Chapter 15 Terms | Definitions |
Political Agenda | A set of issues thought by the public or those in power to merit action by the government. |
Cost | Any burden, monetary or nonmonetary, that some people must bear, or think that they must bear, if a policy is adopted. |
Benefit | Any satisfaction, monetary or nonmonetary, that people believe that they will enjoy if a policy is adopted. |
Majoritarian politics | The politics of policy-making in which almost everybody benefits from a policy and almost everybody pays for it. |
Interest Group Politics | The politics of policy-making in which one small group bears the cost of the policy an another small group receives the benefits. Each group has an incentive to organize and press its interest. |
Client Politics | The politics of policy-making in which some small group receives the benefits of the policy and the public at large bears the costs. ONly those who benefit have an incentive to organize and press their case. |
Pork-barrel projects | Projects received through pork-barrel legislation. They are benefits, such as highways, dams, or post offices, gained in hopes that the elected official may win reelection. |
Logrolling | Mutual aid among politicians, whereby one legislator supports another's pet project in return for the latter's support of his. The expression dates from the days when American pioneers needed help from neighbors in moving logs off of land to be farmed. |
Entrepreneurial politics | Policies benefiting society as a whole or some large part that impose a substancial cost on some identifiable segement of society. |
Policy entrepreneurs | Those in and out of government who find ways of pulling together a legislative majority on behalf of unorganized interests. |
Boycott | A concerted effort to get people to stop buying goods and services from a company or person in order to punish that company or to coerce its owner into changing policies. |
Process regulation | Rules regulating manufacturing or industrial processes, usually aimed at improving consumer or worker safety and reducing environmental damage. |