Term
|
Definition
| The politically relevant opinions held by ordinary citizens that they express openly. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The characteristic and deep-seated beliefs of a particular people about government and politics. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those agents, such as the family and the media, that have a significant impact on citizens’ political socialization. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The learning process by which people acquire their political opinions, beliefs, and values. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A consistent pattern of opinion on particular issues that stems from a core belief or set of beliefs. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those who believe government should do more to assist people who have difficulty meeting their economic needs on their own. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those who believe government tries to do too many things that should be left to private interests and economic markets. |
|
|
Term
| cultural (social) conservatives |
|
Definition
| Those who believe government power should be used to uphold traditional values. |
|
|
Term
| cultural (social) liberals |
|
Definition
| Those who believe it is not government’s role to buttress traditional values at the expense of unconventional or new values. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those who believe government tries to do too many things that should be left to firms and markets, and who oppose government as an instrument for upholding traditional values. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those who believe government should do more to assist people who have difficulty meeting their economic needs and who look to government to uphold traditional values. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The personal sense of loyalty that an individual may feel toward a particular political party. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In a public opinion poll, the people (for example, the citizens of a nation) whose opinions are being estimated through interviews with a sample of these people. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| In a public opinion poll, the relatively small number of individuals who are interviewed for the purpose of estimating the opinions of an entire population. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A device for measuring public opinion whereby a relatively small number of individuals (the sample) are interviewed for the purpose of estimating the opinions of a whole community (the population). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A measure of the accuracy of a public opinion poll. The sampling error is mainly a function of sample size and is usually expressed in percentage terms. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Involvement in activities intended to influence public policy and leadership, such as voting, joining political groups, writing to elected officials, demonstrating for political causes, and giving money to political candidates. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The proportion of persons of voting age who actually vote in a given election. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The practice of placing citizens’ names on an official list of voters before they are eligible to exercise their right to vote. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A feeling of personal disinterest in or unconcern with politics. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A feeling of personal powerlessness that includes the notion that government does not care about the opinions of people like oneself. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The belief of an individual that civic and political participation is a responsibility of citizenship. |
|
|
Term
| social (political) movements |
|
Definition
| Active and sustained efforts to achieve social and political change by groups of people who feel that government has not been properly responsive to their concerns. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The sum of the face-to-face interactions among citizens in a society. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An institution that serves to connect citizens with government. Linkage institutions include elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An ongoing coalition of interests joined together to try to get their candidates for public office elected under a common label. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Election campaigns and other political processes in which political parties, not individual candidates, hold most of the initiative and influence. |
|
|
Term
| candidate-centered campaigns |
|
Definition
| Election campaigns and other political processes in which candidates, not political parties, have most of the initiative and influence. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A process in which conflict over society’s goals is transformed by political parties into electoral competition in which the winner gains the power to govern. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A political party organized at the level of the voters and dependent on their support for its strength. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An election or set of elections in which the electorate responds strongly to an extraordinarily powerful issue that has disrupted the established political order. A realignment has a lasting impact on public policy, popular support for the parties, and the composition of the party coalitions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A system in which only two political parties have a real chance of acquiring control of the government. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A system in which three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government separately or in coalition. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The form of representation in which only the candidate who gets the most votes in a district wins office. |
|
|
Term
| proportional representation |
|
Definition
| A form of representation in which seats in the legislature are allocated proportionally according to each political party’s share of the popular vote. This system enables smaller parties to compete successfully for seats. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The groups and interests that support a political party. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The theory that parties in a two-party system can maximize their vote by locating themselves at the position of the median voter—the voter whose preferences are exactly in the middle. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The tendency of women and men to differ in their political attitudes and voting preferences. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A minor party that bases its appeal on the claim that the major parties are having a corrupting influence on government and policy. |
|
|
Term
| single-issue (minor) party |
|
Definition
| A minor party formed around a single issue of overriding interest to its followers. |
|
|
Term
| ideological (minor) party |
|
Definition
| A minor party characterized by its ideological commitment to a broad and noncentrist philosophical position. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A minor party formed around a single issue of overriding interest to its followers. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The party organizational units at national, state, and local levels; their influence has decreased over time because of many factors. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The designation of a particular individual to run as a political party’s candidate (its “nominee”) in the general election. |
|
|
Term
| primary election (direct primary) |
|
Definition
| A form of election in which voters choose a party’s nominees for public office. In most primaries, eligibility to vote is limited to voters who are registered members of the party. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Campaign funds given directly to candidates to spend as they choose. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Campaign contributions that are not subject to legal limits and are given to parties rather than directly to candidates. (These contributions are no longer legal.) |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The situation in which party organizations assist candidates for office but have no power to require them to support the party’s main policy positions. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The professionals who advise candidates on various aspects of their campaigns, such as media use, fundraising, and polling. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A term used to describe the fact that U.S. campaigns are very expensive and candidates must spend a great amount of time raising funds in order to compete successfully. |
|
|
Term
| packaging (of a candidate) |
|
Definition
| A term of modern campaigning that refers to the process of recasting a candidate’s record into an appealing image. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A term that refers to the fact that modern campaigns are often a battle of opposing televised advertising campaigns. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The situation in which separate groups are organized around nearly every conceivable policy issue and press their demands and influence to the utmost. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Any organization that actively seeks to influence public policy |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Interest groups that are organized primarily for economic reasons but that engage in political activity in order to seek favorable policies from government. |
|
|
Term
| private (individual) good |
|
Definition
| Benefits that a group (most often an economic group) can grant directly and exclusively to individual members of the group. |
|
|
Term
| citizens’ (noneconomic) groups |
|
Definition
| Organized interests formed by individuals drawn together by opportunities to promote a cause in which they believe but that does not provide them significant individual economic benefits. |
|
|
Term
| collective (public) goods |
|
Definition
| Benefits that are offered by groups (usually citizens’ groups) as an incentive for membership but that are nondivisible (such as a clean environment) and therefore are available to nonmembers as well as members of the particular group. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The situation in which the benefits offered by a group to its members are also available to nonmembers. The incentive to join the group and to promote its cause is reduced because nonmembers (free riders) receive the benefits (e.g., a cleaner environment) without having to pay any of the group’s costs. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which interest-group members or lobbyists attempt to influence public policy through contacts with public officials. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Direct communication between organized interests and policymakers, which is based on the assumed value of close (“inside”) contacts with policymakers. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A small and informal but relatively stable group of well-positioned legislators, executives, and lobbyists who seek to promote policies beneficial to a particular interest. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An informal and relatively open network of public officials and lobbyists who have a common interest in a given area and who are brought together by a proposed policy in that area. Unlike an iron triangle, an issue network disbands after the issue is resolved. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A form of lobbying in which an interest group seeks to use public pressure as a means of influencing officials. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A form of lobbying designed to persuade officials that a group’s policy position has strong constituent support. |
|
|
Term
| political action committee (PAC) |
|
Definition
| The organization through which an interest group raises and distributes funds for election purposes. By law, the funds must be raised through voluntary contributions. |
|
|
Term
| interest-group liberalism |
|
Definition
| The tendency of public officials to support the policy demands of self-interested groups (as opposed to judging policy demands according to whether they serve a larger conception of “the public interest”). |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The news media’s version of reality, usually with an emphasis on timely, dramatic, and compelling events and developments. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Those print and broadcast organizations that are in the news-reporting business. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Newspapers and other communication media that openly support a political party and whose news in significant part follows the party line. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A model of news reporting that is based on the communication of “facts” rather than opinions and that is “fair” in that it presents all sides of partisan debate. |
|
|
Term
| signaling (signaler) function |
|
Definition
| The accepted responsibility of the media to alert the public to important developments as soon as possible after they happen or are discovered. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The power of the media through news coverage to focus the public’s attention and concern on particular events, problems, issues, personalities, and so on. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The accepted responsibility of the media to protect the public from incompetent or corrupt officials by standing ready to expose any official who violates accepted legal, ethical, or performance standards. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The media’s function as an open channel through which political leaders can communicate with the public. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which the media play up certain aspects of a situation while downplaying other aspects, thereby providing a particular interpretation of the situation. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which a communicated message, because of its content, activates certain opinions but not others. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Efforts by media actors to influence public response to a particular party, leader, issue, or viewpoint. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The current holder of a particular public office. |
|
|
Term
| pork (pork-barrel spending) |
|
Definition
| Spending whose tangible benefits are targeted at a particular legislator’s constituency. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The people residing within the geographical area represented by an elected official. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Use of personal staff by members of Congress to perform services for constituents in order to gain their support in future elections. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An election in which there is no incumbent in the race. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process of altering election districts in order to make them as nearly equal in population as possible. Redistricting takes place every ten years, after each population census. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The reallocation of House seats among states after each census as a result of population changes. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The process by which the party in power draws election district boundaries in a way that is to the advantage of its candidates. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The congressional election that occurs midway through the president’s term of office. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A group that consists of a party’s members in the House or Senate and that serves to elect the party’s leadership, set policy goals, and plan party strategy. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Members of the House and Senate who are chosen by the Democratic or Republican caucus in each chamber to represent the party’s interests in that chamber and who give some central direction to the chamber’s work. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Permanent congressional committees with responsibility for a particular area of public policy. An example is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Temporary committees formed to bargain over the differences in the House and Senate versions of a bill. A conference committee’s members are usually appointed from the House and Senate standing committees that originally worked on the bill. |
|
|
Term
| jurisdiction (of a congressional committee) |
|
Definition
| The policy area in which a particular congressional committee is authorized to act. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A member of Congress’s consecutive years of service on a particular committee. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A proposed law (legislative act) within Congress or another legislature. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A procedural tactic in the U.S. Senate whereby a minority of legislators prevent a bill from coming to a vote by holding the floor and talking until the majority gives in and the bill is withdrawn from consideration. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| An amendment to a bill that deals with an issue unrelated to the content of the bill. Riders are permitted in the Senate but not in the House. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A parliamentary maneuver that, if a three-fifths majority votes for it, limits Senate debate to thirty hours and has the effect of defeating a filibuster. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The degree to which a party’s House or Senate members act as a unified group in order to exert collective control over legislative action. |
|
|
Term
| law (as enacted by Congress) |
|
Definition
| A legislative proposal, or bill, that is passed by both the House and the Senate and is not vetoed by the president. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The president’s rejection of a bill, thereby keeping it from becoming law unless Congress overrides the veto. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The authority (of a legislature) to make the laws necessary to carry out the government’s powers. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The responsibility of a legislature to represent various interests in society. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| The trading of votes between legislators so that each gets what he or she most wants. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| A supervisory activity of Congress that centers on its constitutional responsibility to see that the executive branch carries out the laws faithfully and spends appropriations properly. |
|
|
