PSCI 1050 Exam 1
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Four functions of government
-
1. protect citizens from unlawful activity
2. defend the country from foreign aggressors
3. regulate social and economic relations
4. provide services - monarchy
- supreme power held by a single person
- dictatorship
- absolute power exercised by one person or a dictator
- aristocracy
- a government ruled by the elite or upper class, the aristocrats
- oligarchy
- government by the few
- democracy
- system in which governmental power is widely shared among the citizens, usually through free and open elections
- direct democracy
- ordinary people are the government and making all laws themselves
- representative democracy
- form of indirect democracy, in which the people choose representatives
- national elections
-
every 2 years we vote for senators and H of R
every 4 years we vote for president - state elections include voting for...
- governor, state legislature, lieutenant governor, treasurer, and state's attorney general
- local elections
- mayor and such
- primary election
- preliminary election that narrows the number of candidates by determining who will be the party nominees in the general election
- general election
- final election that selects the office holder
- initiative
- proposed laws or state constitutional amendments placed on the ballot by citizen petition
- referendum
- proposed laws or state constitutional amendment that is proposed by a legislature or city council but does not go into effect unless the required majority of voters approve it
- the permanent campaign
- line between campaigning and governing has disappeared. governing becomes campaign strategy. public officials may sacrifice long-term good for short-term electoral advantage
- delegate
- act or represent for another person or others
- trustee
- a person appointed to administer over others
- classical liberalism
-
a philosophy that elevates and empowers the individual as opposed to religious, heredity, governmental, or other forms of authority
-"hands off" policy
-gov should have limited involvement in econ and civil affairs - civic republicanism
-
a political philosophy that emphasizes the obligation of citizens to act virtuously in pursuit of the common good
-emphasize civic virtues, participation, and the public interest rather than private interests - american individualism
-
-focus on the effort and moral worth of the individual
-major component of classical liberalism
-belief in individual achievement and responsibility is not closely tied with the actual social and economic circumstances that Americans find themselves in, rich or poor
-some argue individualistic values have undermined efforts to address poverty through public policy - equality of opportunity
- equal chance to advance
- equality of condition
- all individuals have a right to a more or less equal part of the material foods that society produces
- immigration act of 1965
-
-congress abandoned national-quotas system
-latin american and west indies immigrants increased
-growth in asian immigrants - political socialization
- processes that work to instill certain beliefs and values into individuals. done through families, religious organizations, and other affiliations.
- what American value stresses the importance of participation in the political process for the benefit of the community rather than the individual?
- civic republicanism
- what is public opinion?
- the aggregation of people's views about issues, situations, and public figures
- sources of public opinion
- group attachments, the media, personal experience, education, and self interest
- ways of measuring public opinion
- surveys and polls
- cross-sectional polls
- poll that determines opinion at one time point
- push poll
- poll that spreads negative information about an opposing candidate
- tracking poll
- poll conducted periodically to track opinion over time
- exit poll
- conducted at polls during election days to determine winner
- measurement error
- the error within a study that prevents the observed attitude or opinion from being a true reflection of attitudes and opinions
- what is a great example of the problem of question wording?
- the American Jewish Committee survey on beliefs about the Jewish holocaust
- random sampling
- every person in sample has an equal probability of selection
- stratified random sampling
- randomly sampling within particular groups
- sampling error
- error arising in a public opinion survey when relying on a randomly selected, but small, sample of the larger population
- margin of error
- the amount of error attributed to any poll estimate. generally, the larger the sample, the smaller the margin of error
- selection bias
- the error that occurs when a sample systematically includes or excludes people with certain attitudes
- literary digest poll of 1936
-
incorrectly predicted outcome of 1936 election
landslide for FDR - 1948 gallup poll
- emerged due to ability to correctly predict 1936 presidential race. gallup predicted the 1948 presidental election incorrectly. predicted dewey would defeat truman
- what is an example of a tracking poll?
- approcal rating for obama increasing over the last three months
- issue publics
- group of people particularly affected by, or concerned with, a specific issue
- ideology
- a system of beliefs in which one or more organizing principles connect the individual's views on a wide range of issues
- mass public
- ordinary citizens for whom political involvement is limited
- political elites
- tend to have ideologies that are well-structured
- public opinion is...
- INCONSISTENT!
- power of public opinion
-
-sometimes accurate
-more stable than individuals
-clear trends often followed by government
-can be influential - interest group
- an organization or association that pursues the interests of its members by engaging in the political process
- interest group: membership groups
- individuals make voluntary contributions
- interest groups: trade assciations
- members pay regular dues
- free rider problem
- when people can enjoy the benefits of group activity without bearing any of the costs
- public goods
- goods that you can enjoy without contributing, by free-riding on the efforts of those who do
- private goods
- goods that you must purchase to enjoy, and your consumption of which means that others cannot consume them
- coercion
- social pressure or force to make people join in a collective effort
- social movements
- broad-based demand for government action on some problem or issue
- increasing perceived impact
- groups may reformulate their appeals in order to suggest that even small contributions have a concrete impact
- selective benefits
- side benefits of belonging to an organization that is limited to contributing members of the organization
- political entrpreneurs
- people willing to assume that costs of forming and maintaining an organization even when others may free-ride on them
- direct lobbying
-
lobbying: interest group activities intended to influence directly the decisions that public officials make
lobbyist: someone who engages in lobbying - grassroots lobbying
- influence elected officials indirectly by mobilizing their constituents
- grass-top lobbying
- an interest group makes an ad featuring a prominent local personality then plays the ad in the member's district
- political actin committees
- specialized organizations for raising and contributing campaign funds. give instrumentally: donating to the members of key committees regardless of party
- issue advocacy
- advertising campaigns that attempt to influence public opinion on an issue
- direct action
- involves everything from peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations to riots and even rebellion
- litigation
- involves carrying out a legal strategy to utilize court decisions to support the interest groups goals
- iron triangles
- alliance of a congressional committee, the executive agency, and interest groups
- issue networks
- a loose constellation of larger numbers of committees, agencies,, interest groups, and policy experts active in a particular policy area
- pluralism
- school of thought holding that politics is the clash of groups that represent all important interests in society and that check and balance each other
- electoral system
- a means of translating popular votes into control of public offices
- two-party system
- system in which only two major parties compete for office
- multi-party system
- system in which several major parties compete for office, most democracies have this
- single-member, simple plurality system (SMSP)
- electoral system in which the country is divided into geographic districts, and the candidates who win the most votes within their districts are elected
- proportional representation (PR)
- electoral system in which parties receive a share of seats in parliament that is proportional to the popular vote they receive
- duverger's law
- plurality systems tend to lead two-party systems
- party politics in texas
-
republicans have advantage
latino is 1/3 population - media biases
-
-ideological bias, spin (certain points of view)
-selection bias
-professional bias
(rely on insiders) - equal time rule
- offer equal time to both candidates
- agenda setting
- occurs when the media affect which issues and problems people think about, even if the media do not determine what positions people adopt
- priming
- occurs when the media alter the standards people use to evaluate political figures
- framing
- occurs when the media induce people to think about an issue along particular lines, as opposed to others