Pol S 101
Terms
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- Public Opinion
- Citizens Attitudes about political issues, personalities, institutions and events
- Attitude
- A specific preference on a particular issue
- Bellwether
- Any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends/future happenings.
- Political Ideology
- A cohesive set of beliefs that form a general philosophy about the role of government
- Values
- Basic Principles that shape a person's opinions about political issues and events
- Socialization
- The induction of individuals into the political culture; learnings beliefs and values
- Margin of Error
- Random sampling error
- Straw Polls
- A vote with nonbinding results
- Electoral College
- Group of electors who meet at there state capital to vote for president
- Two-Party-System
- Two groups dominate all elections. First ex/ Federalist and Democratic Republicans
- Majority System
- Electoral System where a candidate must recieve the majority of votes to be elected
- Plurality System
- System in which a candidate must recieve the most votes in the election; however this isn't always the absolute majority
- Single-Member-Plurality
- System that only allows one representive from a district
- Critical Election
- A dramactic change in the political system
- 527 Committees
- Groups that recieve and disburse funds to influence the nomination/election of a candidate
- Political Action Committee
- Private group that raises and distributes for use in election campaigns
- Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act 2002
- Outlawed many forms of "soft money", increased importance of political action committees in the fundraising process
- Partisanship (Political Parties)
- Organized groups that attempt to influence government
- Realignment
- A major change in the political system; where as a party will become dominate over the other.
- Closed Primaries vs Open Primaries
- Voters in a open primary can decide who to vote for on election day, in a closed primary you must vote for the candidate inside your party
- Party-In-Government
- All of the elected and appointed officals who identify with a party
- Party-As-Organization
- The professionals and activists of a political party
- Party-In-The-Electorate
- Members of a political party who usually vote for candidates from that party
- National Nominating Convention
- Meeting held by political party where a candidate is selected from a party to run for office
- Responsible Party Government Theory
- Set of principles that define their stance on issues and fulfilling campaign promises
- Agenda-Setting
- The power of the media to bring public attention to praticular issues and problems
- Framing
- The power of the media to influence how events and issues are interpreted
- Priming
- When media coverage affects public perception and evaluation of political leaders and candidates
- Selective Perception
- Selecting based on ones beliefs rather than facts
- Selective exposure
- Tendency to avoid information inconsistent with ones beliefs or attitudes
- Adversarialism
- Setting one's self in opposition to anothers politicals perspective
- Objectivity
- Looking at the facts without distortion by personal feelings
- Hypodemic Needle Model vs Minimal Effects Model
- With the hypodermic model a message is said to be wholy accepted by the audience, where as minimal only marginally persuades the audience
- Factors that influence how People Vote:
- Party loyalty Demographic Characteristics Political Attitudes Issues Candidate Apperance Socialization
- The Major Realignments
- 1860 - Lincoln Republicans, Party of Civil Rights 1930 - FDR Builds New Democratic Coalition 1960 - Democratic president Johnson's Civil Rights Agenda.. African Americans align with democrats
- Responsibilities of Parties
- Offer public meaningful choice; publiuc makes and informed choice Winning party must impliment program in government Voters decide in next election wether to reward/punish party based on their success
- Cultural/Structural Factors for voter turnout
- Citizens belief that one vote doesn't make a difference Only about 50 percent turnout to vote for a president Change in party influence/majority sustem, plurality, etc..
- Costs associated with voting
- Taking time out of a busy schedule, voter loss of wage that they would of earned at work Vote has little importance
- How Campaign/Parties have changed over history
- Technology Role in parties' organizational strength (High Tech Politics) Polling, surveys, brodcast media, phone banks, direct mail, internet
- How Campaigns use political advertisement to gain support:
- Allows reporters access in Iraaw; so that they can put a positive spin on the war to gain the citizens support of it