Chapter 7 Flashcards
Political Organizations
Parties and interest groups that function as intermediaries between individuals and government.
Political Parties
Organizations that seek to achieve power by winning public office.
Party Identification
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?”
Realignment
Long-term shift in social-group support for various political parties that creates new coalitions in each party.
Dealignment
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.
Federalists
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.
Anti-Federalists
Those who opposed the ratification of the US Constitution and the creation of a strong national government.
Majority
Election by more than 50 percent of all votes cast in the contest.
Plurality
Election by at least one vote more than any other candidate in the race.
Democratic Party
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.
Whig Party
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.
Republican Party
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.
Battlefield Sectionalism
The historic partisan division of the Democratic South and the Republican North arising from the Civil War.
GOP
“Grand Old Party”— a popular label for the Republican Party.
New Deal
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.
Fair Deal
Policies of President Harry Truman that extended Roosevelt’s New Deal and maintained the Democratic Party’s voter coalition.
Great Society
Policies of President Lyndon Johnson that promised to solve the nation’s social and economic problems through government intervention.
Reagan Coalition
Combination of economic and social conservatives, religious fundamentalists, and defense-minded anticommunists who rallied behind Republican President Ronald Reagan.
System of Party Polarization
The party alignment that emerged in the 1990s, characterized by intense, ideological identification of the parties in Congress and the electorate.
Responsible Party Model
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.
Median Voter Theorem
Two-party political systems tend to create centrist political parties who battle for decisive votes of moderate voters.
Wedge Issue Theorem
Political parties run on polarizing issues to mobilize their ideological base and force moderate voters to make stark choice or not vote.
Party Polarization
The tendency of the Democratic Party to take more liberal positions and the Republican Party to take more conservative positions on key issues.
Nominee
Political party’s entry in a general election race.
Nominations
Political party’s selections of its candidates for public office.
Primary elections
Elections to choose party nominees for public office: may be open or closed.
Machines
Tightly disciplined party organizations, headed by a boss, that rely on material rewards–including patronage hobs–to control politics.
Patronage
Appointment to public office based on party loyalty.
Divided Party Government
One party controls the presidency while the other party controls one or both houses of Congress.
Nonpartisan Elections
Elections in which candidates do not officially indicate their party affiliation; often used for city, county, school board, and judicial elections.
Caucus
Nominating process in which party members or leaders meet to nominate candidates or select delegates to conventions.
Wards
Divisions of a city for electoral or administrative purposes or as units for organizing political parties.
Precincts
Subdivisions of a city, county, or ward for election purposes.
Closed Primaries
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.
Open Primaries
Primary elections in which a voter may cast a ballot in either party’s primary election.
Raiding
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.
Runoff Primary
Additional Primary held between the stop two vote-getters in a primary where no candidate has received a majority of the vote.
General Election
Election to choose among candidates nominated by parties and/or Independent Candidates who gained access to the ballot by petition.
Party-in-the-Electorate
Voters who identify themselves with a party
Ticket Splitters
Persons who vote for candidates of different parties for different offices in a general election.
Party-in-the-government
Public Officials who were nominated by their party and who identify themselves in office with their party.
Party Organization
National and state party officials and workers, committee members, convention delegates, and others active in the party.
Convention
Nominating process in which delegates from local party organizations select the party’s nominees.
Presidential primaries
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.
Delegates
Accredited voting members of a party’s national presidential nominating convention.
Superdelegates
Delegates to the Democratic Party national convention selected because of their position in the government or the party and not pledged to any candidate.
Platform
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.
Third Parties
Political parties that challenge the two major parties in an election.
Ideological Parties
Third parties that exist to promote an ideology rather than to win elections.
Protest parties
Third parties that arise in response to issues of popular concern that have not been addressed by the major parties.
Single-issue parties
Third parties formed around one particular cause.
Splinter parties
Third Parties formed by a dissatisfied faction of a major party.
Proportional representation
Electoral system that allocates seats in a legislature based on the proportion of votes each party receives in a national election.
What can act as intermediaries between individuals and the government?
Interest groups and political parties.
Despite dealignment, what remains a strong influence in voter choice.
Party identification.
