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Political Science Set 3

Terms

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Public Opinion
Opinion held by private persons which governments fin it prudent to heed
Scientific Polling
A tool used for systematically investigating the opinions of ordinary
Attitude
an organized and consistent manner of thinking, feeling, and reacting with regard to people, groups, social issues or more generally, any event in one's environment.
Ideologies
A comprehensive, integrated set of views about government and politics.
Liberals
Ideology that favors extensive government action to redress social and economic inequalities and tolerates social behaviors that conservatives view as deviant. Present-day liberals advocate policies benefiting the poor, minority groups, labor unions, women, and the environment and oppose government imposition of traditional social norms.
Conservatives
ideology that favors small or limited government, an unfettered free market, self-reliance, and traditional social norms.
Core Values
Moral beliefs held by citizens that underlie their attitudes toward political and other issues. As integral parts of an individual's identity, these beleifs are stable and resistant to change.
Political Socialization
The process by which citizens acquire their political beliefs and values.
Ambivalence
A state of mind produced when particular issues evoke attitudes and beliefs that pull one inopposite directions.
Framing
Providing a context that affects the criteria citizens use to evaluate candidates, campaigns, and political issues.
Prime
The news media's influence on how citizens make political judgments, throught emphasis on particular stories
Aggregate Public Opinion
In a democracy, the sum of all individual opinions
Aggregate Partisanship
The distribution, or percentage, of the electorate that identifies with each of the political parties.
Measurement Errors
Uncertainies in public opinion, as revealed by responses to polls, that arise from the imperfect connection between the wording of survey questions and the terms in which people understand and think about political objects.
Opinion Leaders
A citizen who is highly attentive to and involved in politics or some sub-area of it and to whom other citizens turn for political information and cues.
Cognitive Shortcuts
A mental device allowing citizens to make complex decisions based on a small amount of information. For example, a candidate's party label serves as a shortcut by telling voters much about his or her positions on issues.
Issue Publics
Groups of citizens who are more attentive to particualar areas of public policy than are average citizens because they have some special stake in the issues.
Mobilization
AKA "Getting Out the Vote." Mobilization occurs when activists working for parties, candidates, or interest groups ask members of the electorate to vote.
Party Label
A label carrying the party's "brand name," incorporating the policy positions and past performance voters atrribute to it.
Performance Voting
Basing Votes for a candidate or party on how successfully the candidate or party performed while in office.
Issue Voting
Voting for candidates based on thier positions on specific issues, as opposed to their party or personal characteristics.
Party Identification
An individual's enduring affective or instrumental attachment to one of the political parties; the most accurate single predicator of the vote.
Candidate
A person who is running for elected office.
Message
In a political campaign, the central thematic statement of why voters ought to prefer one candidate over others.
Focus Group
A method of guaging public opinion by observing a small number of people brought together to discuss specific issues, usually under the guidance of a moderator.
Negative Campaigning
The act of attacking an opposing candidate's platform, past political performance, or personal characteristics.
Soft Money
Money used by political parties for voter registration, public education, and voter mobilization. Until 2002, when Congress passed legislation outlawing soft money, the government had imposed no limits on contributions or expenditures for such purposes.
Coordinated Spending
Spending by the two party committees in behalf of individual congressional candidates.
Independent Spending
Campaign spending- by a person or organization for or against a political candidate-that is not controlled or coordinated with any candidate's campaign.
Open Seats
Seats in statesor districts being contested by candidates of whom none currently holds the office. Congressional seats become "open" when the incumbent dies or does not run for reelection.
Political Party
A coalition of people who seek to control the machinery of government by winning elections. Not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, politicla parties make mass democracy possible by, among other functions, coordinating the group activities necessary to translate public preferences into public policy.
Two-Party System
A political system in which only two major parties compete for all of the elective offices. 3rd party candidates usually have few, if any, chances of winning elective office.
Proportional Representation
An electoral system in which legislative seats are awarded to candidates or parties in proportion to the percentage of votes received.
Fusion Tickets
Slates of candidates that "fused" the nominees or minor and major parties. Fusion tickets, eventually banned by state legislatures, allowed minor parties to boost their votes by nominating candidates also nominated by major parties.
Patronage
The practice of awarding jobs, grants, licenses, or other special favors in exchange for politicl support.
Caucuses
A closed meeting of a political or legislative group to choose candidates for office or to decide issues of policy.
National Party Conventions
A gathering of delegates to select a party's presidential and vice-presidential ticket and to adopt its national platform.
Party Machines
State or local party organizations based on patronage. they work to elect candidates to public offices that control government jobs and contracts, which, in turn, are used by party leaders (often denigrated as "bosses") to reward the subleaders and activists who mobilize voters for the party on election day
Progressive Era
A period of American history extending roughly from 1880 to 1920 and associated with the reform of govenment and electoral institutions in an attempt to reduce corruption and weaken parties.
Split Ticket
The act of voting for candidates from different political parties for different offices--for example, voting for a Republican for president and a Democrat for Senator.
Primary Elections
An election held before the general election in which voters decide which of a party's candidates will be the party's nominee for the general election.
Australian Ballot
A ballot prepared and distributed by government officials that places the names of all candidates on a single list and is filled out by boters in private. 1st adopted in the U.S. in 1888 the aust. ballot replaced oral voting and party-supplied ballots.
New Deal Coalition
An electoral alliance that was the basis of Democratic dominance from the 1930's to the early 1970s the alliance consisted of catholics, jews racial minorities, urban residents, organized labor, and white southerners.
Super Delegates
A delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is eligible to attend because he or she is an elected party official. The Democrats reserve a specific set of delegate slots for party officials
Divided Government
A term used to describe government when one political party controls the executive branch and the other party controls one or both houses of the legislature.
Interest Group
An organized group of people seeking to influence public policy.
Lobbying
Activities through which individuals, interest groups, and other institutions seek to influence public policy by persuading government officials to support their group's position.
Policy Gridlock
Political paralysis in the face of pressing national problems.
Public Interest Lobby
A group that are collectively produced and freely acailable for anyone's consumption.
Moral Incentives
The personal satisfactions of active self-expression through contribution or other involvement to social causes.
Selective Incentives
Private goods or benefits that induce rational actors to participate in a collective effort to provide a collective good.
Social Movements
Amorphous aggregates of people sharing general values and a desire for social change.
Insider Tactics
Interest group activity that includes normal lobbying on Capitol Hill, working closely with members of Congress, and contributing moeny to incumbents' campaigns.
Outsider Tactics
Interest group activities designed to influence elected officials by threatening to impose political costs on them if they do not respond. Tactics include marches, demonstrations, campaign contributions to opponents and electoral mobilization.
Grassroots Lobbying
Lobbying conducted by rank-and-file members of an interest group.

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