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US Govt 2
Fall 08
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| public opinion | aggregate of preferences and opinions of individuals on significant issues |
| survey research | gathering of information about public opinon by questioning a representative sample of the population |
| halo effect | tendency of survey respondents to provide socially acceptavle answers to questions |
| salient issues | issues about which most people have an opinon |
| socialization | the learning of a culture and its values |
| generation gap | differences in politics and public opinion among age groups |
| gender gap | aggregate differences in political opinon between men and women |
| suffrage | legal right to vote |
| white primary | democratic party primary elections in many southern counties in the early part of the twentieth century that excluded black people from voting |
| poll taxes | taxes imposed as a prerequisite to voting; prohibited by the 24th amendment |
| literacy test | examination of a person's ability to read and write as a prerequisite to vote registration, outlawed by voting rights act (1965) as discriminatory |
| "Moter Voter Act" | federal mandate that states offer voter registration at driver's licensing and welfare offices |
| turnout | number of voters who actually cast ballots in an election, as a percentage of people eligible to register and vote |
| registration | requirement that prospective voters establish their identity and place of residence prior to an election in order to be eligible to vote |
| political alienation | belief that politics is irrelevant to one's life and that one cannot personally affect public affairs |
| pretests | public marches or demonstrations designed to call attention to an issue and motivate others to apply pressure on public officials |
| civil disobedience | form of public pretest involving the breaking of laws believed to be unjust |
| mass media | all means of communication with the general public, including television, newspapers, magazines, radio, books, recordings, motion pictures, and the internet |
| newsmaking | deciding what events, topics, presentations, and issues will be given coverage in the news |
| agenda setting | deciding what will be decided, defining the problems and issues to be addressed by decision makers |
| socialitzation | the learning of a culture and its values |
| muckraking | journalistic esposes of corruption, wrongdoing, or mismanagement in goevernment, business, and other institutions of society |
| "feeding frenzy" | intense media coverage of a scandal or event that blocks out most other news |
| name recognition | public awareness of a candidate- whether they even know his or her name |
| horse-race coverage | media coverage of electoral campaigns that concentrates on who is ahead and who is behind, and neglects the issues at stake |
| sound bites | concise and catchy phrases that attract media coverage |
| prior restraint | government actions to restrict publication of amagazine, newspaper, or books on grounds of libel, obscenity, or other legal violations prior to actual publication of the work. |
| equal-time rule | federal communications commission (fcc) requirement that broadcasters who sell time to any poitical candidate must make equal time available to oppiosing cadidates at the same price |
| libel | writings that are falces and malicious and are intended to damage an individual |
| slander | oral satements that are false and malicious and are intended to damage an individual |
| Sullivan rule | court guideline that false and malicious statements regarding public officials are pretected by the First Amendment unless it can be proven they were known to be false at the time they were made or were made with "reckless disregard" for their truth or fa |
| information overload | situation in which individuals are subjected to so many communications that they cannot make sense of them |
| selective perception | mentally screening out information or opinons with which one disagrees |
| television malaise | generalized feelings of distrust, cynicism, and powerlessness stemming from television's emphasis on the negative aspects of American life |
| political organizations | parties and interest groups that function as intermediaries between individuals and government |
| political parties | organizations that seek to achieve power by winning public office |
| federalists | those who supported the US Constitution during the ratification process and who later formed a political party in support of John Adams's presidential candidacy |
| Anti-Federalists | those who opposed the ratification of the US Constitution and the creation of a strong national government |
| majority | election by more than 50 percent of all votes cast in the contest |
| plurality | election by at least one vote more than any other candidate in the race |
| Democratic Party | one of the main parties in American politics; it traces it origins to Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Repbulican Party, acquiring its current name under Andrew Jackson in 1828 |
| Republican Party | one of the two main parties in American politics, it traces its origins to the antislavery and nationalist forces that united in the 1850s and nominated Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860 |
| GOP | "Grand Old Party"- popular label for the Republican Party |
| New Deal | Policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression of the 1930s that helped form a Democratic Party coalition of urban working-class, ethnic, Catholic, Jewish, poor, and Southern voters |
| Fair Deal | Policies of President Harry Truman extending Roosevelt's New Deal and maintaining the Democratic Party's voter coalition |
| Great Society | Policies of President Lendon Johnson that promised to selve the nation's social and economic problems through goernment intervention |
| Reagan coalition | compbination of economic and social conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and defense-minded anticommunists who rallied behind Republican President Ronald Reagan |
| Democratic Leadership Council | Organization of party leaders who sought to creats a "new" Democratic Party to appeal to middleclass, moderate voters |
| responsible party model | system in which competitive parties adopt a platform of principles, recruiting candidates and directing campaigns based on the platform, and holding their elected officials responsible for enacting it |
| party polarization | the tendency of the democratic party to take more liberal positions and the republican party to take more conservative positions on key issues |
| nominee | political party's entry in a general election race |
| nomination | political party's selection of its candedate for a public office |
| primary elections | elections to choose party nominees for public office; may be open or closed |
| machine | tightly disciplined party organization, headed by a bass, that relies on material rewards-including patronage jobs-to control politics |
| patronage | appointment to public office based on party loyalty |
| divided party government | one party controls the presidency while the other party controls one or both houses of congress |
| nonpartisan election | elections in which candidates do not offically indicate their party affiliations; often used for city, country, school board, and judical elections |
| caucus | nominating process in which party leaders select the party's nominee |
| ward | division of a city for electoral or administrative purposes or as a unit for organizing political parties |
| precinct | subdivision of a city, county, or ward for election purposes |
| closed primaries | primary elections in which voters must declare (or have prevously declarded) their party affiliation and can cast a ballot only in their own party's primary election |
| open primaries | primary elections in which a voter may cast a ballot in either party's primary election |
| raiding | organized efforts by one party to get its members to cross over in a primary and defeat an attractive candidate in the opposition party's primary |
| runoff primary | additional primary held between the top two vote-getters in a primary where no candidate has received a majority of the vote |
| general election | election to choose among candidates nominated by parties and/or independent candidates who gained access to the ballot by petition |
| party-in-the-electorate | voters who identify themselves with a party |
| ticket splitter | person who votes for cadidates of different parties for different offices in a general election |
| party-in-the-government | public officals who were nominated by their party and who identify themselves in office with their party |
| party organization | national and state party officials and workers, committee members, convention delegates, and others active in the party |
| convention | nominating process in which delgates from local party organizations select the party's nominees |
| presidential primaries | primary elections in the states in which voters in each party can choose a presidential candidate for their party's nomination. outcomes help determine the distribution of pledged delegates to each party's national nominating convention |
| delegates | accredited voting members of a party's national presidential nominating convention |
| superdelegates | delegates to the democratic party national convention selected because of their position in the government or the party and not pledged to any candidate |
| platform | statement of principles adopted by a political party at its national convention (specific portions of the platform are known as planks); a platform in not binding on the party's candidates |
| party identification | self-described identification with a political party, usually in repsonse to the question, "Generally speaking, how would you identify yourlself: as a Republican, Democrat, independent, or something else?" |
| dealignment | declining attractiveness of the parties to the voters, a reluctance to identify strongly with a party, and a decrease in reliance on party affiliation in voter choice |
| realignment | long-term shift in social-group support for various political parties that creates new coalitions in each party |
| third party | political party that challenges the two major parties in an election |
| ideological party | third party that exists to promote an ideology rather than to win elections |
| protest party | third party that arises in response to issues of popular concern which have not been addressed by the major parties |
| single-issue party | third party formed around one particular cause |
| splinter party | third party formed by a dissatisfied faction of a major party |
| proportional representation | electoral system that allocates seats in a legistlature based on the porportion of votes each party receives in a national election |
| impeachment | equivalent of a criminal charge against an elected official; removal of the impeached official from office depends on the outcome of a trial |
| Watergate | the scandal that led to the forced resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Adding "gate" as a suffix to any alleged corruption in government suggests an analogy to the Watergate scandal |
| executive privilege | Right of a president to withhold from other branches of gobernment confidential communications within the executive branch; although posited by presidents, it has been upheld by the Supreme Court only in limited situations |
| impoundment | refusal by a president to spend monies appropriated by Congress; outlawed except with congressional consent by the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 |
| deferrals | items on which a president wishes to postpone spending |
| rescissions | items on which a president wishes to cancel spending |
| White House press corps | Reporters from both print and broadcast media assigned to regularly cover the president |
| executive order | formal regulation governing executive branch operations issued by the president |
| cabinet | the heads (secretaries) of the executive departments together with other top officials accorded cabinet rank by the president; only occasionally does it meet as a body to advise and support the president |
| National Security Council (NSC) | "Inner cabinet" that advises the president and coordinates foreign, defense, and intelligence activities |
| honeymoon period | early months of a president's term in which his popularity with the public and inflence with the Congress are generally high |
| gridlock | political stalemate between the executive and legislative branches arising when one branch is controlled by one major political party and the other branch by the other party |
| veto | rejection of a legislative act by the executive branch; in the US federal government, overriding of a veto requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of Cognress |
| pocket veto | effective veto of a bill when Congress adjourns within ten days of passing it and the president fails to sign it |
| override | voting in Vongress to enact legislation vetoed by the president; requires a 2/2 vote in both the House and Senate |
| line-item veto | power of the chief executive to refect some portions of a bill without rejecting all of it |
| diplomatic recognition | power of the president to grant "legitimacy" to or withhold it from a government of another nation (to declare or refuse to declare it "rightful") |
| executive agreement | agreement with another nation signed by the president of the United States but less form (and hence potentially les binding) than a treaty because it does not require Senate confirmation |
| covert action | secret intelligence activity outside US borders undertaken with specific authorization by the president; acknowledgement of US sponsorship would defeat or compromise it purpose |
| War Powers Resolution | bill passed in 1973 to limit presidential war-making powers; it restricts when, why, and for how long a president can commit US forces and requires notification of and, in many cases, approval by Congress |
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af_becton
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