Chapter 8 Vocab: Political Parties, Candidates, and Campaigns: Defining the Voters' Choice Flashcards
Political party
An ongoing coalition of interests joined together to try to get their candidates for public office elected under a common label.
Party-centered campaigns
Election campaigns and other political processes in which political parties, not individual candidates, hold most of the initiative and influence. (See also “candidate-centered campaigns”)
Candidate-centered campaingns
Election campaigns and other political processes in which candidates, not political parties, have most of the initiative and influence. (See also “party-centered campaigns”)
Linkage institutions
Institutions that connect citizens with government. Linkage institutions include elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media.
Party competition
A process in which conflict over society’s goals is transformed by political parties into electoral competition in which the winner gains the power to govern.
Grassroots party
A political party organized at the level of the voters and dependent on their support for its strength.
Party realignments
Elections or sets of elections in which the electorate responds strongly to an extraordinarily powerful issue that has disrupted the established political order. A realignment has a lasting impact on public policy, popular support for the parties, and the composition of the party coalitions. (See also “party identification”)
Two-party system
A system in which only two political parties have a chance at acquiring control of the government.
Multiparty system
A system in which three or more political parties have the capacity to gain control of government, separately or in coalition.
Single-member districts
The form of representation in which only the candidate who gets the most votes in a district wins office. (See also “proportional representation system”)
Single-member system
Also called a winner-take-all system or a plurality, an electoral system in which the candidate who gets the most votes (the plurality) in an election district is elected to office from that district.
Proportional representation system
A form of representation in which seats in the legislature are allocated proportionally according to each political party’s share of the popular vote. This system enables smaller parties to compete successfully for seats. (See also “single-member districts”)
Median voter theorem
The theory that parties in a two-party system can maximize their vote by locating themselves at the position of the median voter - the voter whose preferences are exactly in the middle.
Party coalition
The group and interests that support a political party.
Gender gap
The tendency of women and men to differ in their political attitudes and voting preferences.
Party organizations
The party organizational units at national, state, and local levels; their influence has decreased over time because of many factors. (See also candidate-centered campaigns; party-centered campaigns; primary election.)
Nomination
The selection of a particular individual to run as a political party’s candidate (its “nominee”) in the general election.
Primary election
Also called a direct primary, a form of election in which voters choose a party’s nominees for public office. In most states, eligibility to vote in a primary election is limited to voters who designated themselves as party members when they registered to vote.
Money chase
The fact that U.S. campaigns are very expensive and candidates must spend a great amount of time raising funds in order to complete successfully.
Hard money
Campaign funds given directly to candidates to spend as they choose.
Packaging
In modern campaigning, the process of recasting a candidate’s record into an appealing image.
