Term
|
Definition
| Individual's views about the fundamental nature of human beings, society, and economy; taken together, they comprise the political culture |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Individual's views and preferences about public policies, political parties, candidates, government institutions, and public officials. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
Political attitudes and core beliefs expressed by ordinary citizens as revealed by surveys. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An interview study asking questions of a set of people who are chosen as representative of the whole population |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The selection of survey respondents by chance, with equal probability, to ensure their representativeness of the whole population |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which individuals come to have certain core beliefs and political attitudes. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those institutions and individuals that shape the core beliefs and attitudes of people |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| People who identify with a party, vote in elections, and participate in additional party and party-candidate activities |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A system of interrelated and coherently patterned beliefs and attitudes |
|
|
Term
| collective public opinion |
|
Definition
| The political attitudes of the public as a whole, expressed as averages, percentages, or other summaries of many individuals' opinions |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The notion that collective public opinion is rational in the sense that it is generally stable and consistent and that when it changes it does so as an understandable response to events, to changing circumstances, and to new information. |
|
|
Term
presidential approval rating |
|
Definition
| A president's standing with the public, indicated by the percentage of Americans who tell survey interviewers that they approve a president's "handling of his job" |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| People who claim to be independents but say they consistently favor one party over another |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| People who favor private enterprise and oppose government regulations on spending |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| People who favor government regulation of business and government spending for social programs |
|
|
Term
| social (lifestyle) liberals |
|
Definition
| People who favor civil liberties, abortion rights, and alternative lifestyles |
|
|
Term
social (lifestyle) conservatives |
|
Definition
| People who favor traditional social values; they tend to support strong law-and-order measures and oppose abortion and gay rights. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Citizens' preferences concerning what policies they want government to pursue. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The policy of avoiding involvement in foreign affairs |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should seek the cooperation of the other nations and multilateral institutions in pursuing its goals |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The stance toward foreign policy that suggests that the United States should "go it alone," pursuing its national interests without seeking the cooperation of other nations or multilateral institutions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The role of the media in scrutinizing the actions of government officials. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The common term for a weblog, a website on which an individual or group posts text, photos, audio files, and more, on a regular basis for others to view and respond to. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Digital audio and video files made readily available to interested people via computers and portable devices |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Organizations such as the Associated Press and Reuters that gather and disseminate news to other news organizations |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Term used to suggest that media corporations are so large, powerful, and interconnected that alternative voices to the economically and politically powerful cannot have their views aired |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The merging of hard news and entertainment in news presentations |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The assigned location where a reporter regularly gathers news stories |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Inside or secret information given to a journalist or media outlet by a government official. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The attempt by those in political power to shape the presentation of news about them and their policies in a favorable light. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The attempt by public officials to have a story reported in terms that favor them and their policies |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Worth printing or broadcasting as news, according to editors' judgments |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| News reported with no evaluative language and with any opinions quoted or attributed to a specific source. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Somewhat derisive term for print, broadcast, and radio commentators on the political news. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Deviation from some ideal standard, such as representativeness or objectivity |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Influencing what people consider important |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Providing a context for interpretation |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The government's power to prevent publication, as opposed to punishment afterward. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The former requirement that television stations present contrasting points of view. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The former requirement that television stations give or sell the same amount of time to all competing candidates |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A private organization or voluntary association that seeks to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance some interest |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Madison's term for groups or parties that try to advance their own interests at the expense of the public good. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A political scientist who views American politics as best understood in terms of the interaction, conflict, and bargaining of groups |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An interest group that seeks to protect or advance the material interests of its members |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An interest groups that advocates for a cause or an ideology |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Effort by an interest or advocacy group to influence the behavior of a public official |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An interest group organized to support a cause or ideology. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A person who attempts to influence the behavior of public officials on behalf of an interest group |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A theory that locates the origins of interest groups in changes in the economic, social, or political environment that threaten the well-being of some segment of the population |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Practice of appropriating money for specific pet projects of members of Congress, usually done at the behest of lobbyists, and added to bills at the last minute with little opportunity for deliberation |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Latin for "friend of the court"; describes a brief in which individuals not party to a suit may have their views heard |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The effort by interest groups to mobilize local constituencies and shape public opinion to support the group's goals and to bring that pressure to bear on elected officials |
|
|
Term
| political action committe (PAC) |
|
Definition
| An entity created by an interest group whose purpose is to collect money and make contributions to candidates in federal elections. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Unregulated expenditures by political parties on general public education, voter registration, and voter mobilization; often used to indirectly influence campaigns for elective office, until banned after 2002. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Groups that can collect and spend money without legal limits to advocate for and against issues; most are barely disguised efforts to support or attack candidates or parties |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An enduring alliance of common interest among an interest group, a congressional committee, and a bureaucratic agency. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Another name for an iron triangle |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Broad coalitions of public and private interest groups, policy experts, and public officials that form around particular policy issues; said to be more visible to the public and more inclusive. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Phrase to describe the common practice in which former government officials become lobbyists for interests with whom they formerly dealt in their official capacity |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A committed supporter of a political party; seeing issues from the point of view of a single party. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An organization that tries to win control of government by electing people to office who carry the party label |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A party's statement of its positions on the issues of the day |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A political system in which two parties vie on relatively equal terms to win national elections and in which each party governs at one time or another |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A political system in which three or more viable parties compete to lead the government; because a majority winner is not always possible, multiparty systems often have coalition governments where governing power is shared among two or more parties |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which one party supplants another as the dominant party in a political system |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The programs of the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The informal electoral alliance of working class ethnic groups, Catholics, Jews, urban dwellers, racial minorities, and the South that was the basis of the Democratic party dominance of American politics from the New Deal to the early 1970s. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Control of the executive and legislative branches by different political parties. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it. |
|
|
Term
| proportional representation |
|
Definition
| The awarding of legislative seats to political parties to reflect the proportion of the popular vote each party receives |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The sense of belonging to a political party |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The political position that holds that the federal government has a substantial role to play in economic regulation, social welfare, and overcoming racial inequality |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The political position that holds that the federal government ought to play a very small role in economic regulation, social welfare, and overcoming racial inequality |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Control of the executive and legislative branches by the same political party |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A situation in which things cannot get done in Washington, usually because of divided government. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A political party that takes clear, distinct stands on the issues and enacts them as policy when in office |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A theory of democtratic elections in which voters decide what government will do in the near future by choosing one or another responsible party |
|
|
Term
| electoral competition model |
|
Definition
| A form of election in which parties seeking votes move toward the median voter or the center of the political spectrum. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Refers to the voter at the exact middle of the political spectrum |
|
|
Term
| electoral reward and punishment |
|
Definition
| The tendency to vote for incumbents when times are good and against them when times are bad. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A form of election in which voters look back at the performance of a party in power and cast ballots on the basis of how well it did in office. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A vote that is cast but not counted until determination is made that the voter is properly registered. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Representatives of the states who formally elect the president; the number of electors in each state is equal to the total number of its senators and congressional representatives. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A gathering of delegates who nominate a party's presidential candidate |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Statewide elections in which voters choose delegates to the national party conventions; virtually all delegates are pledged to a specific candidate for the party's nomination |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A system for selecting delegates to the national party conventions characterized by neighborhood and areawide meetings of party supporters and activists; used in only a handful of states |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The proportion of eligible voters who actually vote in a given election |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Procedures available in some states by which state laws or constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature are submitted to the voters for approval or rejection |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Procedures available in some states for citizens to put proposed laws and constitutional amendment on the ballot for voter approval or rejection |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Elected officials from all levels of government who are appointed by party committees to be delegates to the national convention of the Democratic Party; not selected in primary elections or caucuses |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| the proportion of the votes that each party would win if party identification alone affected voting decisions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Representatives who are elected in the states to formally choose the U.S. president |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| More votes than any other candidate but less than a majority of all votes cast. |
|
|
