Politial Science

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Political science

Terms

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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.

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