chapter 5

32. Campaign finance

The primary means of influencing public officials begins with a noticeable campaign

14. Caucus

The process of nominating presidential candidates tends to be frontloaded. This means that the

6. Twenty-Fourth Amendment

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment eliminated the poll tax in all elections in all fifty

1. Political ideology

Our political ideology is not rooted in random experience and/or psychology. Rather, our

28. Open and closed primaries

A primary election is like any other election, Primary ballots, however, do not

12. Presidential v. Midterm elections

According to the Constitution federal elections are held every two years.

30. Electoral College

Another way the Founding Fathers built Separation of Powers and Federalism into our

13. Primary elections

As suffrage rights expanded voters demanded more and more power in voicing their

23. Coalitions

Coalitions are alliances formed to achieve a collective purpose. Coalitions exist across our

27. Constituencies

Constituents are those citizens who live in a legislator's district. The United States Congress

20. Realignments (critical elections)

Critical elections occur when one loyal group of voters decide to switch

31. Campaign consultants

Elections are not new to democracy, but the type of campaigns we currently witness

19. Candidate centered campaigns

Historically, the political parties ran national and local campaigns. Party

33. Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

Holding free and fair elections is the sine qua non of any democracy. Today's

25. Issue networks

Hugh Heclo coined the theory of "issue networks." "Issue networks" are "much more fluid

24. Iron triangles

Iron Triangles, or issue networks as they are now called, are not easy to understand. They are

35. Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

In one of the more controversial Court decisions in recent years, a majority of

18. Interest group

Interest groups form for the expressed purpose of impacting the policy-making process. In

26. Free rider

Interest groups have proliferated in the United States because of social diversity, federalism, weak

16. Linkage institutions

Numerous institutions link the people to their government. Linkage institutions are

22. Winner-take-all rules

One curious rule governing the Electoral College is winner-take-all. The candidate

29. Party convention

Our long political narrative can be summed up in one word - democratization. Early on

15. Party identification (Partisan ID)

Party identification continues to be one of the most important factors in

11. Party-line voting

Party line voting continues to be a popular model of study. Remember The American Voter

36. PACs

Political Action Committees, or PACs, are created for the express purpose of raising money for

Political efficacy

Political efficacy is a basic measurement important to all successful democratic polities. Political efficacy measures how well the people understand their government. It also considers how responsive the government is to the people. Increasing levels of participation marks polities with high levels of political efficacy. This increases both the legitimacy and authority of the government as well as trust. Unfortunately, the contrary is true as well. Declining participation marks low political efficacy. With a decline in legitimacy and authority elected officials lose their vitality and ultimately their ability to govern. Democracy is unthinkable without an electorate characterized by a certain standard of efficacy.

17. Political party

Political parties form for the expressed purpose of winning elections. In this way, when our

10. Prospective voting

Prospective voting is similar to retrospective voting but for one essential difference.

Rational choice theory

Rational choice theory is a by-product of the work done by Anthony Downs in An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957). Rational choice theory, based in economics, finds "human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." Voters' choices are based in parsimony. Acting rationally is acting efficiently. "Conventional rational choices assume that beliefs arise purely from observable characteristics of the environment and propositions that can logically be deduced from them." This model suggests that voters use their knowledge, albeit scarce, to make decisions. Voting becomes axiomatic, that is, choices become self-evident based upon the facts. Some have called this rational optimization. Voters make observations, subject to their own environment, and act accordingly. Rational choice theory has become, for many in the field of politics, the "universal grammar of social science."

Retrospective voting

Retrospective voting models grew out from a response to rational choice theory. The champion of this model is Morris P. Fiorina who wrote the book Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (1981). Based upon the results from a number of election cycles, Fiorina concluded that voters cast ballots to reward and punish political behavior. Governments' performance does matter. Voters take notice and act accordingly. According to this theory, Voters are less concerned with a candidate's or party's promises about future policy than with their past performance in office, particularly their success or failure in achieving such hard, tangible outcomes as peace and prosperity. Whereas information about campaign promises is costly to acquire and difficult to evaluate, most citizens develop relatively solid perceptions about the performance of an incumbent officeholder or administration simply by going about their normal lives and paying minimal amount of attention to the news. Often strong economic conditions benefit incumbent candidates. Foreign policy crises, on the other hand, have the opposite effect. It is not uncommon for challengers to motivate voters by asking a simple question about incumbent candidates, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" This model, retrospective voting, has proven to be an effective explanation for political behavior.

34. Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (2002)

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA] of 2002 was

3. Fifteenth Amendment

The Fifteenth Amendment extended suffrage to all African-Americans. With this new

5. Nineteenth Amendment

The Nineteenth Amendment extended suffrage to all Women. With this new

Seventeenth Amendment

The Seventeenth Amendment extended the direct election of all U.S. Senators. With this new authority the national government assumed more and more power over the democratic process. Prior to this amendment elite citizens from each state chose who their senators would be. This amendment moved the arc of our government towards a more direct democratic polity. Securing individual liberties has increasingly become a national priority.

Twenty-Sixth Amendment

The Twenty-sixth Amendment extended suffrage to all between the age of 18-20. Previously the age limit was. 21. With this new authority the national government assumed more and more power to help overcome discrimination against those old enough to fight in our wars but not old enough to - vote. Securing individual liberties has increasingly become a national priority.

21. Third party

Third parties are certainly allowed but they usually are not effective. Plurality elections make it