepts
imports: provenance
prior version: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/politics/1.2
version IRI: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ontologies/politics/1.3
version info: 1.3

Council
type: Class
comment: An organization with a formal role in local administration or government.
subclass of: Organisation

MayoralRegion
type: Class
comment: A region which has a directly elected Mayor.
subclass of: Organisation

Council Type
type: Class
comment: The type of Council, which determines the responsibilities that a Council has to the people living within its jurisdiction.
subclass of: Thing

Election
type: Class
comment: An event which encapsulates the formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office.
subclass of: Event

Political Party
type: Class
comment: An organization which seeks to influence, direct, or entirely perform government policy, commonly with a shared vision, ideals and goals which unites its' members and supporters.
subclass of: Organisation

StatisticalGeography
type: Class
comment: A type of geographical bounded area defined specifically to cover political boundaries.
subclass of: Place

Constituency
type: Class
comment: An electoral area or division, which can be represented in a political institution.
subclass of: StatisticalGeography

governsGSS
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate a political organisation, such as a Council, to the area of Statistical Geography which it governs.

is of council type
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate a Council to the Type of Council it is - which defines which responsibilities it has.
domain: Council
range: Council Type

electsTo
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate an Election to the things which are up for election.
domain: Election
inverse of: takes part in election

takes part in election
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate a political organisation, such as a Council, to an Election which it takes part in.
range: Election
inverse of: electsTo

previous elections
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate a political organisation, such as a Council, to previous elections it has been associated with.
range: Election

contestsElectionsIn
type: ObjectProperty
comment: property to relate an agent, usually a political party or a person standing as an independent candidate, to a Place in which it contests elections, most commonly a country.
domain: Agent
range: Place