Chapter 4
Terms
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- Plurality System
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A system of voting in which candidates compete in single districts and the candidate gaining a plurality wins the election.
AKA: single-member-district system or winner-take-all system. - Proportional Representation (PR)
- A system of voting in which several lists of candidates compete in each district (thus, the term multi-member districts). The number of winning candidates on each list is determined by the proportion of votes that the list receives.
- Coalitions:
- Different groups that ally to pursue a shared interest. A coalition may be a political party or government, or an ad hoc basis to achieve a particular idealogical or policy goal.
- Critical/Realigning Election
- Critical or realigning elections are ones in which a long dominant part is defeated by a party with a different social base and idealogical outlook. For an election to be considered critical or realigning, the new party must succeed in governing for a significant period and in sponsoring a distinctive new policy orientation.
- Realignment
- A dramatic shift in patterns of partisan voting, sufficient to produce a durable change in the fortunes of the competing political parties.
- Political Machines
- A term that designates the situation where a political party is informally controlled by a group that maintains its leadership of the party by distributing patronage and other benefits to supporters.
- National Committee
- Refers to the governing structure of the national political parties. Members of the national committees of the Democratic and Republican parties are chosen by the respective state party committee.
- Party Conventions
- The 2 major political parties hold a national convention once every 4 years, before the presidential election, to draft a presidential campaign platform and nominate the party's presidential candidate. Nowadays, the nominee is informally chosen long before the convention meets. The reason is that one of the party's candidates typically wins a majority of delegates in presidential primaries now held in most states, and so is assured of gaining the convention's support.
- Soft Money
- Political contributions given to finance political parties or for advertisements promoting particular issues, as opposed to political candidates.
- Hard Money
- contributions made by private donors directly to the campaigns of political candidates.
- Swing States
- States where there are frequent shifts in the popular vote majority between the two majory parties in presidential elections. The outcome of the vote in swing states often determines who is elected president.