Political science (ch. 5-9)

Sit-down strike

A form of labor action in which workers stop production but do not leave the job site.

Dealignment

A gradual reduction in the dominance of one political party without another party supplanting it.

Social movement

A loosely organized group that used unconventional and often disruptive tactics to have their grievances heard by the public, the news media, and government leaders.

Party platform

A party statement of its positions on issues of the day pass at the quadrennial national convention.

Lobbyist

A person who attempts to influence the behavior of public officials on behalf of an interest group.

Political party

And organization that tries to win control of government by electing people to office to carry the party label.

Sub-governments

Another name for an iron triangle.

Issue networks

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.

Policy preferences

Citizens ideas about what policies they want government to pursue.

Divided government

Control of the executive and legislative branches by different political parties.

Unified government

Control of the executive and legislative branches by the same politicsl party.

Private interests

Interest groups that seek to protect or advance the material interests of its members.

Public interests

Interest groups, also known as advocacy groups, that work to gain protections or benefits for society at large.

Advocacy groups

Interest groups, also known as public interests, organized to support a cause or ideology.

Amicus curiae

Latino for "friend of the court"; a legal brief in which individuals not party to a suit may have their views heard in court.

Factions

Madison's term for groups or parties that try to advance their own interests at the expense of the public opinion.

Consciousness-raising group

Meeting of small groups of women designed to raise awareness of discrimination against women and to encourage involvement in movement activities.

Objective journalism

News reported with no evaluative language and with opinions quoted or attributed to a specific source.

Wire services

Organizations such as the Associated Press and Reuters that gather and disseminate news to other news organizations.

Active partisans

People identify with a party, vote in elections, and participate in additional party and party-candidate activities.

Leaners

People who claim to be independents but consistently favor one party over another.

Social (lifestyle) liberals

People who favor civil liberties, abortion rights, and alternative lifestyles.

Economic liberals

People who favor government regulation of business to protect the public from harm, and government spending for social programs.

Economic conservatives

People who favor private enterprise and oppose government regulation of business.

Social (lifestyle) conservatives

People who favor traditional social values; they tend to support strong law-and-order measures and oppose abortion and gay rights.

Integration

Policies encouraging the interaction between different races in schools or public facilities.

Equal rights amendment (ERA)

Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution stating that the quality of right shall not be abridged or denied on account of a persons gender; it failed to win the approval of the necessary number of states.

Framing

Providing a context for interpretation.

Media monopoly

Term used to suggest that media corporations are so large, powerful, and interconnected that the less economically and politically powerful cannot have their views aired.

Multiparty system

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 collation governments where governing power is shared among two or more parties.

Two-party system

A political system in which two parties vie on relatively equal terms to win national elections and in which each party governed at one time or another.

Presidential job approval rating

A presidents standing with the public, indicated by the percentage of Americans who tell survey interviewers that they approve a president's "handling of his job."

Interest groups

A private organization or voluntary association that seeks to influence public policy as a way to protect or advance its interests.

Gridlock

A situation in which things cannot get done in Washington, usually because of divided government.

Political ideology

A system of interrelated and coherently organized political beliefs and attitudes.

Disturbance theory

A theory positing that interest groups originate with changes in the economic, social, or political environment that threaten the well-being of some segment of the population.

Iron triangles

An enduring alliance of common interest among an interest group, a congressional committee, and a bureaucratic agency.

Political action committees (PACs)

An entity created by an interest group whose purpose is to collect money and make constitutions to candidates in federal elections.

Sample survey

An interview study asking questions of a set of people who are chosen as representative mod the whole population.

Bias

Deviation from ideal standards such as representativeness or objectivity.

Lobbying

Effort by an interest or advocacy group to influence the behavior of a public official.

Core beliefs (political)

Individuals views about the fundamental nature of human beings, society, the economy, and the role of government; taken together, they compromise the politicsl culture.

Political attitudes

Individuals views and preferences about political policies, parties, candidates, officials and government institutions.

Agenda setting

Influencing people's opinions about what is important.

Leak

Inside or secret information given to a journalist or media outlet by a government official.

Civil disobedience

Intentionally breaking a law and excepting the consequences as a way to publicize the unjustness of the law.

Earmarks

Provisions written into congressional legislation that appropriate money for specific pet projects of members of Congress, usually done at the behest of lobbyists, and added to the bills at the last minute with little opportunity for deliberation.

Scope of conflict

Refers to the number of groups involved in a political conflict; a narrow scope of conflict involves a small number of groups, and a wide scope of conflict involves many.

Pundits

Somewhat derisive term for print, broadcast, and radio commentators on the political news.

Sampling error

Statistical uncertainty in estimates associated with the fact that surveys do not interview every individual in a population of interest.

Public opinion

The aggregated political attitudes of ordinary people as revealed by surveys.

Beat

The assigned location where a reporter regularly gathers news stories.

Spin

The attempt by public officials to have a story reported in terms that favor them and their policies; see news management.

Proportional representation

The awarding of legislative seats to political parties to reflect the proportion of the popular vote each party recieves.

Revolving door

The common practice in which former government officials become lobbyists for interests with whom they formerly dealt in their official capacity.

Grassroots lobbying

The effort by interest groups to mobilize local constituencies, shape public opinion to support the groups goals, and bring that pressure to bear on elected officials.

New Deal coalition

The informal electoral alliance of working-class ethnic groups, catholic, Jews, urban dwellers, racial minorities, and the south that was the basis of the Democratic Party dominance of American politics from the New Deal it to the early 1970s.

Infotainment

The merging of hard news and entertainment in news presentations.

Rational public

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.

Great Depression

The period of economic crisis in United States that lasted from the stock market crash of 1922 to America's entry into World War II.

Isolationism

The policy of avoiding undue involvement in the affairs of other countries and multilateral institutions.

Collective public opinion

The political attitudes of the public as a whole, expressed as averages, percentages, or other summaries of many individuals opinions.

Liberal

The political position, combining both economic and social dimensions, that holds that the federal government has a substantial role to play in providing economic justice and opportunity, regulating business in the public interests, overcoming racial discrimination, protecting abortion rights, and ensuring the equal treatment of gay rights and lesbians.

Conservative

The political position, combining both economic and social dimensions, that holds the federal government ought to play a very small role in economic regulation, social welfare, and overcoming racial inequality, that abortion should be illegal, and that family values and law and order should guide public policy.

Pluralism

The political science position that American democracy is best understood in terms of the interaction, conflict, and bargaining of groups.

Political socialization

The process by which individuals come to have certain core beliefs and political attitudes.

Realignment

The process by which one party subplants another as the dominant party and a two-party political system.

Mass mobilization

The process of involving large numbers of people in a social movement.

New Deal

The programs of the administration of President Franklin D Roosevelt.

Watchdog

The role of the media on scrutinizing the actions of government officials.

Random sampling

The selection of survey respondents by chance, with equal probability of being selected, to ensure their representativeness of the whole population.

Political efficacy

The sense an individual can affect what government does.

Party identification

The sense of belonging to one or another political party.

Secularization

The spread of non-religious values and outlooks.

Unilateralist

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.

Multilateralist

The stance toward foreign policy which suggests that the United States should seek the cooperation of other nations and multilateralist institutions in pursuing its goals.

Agents of socialization

Those institutions and individuals that shape the core beliefs and attitudes of people.

Newsworthy

Worth printing or broadcasting as news, according to editors judgments.