Unit 3 Test Flashcards
What do people think about the death penalty?
it DOES keep people from killing
What are the characteristics of public opinion
- People’s attitudes toward a government policy can vary dramatically
- Public opinion places boundaries on allowable types of public policy
- Citizens are willing to register opinions on matters outside their expertise
- Governments tend to respond to public opinion
- The government sometimes does not do what the people want
What causes opinions about capital punishment to fluctuate?
Threats to social order, such as a war
What events in American history made us support capital punishment?
WWI and II, fear of radicals and terrorists and postwar fears of sovietism. Later, the increase in homicides after the supreme court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional caused people to support it once again
What caused opposition to capital punishment?
The subsiding of anticommunist hysteria in the 1950s
Which groups do and dont support the death penalty?
Republicans are more likely to support it than democrats. White people tend to and African Americans tend not to
How did the Founding Fathers build opinion into our government structure?
By allowing direct election of representatives to the House apportioned to representation by population
How has polling changed the majoritarian vs pluralist debate?
Surveys produce equal representation of all citizens and they reveal when government policy clashes with majority opinion, weakening the majoritarian model argument
What 3 factors determine polling accuracy?
- Randomness
- Sample size
- Amount of variation in a population
What is a skewed distribution?
An asymmetrical but generally bell shaped distribution of public opinions. Its mode or most frequent response lies to one side
What is a bimodal distribution?
A distribution of opinions that shows 2 responses being chosen about as frequently as each other
What is normal distribution?
A symmetrical bell-shaped distribution of opinions centered on a single mode or most frequent response
What is a stable distribution?
A distribution of opinions that shows little change over time
what is the tail of a distribution plot?
The one side of the mode with fewer respondents that extend it outwards
What does each type of opinion distribution indicate?
Normal: Public tends to support a moderate or slightly left/right government policy
Bimodal: potential for conflict
Skewed: many people share the same opinion
What indicates that a shift in public opinion has probably occurred?
The same question worded differently produces significantly different responses over time
What are 2 big issues America has remained stable on?
- Describing themselves on the political spectrum
2. Death Penalty
What is an example of a change within a subgroup that is not reflected in overall public opinion?
political party change within college students
What is the relationship with using ideological terms when describing politics?
The use of ideological terms when discussing politics increases as education increases
How has the meaning of democrat and republican changed over time?
These term used to describe only the belief in level of government activity, but now they encompass that and values along with other beliefs
What 2 themes run through people’s minds when they are asked to describe liberals and conservatives?
- Liberals are associated with change and republicans with condition
- Liberals support more government intervention to promote economic equality and republicans support less
How are liberals, communitarians, conservatives and liberals dispersed through the country?
Libertarians: dispersed but tend to be located in western states and a handful of northeastern states
Communitarians: South
Conservatives: Midwest
Liberals: Northeast
How are men and women distributed among liberal, conservative, libertarian and communitarian parties?
Men are more likely to be conservative or libertarian and women tend to be liberal or communitarian
How did people’s political attitudes change over time in many western countries?
They shift slight to the left(less conservative)
What is the limitation in placing people strictly on the liberal-conservative scale?
It is a one dimensional analysis on a multidimensional problem
At what time are people most knowledgable about politics?
Politics from the era they grew up in, as opposed to other eras
What is the self-interest principle?
The implication that people choose what benefits them personally
How do citizens use heuristics to make political judgements?
They use these mental shortcuts to make judgements on issues in which they have low information on, such as using a candidate’s party label to determine their policies
How do politicians influence people’s views on issues?
They serve as cue givers, and people are more likely to support or be against certain statements depending on who said it
What is issue framing? How is this used?
The way that politicians or interest group leaders define an issue when presenting it to others. This is used to selectively evoke values and recall history.
What are “spin doctors”
Those who are ready to reinforce or elaborate on the spin inherent in framing
Which countries had favorable and unfavorable views of the United States?
Favorable in Israel, Japan, and African Countries
Unfavorable in Muslim and European countries
How has ability of political leaders to influence people changed over the years and why?
It has grown enormously because of the growth of media
What was Bloody Sunday?
When about 600 people attempted to march fifty miles north from Selma Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery Alabama for voting rights. The governor declared illegal and sent state troopers that beat these people and used violence and tear gas
Why do we know more about conventional participation than unconventional participation?
- It is easier to collect data on conventional practices
2. Political sciences are biased towards institutionalized and conventionalized politics
What is direct action?
Unconventional participation that involved assembling crowds to confront businesses and local governments to demand a hearing
What did the civil rights acts if 1964 and 1965 do?
1964: prohibits discrimination of employment based on sex
1965: Placed some state electorate procedures under federal supervision, protecting the registration of black voters
How do groups that faced discrimination participate in government compared to others?
They participate more and are more likely to unconventionally participate
How can unconventional/conventional participation he used to test if a government is democratic or not?
See if citizens can affect policies through conventional participation or if they have to used unconventional participation
What type of people are likely to participate conventionally? Why?
People with more education, higher incomes, and white-collared or more professional occupations because they they tend to be more aware of the effects of politics on their lives, know what can be done to influence government actions, and have the time and money to take action. Older people tend to do this as well
What is the standard socioeconomic model?
A relationship between socioeconomic status and conventional involvement
What type of people are likely to use unconventional participation?
Better educated people. Protesters tend to be younger
How do African Americans participate in politics and how has this changed over time?
Had low participation until the 1950s, now have comparable participation to white when socioeconomic factors are taken into account
How has the participation of women in politics changed over time?
Had low participation in the past, but now hey participate a lot because gender difference have went away
Are married or single people more likely to vote?
Married
What is the strongest factor in determining who votes?
Education
What 2 factors explain the low voter turnout in the U.S. compared to other countries?
- Many countries have different voting lass and administrative machinery including an election holiday
- Registering to vote requires high initiative
What was the meaning behind allowing 18 year olds to vote?
To decrease the disorder by giving college students and other young adults a way to conventionally participate
What biases to majoritarianism and pluralism have with political participation?
Pluralism: Biased toward higher-status people with resources
Majoritarianism: Allows little room for private and resourceful individuals to influence government
What is political socialization?
The complex process by which people acquire their political beliefs
What are the principles of early learning?
Primary principle: what is learned first is learned best
Structuring principle: What learned first structures our later learning
What are the agents of early socialization?
- Family
- School
- Community and peers
What determines the extent of the influence of a socializing agent?
Exposure to it, communication with it and receptivity to it
What is the difference between party identification and religion?
- Parents care more about religion than politics
2. Religious institutions recognize the value of socialization and offer activities to win kids over
How are students politically socialized after elementary and secondary school?
They emerge from elementary school with a sense of national pride and idealized notion of American government. They emerge from secondary school with greater awareness of political processes and the most prominent participants in that process
What is the function of peer groups on different age groups?
Children and adults: provide a defense against community pressures
Adolescents: Defend against parental pressures. Defend their dress and lifestyle
College: Influence grows substantially
How does education, income, religion, rave/ethnicity, and region effect views on freedom vs order and equality?
Educated: freedom>order, freedom>equality
Income: Freedom>order, freedom>equality
Region: Northeast/west: freedom>order, equality>freedom
Midwest: Order>freedom, freedom>equality
South: Order>freedom, Equality>freedom
Race/Ethnicity: Ethnic=Order and equality>freedom
White: Freedom>Equality and order
Religion: Protestants are more conservative than catholics, catholics are more conservative than jews. Evangelical, less freedom. Jews, more freedom
What is the most influential political socialization agent?
Family
Who is the father of modern polling?
George Gallop
What are the types of polling? Strengths and weaknesses?
- Personal interview-inefficient
- Mail questionnaires-who filled it out?
- Email-“
- Telephone interviews
- Exit survey-skewed based on location
What is sampling?
What determines polling accuracy
What 3 sampling factors help determine polling accuracy?
- Randomness
- Sample size must be large enough
- Sample must represent amount of variants in population
What is an accurate margin if error for polling?
4% or less
What are examples of conventional and unconventional participation?
Unconventional: rallying, terrorism, strikesp
Conventional: voting, campaigning, letter
What us a class action suit?
A legal action brought by a person or group on behalf of a number of people in similar circumstances
What groups got the right to vote with the 15th, 19th, and 26th amendments? What did the 24th amendment prohibit?
15: African Americans
19: Women
24: prohibited poll taxes
26: Lowered voting age to 18
What were Harper vs Virginia and Smith vs Allwright court cases?
Harper vs Virginia: State poll taxes are unconstitutional
Smith vs Allwright: Laws preventing blacks from voting in elections were unconstitutional
What is the voting rights act?
following Selma’s bloody sunday, it suspended discriminatory voting tests and allowed federal registrars to register voters in 7 southern states
