Politial Science
Political science
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Rule of Anticipated Reactions
- Politicians form policies based on how they think public will react.
- Noneconomic issues
- Questions relating to patriotism, religion, race, sexuality, and personal choice.
- Corruption
- use of public office for private gain.
- Nationalization
- Putting major industries under government control and ownership.
- Media Event
- News happening planned in advance to get media coverage.
- Anticlericalism
- Movement in Catholic countries to get church out of politics.
- Polarized Pluralism
- System in which parties become more extremist
- NAM
- National Association of Manufacturers, major federation of industrial executives.
- Personalistic Party
- One based on personality of strong ruler.
- Mass media
- Modern means of communication that reach very wide audiences.
- Skewed
- A distribution with its peak well to one side.
- Socialization
- The learning of culture.
- Public Opinion
- Citizens reaction to current, specific issues and events.
- Regions
- Portions of a country with a sense of self and sometimes subcultural differences.
- Majoritarian
- Electoral system that gives over half of seats to one party.
- Participatory
- Interest or willingness in taking part in politics
- Cabinet instability
- Frequent changes of cabinet.
- Subject
- Feeling among citizens that they should simply obey authority but not participate much in politics.
- Mainstream
- Sharing the average or standard political culture.
- Catchall
- Large, ideologically loose parties that welcome all.
- Cynical
- Untrusting and suspicious, especially of government
- Electoral System
- Laws for running elections; two general types: single-member district and proportional.
- Political Efficacy
- Feeling that one has at least a little political input (Opposite: feeling powerless).
- Turnout
- Percent of eligible who vote in an given election
- Bimodal
- A distribution with two large clusters at the extremes and a small center.
- Rally event
- Occurrence that temporarily boosts president's support.
- Face-to-face
- Pre-mass media communication by personal contact.
- Interest group
- Association that tries to influence policy.
- Randomization
- Drawing a sample at random, with everyone having a equal chance of being included.
- Electromagnetic Spectrum
- The airwaves over which signals are broadcast.
- Neo-institutional theory
- Internal power struggles matter more than external social and political pressures.
- Intensity
- The firmness and enthusiasm with which an opinion is held.
- Referendum
- Mass vote on an issue rather than on candidates.
- Parochial
- Narrow, having little or no interest in politics.
- Centralization
- Degree of control exercised by national headquarters.
- Adversarial
- Inclined to criticize and oppose, to treat with enmity.
- Inchoate
- Only partially formed
- Volatility
- Tendency of public opinion to change quickly.
- Political Competence
- knowing how to accomplish something politically.
- Anglophone
- An English speaker
- Public Financing
- Using tax dollars to fund something, such as election-campaign expenses.
- Great Society
- President Johnson's ambitious program of social reforms.
- Opinion leaders
- Locally respected people who influence the views of other.
- Unforeseen consequence
- Bad or counterproductive result when laws or policies do not work as expected.
- Corporatism
- The direct participation of interest groups in government.
- Center-seeking
- Parties become moderate, aiming for large lock of votes in center of political spectrum.
- Two-plus Party system
- Country having two big and one or more small parties.
- Single-member districts
- Electoral system that elects one person per district, as in the United States and Britain.
- Salience
- Literally, that which jumps out; the importance of given issues in public opinion or the characteristics of publics holding various opinions.
- Sample
- Those persons to be interviewed in a survey, a small fraction of a population.
- Weltanschauung
- German for "worldwiew"; parties that attempt to sell a particular ideology.
- Honeymoon
- High support for presidents early in their terms.
- Dependent variable
- The factor that changes under the impact of the independent variable.
- MITI
- Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
- Elite media
- Highly influential newspapers and magazines read by elites and the attentive public.
- Introspective
- Looking within oneself.
- Political Party
- Group seeking to elect office-holders under a given label.
- Soft Money
- Campaign contributions to parties and issue groups so as to skirt federal limits on contributions to individual candidates.
- Mass Party
- One that attempts to gain as many adherents as possible.
- Amicus Curiae
- Statement to a court by persons not party to a case.
- Single- issue interest group-
- Interest association devoted to one cause only.
- Socioeconomic Status
- Combination of income and prestige criteria in the ranking of groups.
- Political Generations
- Theory that great events of young adulthood permanently color political views.
- Structured access
- Long-term friendly connection of interest group to officials.
- Politburo
- Russian for "political bureau"; the ruling committee of a Communist party.
- Interest aggregation
- Melding of separate interests into the general demands put forward by a political party.
- Unimodal
- A single, center-peaked distribution, a bell-shaped curve
- Political Culture
- The psychology of the nation in regard to politics.
- Mobilization
- Rousing people to participate in politics.
- Subculture
- a minority culture within the mainstream culture.
- Apparatchik
- Russian for "person of the apparatus"; full-time Communist party functionary.
- Center-Periphery tensions
- Resentment by outlying regions of rule by the nation's core area and/ or capital.
- Sullivan
- Short for New York Times v. Sullivan, 1964 Supreme Court decision protecting media against public officials' libel suits.
- Quota
- Drawing a sample to match categories of the population.
- Immobilism
- Getting stuck over a major political issue.
- Overt Socialization
- Deliberate government policy to teach culture.
- Status quo
- Keeping the present situation.
- Source
- Who or where a news reporter gets information from.
- Gender Gap
- Tendency of American women to vote more Democratic than do men.
- Attentive Public
- Those citizens who follow politics, especially national and international affairs.
- Survey
- A public-opinion poll.
- Life Cycle
- Theory that opinions change as people age.
- Cadre Party
- One run by a few political professionals.
- Political appointment
- Government job given to non-civil servant, often as reward for support.
- Center-fleeing
- Parties become extremist, ignoring voters in center.
- Independent variable
- The factor you think influences or causes something to happen.
- Political action committee
- U.S. interest group set up specifically to contribute money to election campaigns.
- Marginalized
- Pushed to the edge of society and the economy, often said of the poor and of subcultures.
- Class action
- Lawsuit on behalf of a group.
- Cross-pressured
- Pulled between opposing political forces; said to produce apathy.
- Economic issues
- Questions relating to jobs, income, taxes, and welfare benefits.
- Scandal
- Corruption made public.
- Nonpaternalism
- Not taking a supervisory or guiding role.
- Integration
- Merging subculture into the mainstream culture
- Transparency
- Political money and transactions open to public scrutiny.
- Covariance
- How much two factors change together, indicating how strongly they are related.
- Wire Service
- News agency that sells its product to many media.
- Bandwagon
- The tendency of front-runners to gain additional supporters.
- Stump
- Verb, to campaign by personally speaking to audiences.
- Devotee Party
- One based on a single personality
- Coherence
- Sticking together to make a rational whole
- Francophone
- A French speaker
- AFL-CIO
- American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, largest U.S. union federation.
- Lobbying
- Interest-group contact with legislators.
- Diet
- Japan's national legislature.
- Opportunists
- Persons out for themselves
- Party system
- How parties interact with each other.