Chapter 7

Question 1

Political Organizations

Answer 1

Parties and interest groups that function as intermediaries between individuals and government.

Question 2

Political Parties

Answer 2

Organizations that seek to achieve power by winning public office.

Question 3

Party Identification

Answer 3

Self-described identification with a political party, usually in response to the question, “Generally speaking, how would you identify yourself; as a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or something else?”

Question 4

Realignment

Answer 4

Long-term shift in social-group support for various political parties that creates new coalitions in each party.

Question 5

Dealignment

Answer 5

Declining attractiveness of the parties to the voters, a reluctance to identify strongly with a party, and a decrease in reliance on party affiliation in voter choice.

Question 6

Federalists

Answer 6

Those who supported the US Constitution during the ratification process and who later formed a political party in support of John Adam’s presidential candidacy.

Question 7

Anti-Federalists

Answer 7

Those who opposed the ratification of the US Constitution and the creation of a strong national government.

Question 8

Majority

Answer 8

Election by more than 50 percent of all votes cast in the contest.

Question 9

Plurality

Answer 9

Election by at least one vote more than any other candidate in the race.

Question 10

Democratic Party

Answer 10

One of the main parties in American politics; it traces its origins to Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Part and acquired its current name under Andrew Jackson in 1828.

Question 11

Whig Party

Answer 11

Formed in 1836 to oppose Andrew Jackson’s Policies; it elected presidents Harrison in 1840 and Tyler in 1848 but soon disintegrated over the issue of slavery.

Question 12

Republican Party

Answer 12

One of the two main parties in American politics, it traces its origins to the antislavery and nationalist forces that united in the 1850s and nominated Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860.

Question 13

Battlefield Sectionalism

Answer 13

The historic partisan division of the Democratic South and the Republican North arising from the Civil War.

Question 14

GOP

Answer 14

“Grand Old Party”— a popular label for the Republican Party.

Question 15

New Deal

Answer 15

Policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Depression of the 1930s that helped form a Democratic Party Coalition of urban working-class, ethnic, Catholic, Jewish, poor, and southern voters.

Question 16

Fair Deal

Answer 16

Policies of President Harry Truman that extended Roosevelt’s New Deal and maintained the Democratic Party’s voter coalition.

Question 17

Great Society

Answer 17

Policies of President Lyndon Johnson that promised to solve the nation’s social and economic problems through government intervention.

Question 18

Reagan Coalition

Answer 18

Combination of economic and social conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and defense-minded anticommunists who rallied behind Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Question 19

System of Party Polarization

Answer 19

The party alignment that emerged in the 1990s, characterized by intense, ideological identification of the parties in Congress and the electorate.

Question 20

Responsible Party Model

Answer 20

System in which competitive parties adopt a platform of principles, recruiting candidates and directing campaigns based on the platform and holding their elected officials responsible for enacting it.

Question 21

Median Voter Theorem

Answer 21

Two-party political systems tend to create centrist political parties who battle for decisive votes of moderate voters.

Question 22

Wedge Issue Theorem

Answer 22

Political parties run on polarizing issues to mobilize their ideological base and force moderate voters to make stark choice or not vote.

Question 23

Party Polarization

Answer 23

The tendency of the Democratic Party to take more liberal positions and the Republican Party to take more conservative positions on key issues.

Question 24

Nominee

Answer 24

Political party’s entry in a general election race.

Question 25

Nominations

Answer 25

Political party’s selections of its candidates for public office.

Question 26

Primary elections

Answer 26

Elections to choose party nominees for public office: may be open or closed.

Question 27

Machines

Answer 27

Tightly disciplined party organizations, headed by a boss, that rely on material rewards–including patronage hobs–to control politics.

Question 28

Patronage

Answer 28

Appointment to public office based on party loyalty.

Question 29

Divided Party Government

Answer 29

One party controls the presidency while the other party controls one or both houses of Congress.

Question 30

Nonpartisan Elections

Answer 30

Elections in which candidates do not officially indicate their party affiliation; often used for city, county, school board, and judicial elections.

Question 31

Caucus

Answer 31

Nominating process in which party members or leaders meet to nominate candidates or select delegates to conventions.

Question 32

Wards

Answer 32

Divisions of a city for electoral or administrative purposes or as units for organizing political parties.

Question 33

Precincts

Answer 33

Subdivisions of a city, county, or ward for election purposes.

Question 34

Closed Primaries

Answer 34

Primary elections in which voters must declare (or have previously declared their party affiliation and can cast a ballot only in their own party’s primary election.

Question 35

Open Primaries

Answer 35

Primary elections in which a voter may cast a ballot in either party’s primary election.

Question 36

Raiding

Answer 36

Organized efforts by one party to get its members to cross over in a primary and defeat an attractive candidate in the opposition party’s primary.

Question 37

Runoff Primary

Answer 37

Additional Primary held between the stop two vote-getters in a primary where no candidate has received a majority of the vote.

Question 38

General Election

Answer 38

Election to choose among candidates nominated by parties and/or Independent Candidates who gained access to the ballot by petition.

Question 39

Party-in-the-Electorate

Answer 39

Voters who identify themselves with a party

Question 40

Ticket Splitters

Answer 40

Persons who vote for candidates of different parties for different offices in a general election.

Question 41

Party-in-the-government

Answer 41

Public Officials who were nominated by their party and who identify themselves in office with their party.

Question 42

Party Organization

Answer 42

National and state party officials and workers, committee members, convention delegates, and others active in the party.

Question 43

Convention

Answer 43

Nominating process in which delegates from local party organizations select the party’s nominees.

Question 44

Presidential primaries

Answer 44

Primary elections in the states in which voters in each party can choose a presidential candidate for their party’s nomination. Outcomes help determine the distribution of pledged delegates to each party’s national nominating convention.

Question 45

Delegates

Answer 45

Accredited voting members of a party’s national presidential nominating convention.

Question 46

Superdelegates

Answer 46

Delegates to the Democratic Party national convention selected because of their position in the government or the party and not pledged to any candidate.

Question 47

Platform

Answer 47

Statement of principles adopted by a political party at its national convention (specific portions of the platform are known as planks); a platform is not binding on the party’s candidates.

Question 48

Third Parties

Answer 48

Political parties that challenge the two major parties in an election.

Question 49

Ideological Parties

Answer 49

Third parties that exist to promote an ideology rather than to win elections.

Question 50

Protest parties

Answer 50

Third parties that arise in response to issues of popular concern that have not been addressed by the major parties.

Question 51

Single-issue parties

Answer 51

Third parties formed around one particular cause.

Question 52

Splinter parties

Answer 52

Third Parties formed by a dissatisfied faction of a major party.

Question 53

Proportional representation

Answer 53

Electoral system that allocates seats in a legislature based on the proportion of votes each party receives in a national election.

Question 54

What can act as intermediaries between individuals and the government?

Answer 54

Interest groups and political parties.

Question 55

Despite dealignment, what remains a strong influence in voter choice.

Answer 55

Party identification.