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53 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is public opinion?
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The sum of individual attitudes or beliefs about an issue or question
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When did scientific polling began and by whom?
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Surveys or public opinion polls, 1930's George Gallup
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What is the Delegate Model of Representative democracy?
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elected officials are obligated to seek out and follow the views of their constituency when they make political decisions (i.e, encourage polls)
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What is the Trustee system of democracy?
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elected officials are the experts so they should make decisions which they feel are correct whether or not they are supported by public opinion.
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Census and politics: what is the debate between the Republicans and Democrats?
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Republicans favor actual count
Democrats favor sampling |
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What is a Representative sample?
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Every attribute of the subpopulation should be like the real population (i.e, gender, ethnicity, age, income, education, etc)
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What is a random sample and the problems of generating one?
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each and every person in the entire population has an equal opportunity to be selected for the analysis.
Problems with generating a random sample 1.) Is there any such thing as pure randomness? 2.) Certain groups do not respond to surveys 3.) Increase in phone solicitation, junk mail, email, cause a low response rate to surveys. 4.) Method used to generate a random sample often flawed. |
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What is the Literary digest example that occurred in 1936
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Landon vs. Roosevelt
Used telephone and automobile registration lists. *rich people would have phones and cars - bias sample |
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What is the difference between the true sample and the sample generated by the
researcher. |
Every attribute of the subpopulation should be like the real population
It is impossible to generate a TRUE representitive sample |
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The population size (homogeneity)
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the degree to which members of a population are alike in terms of the characteristics we are interested in studying
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Margin of error
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The difference between the True sample and the sample we generated
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Level of confidence
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how confident am I that the margin of error I chose is correct?
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What is Instrumentation?
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Instrumentation is the process of designing survey questions.
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What is the problem with question wording in surveys?
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The way in which a question is worded can affect the response that a respondent gives.
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What are the following non-scientific polls (Straw polls):
man on the street polls exit polls internet/magazine polls push poll |
A. Straw polls, or the use of biased samples, will produce inaccurate results.
1. Man on the street polls - Not done much today, but news stations have reporters go out and ask people's opinion (small samples). 2. Exit polls - Ask people how they voted as they are leaving a voting station. Typical procedure used to predict elections before polls closed. 3. Internet/Magazine polls - attract an audience that is allready interested in the subject. (i.e. espn sports polls) B. Push Polls. When the pollster deliberately feeds respondents misleading information to push them into favoring a particular candidate or issue. |
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What are political parties?
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A political party is a group of individuals outside the government who organize to win elections, operate the government, and determine policy.
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What do political parties do?
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a. Recruit and nominate candidates for political office.
b. Help educate the public about currently important political issues c. Coordinate policy among the various branches and levels of government. d. The “out party” acts as a watchdog and provides a check on the activities of the party in power. e. Run campaigns including nominating conventions. |
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What is the responsible party model?
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whichever party wins a national election has control over the government.
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What is party discipline?
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They have “control” or party discipline over the members who serve the party
-to run for office the party must approve it |
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What is a party list?
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determine who can run in what district
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Are members of parliament allowed to hold positions in the bureaucracy?
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yes
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What is a two party system?
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Democrats and Republicans dominate national politics. Our system can result in a divided government.
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What is a divided government?
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Divided government is when one party controls one institution (executive/senate/house) and another party controls one of the others.
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What was the first major political division (after constitution was drafted)
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The first major political division in this country-between the Federalists and the Anti-federalists- established a precedent.
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Do election laws favor major parties?
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yes
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What are single-member congressional districts and winner-take-all elections?
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Single-member congressional districts and the winner-take-all feature of the Electoral College system prevent third parties from enjoying electoral success.
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Who can run for office for the major parties?
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anybody can run for office as a Dem or Rep
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What is the median voter?
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a person who votes for the candidates view on issues vs. the straight party vote
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What are the classic difference between the Democrats and Republicans?
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Democrats-National Rights, Pro-Tax,G rowth of Gov, Social Programs, Doves (anti-war, Pro-environment, Social liberal, Pro-gay marriages, Pro-choice
Republicans- State Rights, Anti-Tax, Limited Gov, Cut Social Program, Hawks (for war), Anti-Environment, Social Conservative, Anti-gay marriages, Pro-life |
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What are the coalitions that make up the Republicans and Democrats?
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Democrats- Labor, Lawyer ass., Education groups, Racial Minoriteis, urban
Republicans- Businesses, Religious right, Farmers, Rural |
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What are the effects of third parties?
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a.They have brought many political issues to the public’s attention
b.they can influence voter turnout and also election outcomes c.They provide a voice for dissatisfied americans |
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What is the difference between apportionment and reapportionment?
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Apportionment is assigning the number of seats in the House of Congress and State Legislatures or how many state and legislative districts a state will have
A reapportionment is the process of adjusting the number of house seats among the states to reflect population shifts |
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Where has the population of the US shifted?
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The population of the US has steadily been moving out of the North (and East) to warm climates in the South (and West)
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What are multimember districts?
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Multimember districts: The same voters elect more than one representative to serve multiple districts (at large elections)
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what is redistricting?
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The redrawing of voting districts
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Colgrove v. Green, (1946)
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these types of issues were a political issue and the courts did not have jurisdiction. This was an issue for the states and congress
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Baker v. Carr (1962)
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overturned this decision and ruled that apportionment was an issue that all courts had jurisdiction over.
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Wesberry v. Sanders (1964
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Ruled that unequal districts (including multi member) districts violated the “one person, one vote” principal stipulated in the Constitution. Each district should have approximately the same number of people. Applied to Federal congressional seats
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Reynold v. Sims (1964
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) applied the “one person one vote” rule to the states
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What is gerrymandering?
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Gerrymandering is drawing district lines to favor a particular group (i.e. political party, ethnic group, etc)
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What are majority-minority districts?
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. These are districts in which a majority are Black/African American and or Latino/Hispanic. Suppose to maximize the number of representatives from these groups
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What did the Federal Election Campaign act do?
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•Public financing of presidential campaigns and overall expenditure limits (spending own money and spending public money are two very different things, public money has a limit but private money doesn’t)
•Contribution limits •Public disclosure requirements •Creation of the Federal Election Committee (FEC) |
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Buckley v. Valeo, 1976
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The Supreme Court ruled that overall spending limits violated individuals’ First Amendment free speech rights
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What is the difference between soft money vs. hard money?
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•Hard money: money given to expressly support or oppose a candidate is regulated
•Soft money: money contributed to a party organization instead of an individual candidate. |
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What is the McCain-Feingold law?
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McCain-Feingold Law: bans soft money and restricts “issue ads” so that they must be run immediately before an election
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What did Alexis de Tocqueville write?
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More tightly In 1835, French political observer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans have a tendency to form “associations: and have perfected “the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires.
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What purposes do interest groups serve?
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An interest group is an organization of people sharing common objectives who actively attempt to influence government policy makers through direct and indirect methods
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What are the differences between interest groups and political parties?
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Interest groups form in interest of change (economic,political)
Political parties form in order for their party to win |
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What is lobbying?
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all of the attempts by organizations or individuals to influence legislation or to influence the administrative decisions of government
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What are the direct and indirect techniques that interest groups use to shape
policy? |
Indirect techniques:
Shaping public opinion-efforts may include television publicity, newspaper and magazine advertisements, mass mailings, and the use of public-relations techniques. Some groups also try to influence legislators through ratings systems. Mobilizing constituents-groups urge members to contact government officials to show their support for or opposition to a certain policy |
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What is the difference between the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946 and the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995?
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1946 - i. Any person or organization that receives money to be used principally to influence legislation before Congress must register with the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate
1995- Strict definitions now apply to determine who must register as a lobbyist |
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Why may any stricter regulation of lobbying not be possible?
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possibly could infringe on first amendments rights
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What is a PIG?
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find out cuz i dont know
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