GOV FINAL EXAM
Retrospective Voting
- "Am I better off today than I was four years ago?"
Prospective Voting
- "Am I going to be better off four years from now?"
News producers, from journalism professors to corporate owners, fondly refer to themselves as occupying the _______
- "fourth branch of government."
Elections and Representation; Majority System
- 50%+1 · used most often at the local level
The ______ ballot, introduced during the Progressive Era and still in use today, lists candidates from all parties and is marked in the privacy of a voting booth
- Australian
Interest Groups; Cons
- Corporate interest groups are favored - Power imbalance - Advantages pertain to the wealthy rather than the poor - Not all interest groups are created equally in terms of money or size
Patronage
- Granting favors or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support
Do policy advocates try so hard to move public opinion because people's views are easy to manipulate or because they are difficult to manipulate?
- In the United States, basic constitution guarantees - regular elections, broad suffrage, freedom of speech and press, freedom to form and join political organizations - allow citizens to express their views freely and compel government leaders take public opinions into account if they want to keep their jobs. These grantees also make it both possible and essential for political leaders and policy advocators to try to shape and mobilize public opinion on behalf of their causes. However, peoples views are not that easy to manipulate -- they are actually quite difficult. This is because individuals differ widely in the attitudes they bring to bear on political choices; some people have an elaborate set of informed, organized, internally consistent attitudes that allow them to understand, evaluate, and respond to any political phenomenon that catches their eye. Therefore -- this can make it extremely difficult for public policy advocates.
Interest Groups; Pros
- Increases participation in politics - People can advocate all the time (even when elections aren't happening) - Pluralism (prevents one group from becoming too powerful)
Two Party System; Historical Origin
- Jeffersonian Republican evolves into the Democratic Party in the late 1820s - Republican Party grew out of the antislavery movement in the 1850s
Which Washington, D.C. address has become synonymous with the lobbying firms that represent America's biggest and most powerful interests?
- K Street
How can stable and coherent public opinion arise from unstable and incoherent individual opinions?
- Most people live in social settings where political ideas, events, and personalities are far down on the list of things their families and peers talk or care about, so they have neither the opportunity nor the incentive to develop informed, sophisticated political attitudes on their own. Because people are "cognitive misers", reluctant to pay the cost of acquiring information that has no practical payoff, they may rely more heavily on group cues -- like from their political party -- in order to express opinions. However, despite the deficiencies uncovered by survey research, public opinion continues to play a crucial and effective part in American politics because a variety of formal and informal political institutions give it force. - Aggregate public opinion, the sum of all individual opinions, is stable - Random individual changes tend to cancel one another out - Average remains the same if circumstances remain the same - Opinion leaders
To what extent does public opinion determine public policy?
- Most policy domains are of concern only to issue publics, so it is usually their opinions, not mass opinions that matter to politicians. Together, opinion leaders and issue publics are the main conduits of public opinion in pluralist political system. Aggregate public opinion, then, is, given its coherence and focus by opinion leaders, typically based in institutions, whose knowledge, ideas, proposals, and debates define the positions and opinions from which ordinary citizens, acting logically as cognitive members, adopt their expressed views. This correlates to the aggregate stability of popular views and reveals that, in an often confused and poorly articulated way, people do have a real basis for the opinions they express. For this reason, public opinion, at least measured by the polls, is regularly if not invariably found to influence public policy.
How accurately can we predict Americans' political views by knowing their age, race, sex, religion, or education? What role does partisanship play in people's views?
- People's opinions on specific issues reflect the knowledge, beliefs, and values they have acquired over their lifetimes. The public's diverse points of view often represent differences in background, education, and life experiences. When polling data are analyzed, these differences show up in the way opinions vary with demographic characteristics such as race, ethnicity, gender, income, education, religion, and age
Which of the following weakened traditional party organizations and ended their monopoly control of campaigns?
- Progressive Era reforms
Why don't people participate?
- Registration barriers - Cynicism - Under-informed - Voter suppression; some minority groups don't feel comfortable/ threatened by voting - Busy - Lack of transportation to get to polls, can't leave work early/need the money, have to watch children, responsibilities, etc. - Health reasons - Don't have the necessary paperwork in order to do so; birth certificate, state ID, social security number, etc.
Who Votes?
- Suffrage was extended over the years: · Women 1920 · African Americans 1965 · Youth 1971
Buckley V. Valeo
- Supreme Court (1976) rules that in politics, money = speech - Individuals have the right to spend their own money to campaign for office; it is a constitutionally protected matter of free speech - Not subject to limitation
Which of the following is an example of an infotainment news program?
- The Daily Show
The Republican Party adopted primary elections as the basic method of choosing delegates ____
- but allows states to maintain a winner takes all process
Split Ticket Voting
- casting votes for at least two different parties in the same election
Straight Ticket Voting
- casting votes for candidates of only one party - it doesn't matter what name is next to the republican or democrat on the ballot; they will vote the same person all the way down
Which of the following would be most liberal?
- city dweller
Deciding how we feel about an issue by noting who is for it or against it is an example of a(n) ______
- cognitive shortcut
The two-party system arises from ______ in the winner-take-all competition for the presidency
- compulsory voting
Public Opinion
- consists of the opinions held by private persons which governments find it prudent to heed
The "party organization" refers to one part of a connected three-part system that is ______
- dedicated to electing the party's candidates
Scientific Polling
- developed as a tool for systematically investigating the opinions of ordinary people
Conservatives
- distrust government and have greater faith in private enterprise and free markets but they are more willing to use government to enforce traditional moral standards
A team of men seeking to control the government apparatus by gaining office in a duly constituency election
- downs
Equality of Opportunity
- each individual should have an equal chance to succeed
Party Organization; State and Local Party Organizations
- each party maintains a presence at the state and local level - lack of coordination between the national and state level
The fact that people with lower incomes are more inclined to support spending on government services helpful to people like them: Social Security, student loans, food stamps, childcare, and help for the homeless and people with higher incomes are notably less enthusiastic about government spending on social programs or taxing higher incomes at higher rates is best explained by ______
- economic self-interest
Which of the following helps to solve the massive coordination problem faced by millions of voters trying to act collectively to control or replace their agents?
- elections
One reason 3rd party success is limited in the US is because ____
- electoral system
Framing
- explains how both the mass media and political campaigns can affect people's expressed political opinions
The Sedition Act in 1798 ______
- expressly forbade any criticism of the president and Congress
Which of the following areas best represents the idea that as links between diverse problems have become more transparent, a wider range of organized interests has pushed into formerly isolated issue domains?
- farm policy
______ explains how both the mass media and political campaigns can affect people's expressed political opinions
- framing
Interest groups suffer from the _______; group benefits may be available to the public
- free rider problem
Which of the following is a strategy used to counteract the information deficit?
- frequent elections
Interest Groups; Characteristics of Members
- generally, have higher incomes, higher levels of education, and work in management or professional positions - group membership has an upper-class bias
Are there campaign implications?
- gives the person with more resources/money an advantage - SuperPAC - Those with billions to spend (such as Donald Trump) tend to represent the upper class and not the majority of Americans (average/middle class citizens)
Organizations that rely on the so-called "moral incentives" for joining interest groups tend to ______
- grow when opponents run the government
Equality of Results
- guarantees some minimal level of achievement
The New Deal coalition ___
- illustrates the diversity of American party coalitions - brought together Democrats of every conceivable background
The campaign to give women the right to vote was fueled by the hope that their presence in the electorate would ______
- improve the moral tone of political life
Political scientist John Aldrich observed, "A new form of party has emerged, one that is in service to its ambitious politicians but not ______ them"
- in control of
Democracies differ from other forms of government ______
- in terms of which private persons governments find it prudent to heed
What explains participation?
- individual factors (age, income, etc.) àgreater your age more likely to vote, those who have higher incomes are more likely to vote - institutional factors (registration laws) - social circumstances (peer pressure) - mobilization by groups - personality
Core Values
- individualism, support for equal opportunity, moral traditionalism, deservingness, or opposition to big government
Types of Interest Groups; Professional Societies
- individuals are dues paying members - represent professional interests
Why do interest groups organize?
- individuals form interest groups to increase: - the chance that their views will be heard - their interests treated favorably by the government - interest groups enhance political participation
Iron Triangle
- interest groups, congress, and the bureaucracy
The rise of public interest groups and the fragmentation of the interest group universe, as well as the ability of legislators to learn from past mistakes, broke up the ______ made up of members of Congress, lobbyists, and regulatory agencies
- iron triangles
The relationship between politicians and reporters ______
- is built on a tension between reciprocity and competition
Soft money
- is money that is contributed directly to political parties for voter registration and organization
The right of a candidate to spend their own money on running for office ____
- is protected by the 1st Amendment
Issue publics are subsets of the population that are better informed about an issue than everyone else because ______
- it touches them more directly and personally
Because carrying capacity is limited, one factor used by news organizations in deciding to run a story is ______
- its level of controversy: conflict and disagreement are preferable to consensus
What interests are represented?
- just about every interest you can imagine; - every product you purchase - every group you can imagine - ex:business and agricultural, labor, professional, public interest, ideological, public sector groups, etc.
Cross-lobbying
- lobbyists lobby one another - leads to coalition building
In 1972, the Democratic candidate, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, displayed his ignorance rather than appreciation of Jewish culture when he ordered ______ to go with his kosher hot dog while campaigning in a Jewish neighborhood in Queens, New York
- milk
Problems with Primaries; Front-loading
- minimizes opportunity for voters and candidates to learn over the course of a gradual campaign
Campaign finance operates through 2 parallel systems ____
- money to candidates that is regulated and money spent outside that is unregulated
The United States holds ______ elections for more public offices than any other nation in the world
- more
Throughout U.S. history, party coalitions have shifted periodically in response to ______
- new national issues and conflicts
Measurement Errors
- occur from the mismatch of survey questions with the attitudes they are supposed to measure
Mid term election
- occurs in the midterm of a presidential term · Election of Senators/House of Representatives · Occurs every 4 years (2018, 2022, 2026)
Party labels ___
- offers a shorthand cue that keeps voting cheap and single
Elections and Representation; Plurality System
- one in which you get the most votes · used most often at state and federal levels · winner = takes all
Pocketbook Voting
- one is able to tell how much money they have in their wallet/ how the economy's looking - effects who they vote for
Aggregate public opinion, is, given its coherence and focus by ______
- opinion leaders
E. E. Schattschneider's observation: "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent" implies ______
- organizational resources are distributed unevenly across political interests
The civil rights movement inspired and instructed the subsequent stream of organizations that agitated for social change because ______
- organizers of social movements quickly imitate successful innovations, and each new group can draw on the experience of its predecessors
How do voters decide?
- partisan loyalty - issues - candidate characteristics
The BEST single predictor of how someone will vote is ___
- party ID
The most important information shortcut voters use to make predictions is the ___
- party label
Despite their expressed disdain for parties, voters still rely heavily on party cues in making their decisions because ______
- party labels continue to provide useful, cheap information about candidates
Partisan Loyalty
- party loyalty may be the best predictor of how an individual will vote - partisan loyalties rarely allow a voter to cast a ballot for an opposing candidate
In the general election ____
- people vote for a democratic candidate or republican candidate · Occurs every 4 years (2016, 2020, 2024)
The logic of lobbying is ______
- people who want to influence government decisions quickly recognize the advantages of banding together and asking powerful friends to help out
Negative or attack campaigning
- pointed personal criticism of the other candidate
The clamor of competing interest groups is blamed for ______
- policy gridlock
Political Knowledge
- political activity is a function of awareness and interest - the lack of political knowledge can lead to inconsistencies between beliefs and opinions
How is public opinion formed?
- political knowledge - influence of political leaders -private groups and media
Caucuses
- political parties
The federal system offers powerful incentives for ______ to win and exercise political power
- political parties
A great majority of political news report are ___
- political talk instead of political events
Reverse-lobbying
- politicians (bureaucrats, members of Congress) pressure lobby groups
Political Socialization
- process through which beliefs and values are formed - takes place during childhood and young adulthood, but new experiences can alter attitudes at any stage of life - learn these through; education, media, friends/family, where you live, etc.
The most important changes were introduced during what is now called the ____
- progressive era
Elections create strong links between ___
- public opinion and government action in the United States
The vast network of organizations engaged in measuring or trying to influence public opinion underlines the reality that ______
- public opinion's influence is rarely simple or unmediated
Party Organization; National Committes
- raise campaign funds - manage the party's image - head off factional disputes
Party Organization; Congressional Campaign Committees
- raise money for congressional races
Prior to scientific polling, members of Congress used to ____
- read the walls of bathrooms to understand how people felt about issues
Realignments
- realignment occurs when a new party supplants the ruling party - caused by new issues or new voters · Major realignments: o Race -- Civil War; Republican Party o Class -- New Deal; Democratic Party
Which is the BEST example of direct democracy?
- referendum
Pack Journalism
- refers to journalists following the same story in the same way because they talk to one another while reporting and read each other's copy for validation of their own reporting
A staple of political advertising is ______
- repetition, simplicity and symbolism, exaggeration
Elections and Representation; Proportional Representation
- runs on parties - select 5/6 people from parties · used most often at city level · rarely used in the United States
Modern efforts to measure, shape, and exploit public opinion have spawned two linked industries ______
- scientific polling and public relations
The greatest danger to a group is ______
- similar groups appealing to the same supporters
The nomination process enables the parties to _____
- solve the coordination problem posed by competing presidential aspirants
Going Public
- strategy to mobilize the public to support the groups objective · Institutional advertising · Social movements · Grassroots mobilization
Issue Publics
- subsets of the population who are better informed than everyone else about an issue because it touches them more directly and personally
To characterize the news media businesses discredit their integrity as _____
- suppliers of vital civic information
Super PACS
- technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocated for or against political candidates
Prominent public interest groups ______
- tend to grow when opponents run the government and shrink when sympathetic politicians are in power
The health-care bill demonstrated ______
- that a president claiming a policy mandate and legislative leaders using every trick up their sleeves are still the primary forces in the policy process
The women's suffrage movement grew directly out of ______
- the antislavery movement
Citizens United v. FEC
- the court ruled that corporations and labor unions can spend as much as they like from their own treasuries on independent expenditures for speech that is an electioneering communication - these groups can expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate
In Maine and Nebraska ____
- the electoral vote can be divided if one congressional district votes for a candidate who loses statewide
______ are the focus of modern political campaigns
- candidates
Political Efficacy
is the belief that you have an ability to influence government and politics
Lobbying as a profession emerged _________
with modern representative government and has flourished with the growing scope and complexity of government activities
Types of Interest Groups; Trade Associations
- businesses pay dues for membership - corporate interests
______ was a sign put up by Bill Clinton's campaign manager in 1992 to keep focus on the campaign's most powerful message
"the economy, stupid"
______ is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia
- The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)
Party Organization; National Convention
- The National convention is a chance to showcase the unity of the party - Presidential candidate is nominated, party platform is drafted, and party rules are enacted
Polls often present conflicting evidence about the publics opinions on political issues. When can we believe polling results?
- The basic techniques developed to measure public opinion accurately are simple in concept but often difficult to carry out in practice; select a random sample of the population of interest, ask the people some appropriate questions about their views and count up their answers. The larger the sample the more closely the sample answers will approximate compared to the answers the pollster would get if the entire population could be asked. As the sample gets large however the rate of improvement in the accuracy declines. This is called the margin of error -- nineteen times out of twenty the samples division on a typical question falls within three percentage points of the entire populations division. In order to get more accurate results and reduce the margin of error -- a researcher would have to bear the cost of interviewing 1,000 more people -- an increase of 2/3rds of the sample size to get a reduction of 1/3rd in the margin of error. Ideally you can not get a 100% accuracy from the polls but you may be more likely to gain an accurate response if you reduce the margin of error or report on a topic that is familiar to most people.
Third party success in the United States is limited by ____
- The electoral system - Single-member district - Winner take all - Socialization -Belief that voting for a third party is a wasted vote - Ideas of the third party may be adopted by one of the major parties
Which of the following is true about the practices of selecting leaders by ballot and limiting suffrage?
- These ideas arrived with the settlers from England, and many of the suffrage restrictions survived the Revolution
If a voter MUST be registered with a party prior to voting, this is called ___
- a closed primary
Political Party
- a coalition of people who seek to control the machinery of government by winning elections - not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, political parties, make mass democracy possible by, among other functions, coordinating the group activities necessary to translate public preferences into public policy
Candidate
- a person who can be portrayed as sufficiently qualified and trustworthy for the job
In a trial balloon, ______
- a politician "floats" a policy or some other idea with a reporter on the condition that the source of the story remains anonymous
The threat of replacement provides elected officials with ______
- a powerful incentive to listen to their constituents
In order for a political party to select a candidate to run in the general election, it holds ____
- a primary election
Focus group
- a small number of ordinary citizens are observed as they talk with one another about political candidates, issues and events
Republicans typically favor ______
- a smaller, cheaper federal government; they advocate lower taxes, less regulation of business, and lower spending on social welfare. They would be more generous only to the Defense Department.
Pluralism
- a theory that promotes competition among interests that results in policies roughly responsive to public desires
What are interest groups?
- a voluntary membership association organized to pursue a common interest through political participation; toward the goal of getting favorable public policy decisions from government
Which of the following is a resource needed to gain influence?
- access
How does the government influence public opinion?
- all governments tend to attempt to influence, manipulate, or manage their citizens' beliefs - speeches, propaganda for either side, "going public" his will and skill - encouraging participation allows citizen to buy into the system - social media, news, television use it to their advantage to get people to believe what they are saying - going on a station with the most political ties
Australian ballot ____
- allowed voters to pick candidates across parties
Regular, free, and competitive elections ______
- ameliorate the problem of delegation
Two-party system
- an electoral system with two dominant parties that compete in national elections
Attitude
- an organized and consistent manner of thinking and feeling about people, groups, social issues, or, more generally, any event in one's environment
Lobbying can be defined as ____
- appeals from citizen groups to legislators for favorable policies
Poll taxes, literacy tests, the requirement that voters reregister, and Voter ID laws ____
- are all examples of legislative efforts to discourage some groups from voting
PACS
- are private groups that raise and distribute money for use in election campaigns
An organized and consistent manner of thinking, feeling, and reacting with regard to people, groups, social issues, or, more generally, any event in one's environment is often referred to as an ______
- attitude
Cognitive Shortcuts
- avoiding incurring information costs by delegating opinion formation to reliable agents chosen for that purpose
What is true of the 2008 campaign?
- both Obama and McCain had social. media but the advantage went to Obama
______--getting people to agree on an action in the absence of agreement on the purposes of the action--is what pluralist politics is all about, and it is as fundamental to electoral politics as it is to governing
- building coalitions
In examining the case of the New York Times and the Pentagon Papers, the Supreme Court's decision "any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this Court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity" means ______
- the government had to demonstrate--and in this case had failed to do so--that publication of the documents would damage national security
The political incentives for parties can best be explained by ______
- the idea that action requires winning majorities on a continuing basis in multiple settings, organization is absolutely essential
The threat of collective punishment by the voters gives _______
- the majority party a strong incentive to govern in ways that please voters
Thomas Jefferson explained to a friend that ______ is "The basis of our government being, the very first object should be to keep that right."
- the opinion of the people
Because candidates are the focus of modern political campaigns, ______
- the party's activities are aimed more at helping individual candidates compete more effectively than at promoting the party brand
Divided government occurs when ____
- the president's opposition party controls either to both legislative chambers
Electoral College
- the presidential electors from each state who meet after the popular election to cast ballots for president and vice president - number of electoral votes is based on senators AND representatives from the state - only 4 times has the EC not ratified the popular vote! (Hayes 1876; Cleveland 1888; Bush 2000, Trump 2016)
Aggregate Partisanship
- the proportion of poll respondents labeling themselves Republicans or Democrats
When politicians participate in news making, they usually have two audiences in mind ______
- the public and fellow politicians
In measuring public opinion, as a sample gets larger (beyond 1,200-1,500 people), ______
- the rate of improvement in accuracy declines
Cottail Effect
- the result of voting for president and the other candidates in his party - if the person at the top of the ticket is very popular; it will help the rest of the people in his/her party down the line get elected
Which of the following is a factor in what the news media chooses to cover?
- the story's level of controversy
Aggregate Public Opinion
- the sum of all individual opinions
A truly random sample of any population is rarely feasible, because ______
- there is no single directory where everyone is conveniently listed and so can be given a perfectly equal chance of being selected
Whats so unique about the American campaign?
- there length and expenses
Which of the following is true about opinion leaders?
- they are a small segment of the public that forms opinions by paying close attention to political events and issues and from whom the uninformed majority takes cues about the issues
Selective Incentives; Moral Incentives
- they can't imagine NOT being in the group; their beliefs are too strong
Selective Incentives; Material Benefits
- they send you a card/sticker/hat/t-shirt/discounts for being in the group
Selective Incentives; Solidarity Benefits
- they strongly believe in the cause and want to have a stronger voice - they want to be surrounded by people who have the same views as them
The Republicans' competitive status is _______.
- threatened
Liberals
- typically favor using government to reduce economic inequalities, champion the rights of disadvantaged groups such as racial minorities and women, and tolerate a more diverse range of social behaviors
In the primary election ___
- voters nominate a party candidate to run in the general election - must defeat party contenders to win a spot on the general election ballot - requires winning the approval of the party activists
Types of Political Participation
- voting - donate $ - political Discussion - volunteering - going door to door - participating in polls - watching debates - attending rally's and protests - run for office - be a candidate - call/email your representative - lobby your concerns - petition signing - public relations - bumper stickers; yard signs
Performance Voting
- voting for the party in control, or "in-party", when one thinks the government is performing well; voting for the "outs" when one thinks the party in charge is performing poorly
The assorted demographic and institutional influences on voting produce an electorate ___
- where wealthy educated and older are overrepresented and poor are under represented
Duverger's law explains ______.
- why in any election in which a single winner is chosen by plurality voting, there is a strong tendency for serious competitors to be reduced to two
The gender gap in politics is best defined by ______
- women are more supportive than men of the Democratic Party and its candidates, and men more supportive of Republicans
Selective Incentives; Informational Benefits
- you learn more from being in the group than not being in the group
Selective incentives are ___
benefits that CAN be denied to individuals who don't join the group