week 3 begrippen Flashcards
political culture
the pattern of attitudes, values and beliefs about politics, whether they are conscious or unconscious, explicit or implicit.
values
basic ethical or moral priorities that contain and give shape to individual attitudes and beliefs
political identity
the way in which people label themselves as belonging to a particular group
political socialization
the process by which individuals acquire their political values, attitudes and habits
political orientation
a predisposition or propensity to view politics in a certain way
3 sorts of political orientation
- Cognitive: knowledge and understanding of the political system
- Affective: citizens must believe politics/ participation is important
- Evaluative: to know how to participate, citizens have to evaluate
the system: should it be supported/ reformed?
Subjective or internal efficacy:
the extent to which ordinary citizens feel that they can make their views and actions count in the political system.
System or external efficacy:
the extent to which ordinary citizens feel that political leaders and institutions are responsive to their wishes.
civic culture
the term used by almond and verba to signify the balance of subject and participant political cultures that best supports democracy
political alienation
a feeling of detachment, estrangement, or critical distance from politics, often because alienated feel there is something basically wrong with the political system.
cognitive mobilistation
the process by which increasing knowledge and understanding of the world helps to activate people to play a part in in
political elite
the relatively small number of people at the top of a political system who exercise disproportionate influence or power over political decisions
reinforced cleavages
cleavages that are laid on top of the other, making them potentially more important.
cross-cutting cleavages
cleavages that are laid across one another, thereby reducing their capacity to divide.
centre-periphery cleavage
the political cleavage between the social and political forces responsible for creating centralised and modern nation-states, and other interests, usually on the periphery of the state, which resisted this process. Often geographical.
political behavior
all political activities of citizens, including sporadic political activity, inactivity and behaviour with indirect political consequences.
Level of political participation of Western democracies:
- Gladiators: leaders and activists running parties
- Spectators: not engaged except for voting and reading news
- Apathetics: inactive, do not vote
slacktivism
the act of showing support for a cause that requires minimal personal effort, and has little effect.
Reasons why people are inactive politically:
- Marginals: political marginality: being on the fringes of politics
and therefore having little influence - Conflict avoiders
- Alienated: believe they have no influence in the system
- Loss of political salience: salient: something that is relatively
important, significant or prominent in people’s minds. - Apathetic: simply not interested in politics
doorstep response
where those with no opinion or information respond to polls and surveys with the first thing that comes into their head
low information rationality
where citizens without a great deal of factual political information have a broad enough grasp of the main issues to make up their mind about them, or else they take cues from sources they trust (‘gut rationality’).
status
a form of social stratification determined by social prestige rather than economic factors or occupation. At their simplest, class is determined by wealth and income, status by such things as social backgrounds, accents, dress, manners and interests.
socio-economic status (SES)
a combination of class (how people make their money) and status (how people spend their money) to form a single measure of social stratification.
issue publics
groups of people who are particularly interested in one political issue (or more), are well informed and likely to take action about it.
ecological fallacy
drawing false inferences about individuals from valid evidence about groups.
psychological fallacy
drawing false inferences about groups from valid observations about individuals who are members of those groups
pocket book voting
deciding which party to vote for om the basis of economic self-interst
socio-tropic voting
deciding which party to vote for on the basis of general social or economic circumstances
interest groups
sometimes known as sectional groups, interest groups are the type of pressure groups that represent occupational interests – business and professional associations and trade unions.
cause groups
sometimes known as promotional or attitude groups, cause groups are a type of pressure group that do not represent organised occupational interests, but promote causes, policies or issues of their own.
pressure groups
private and voluntary organisations that try to influence or control government policies but do not want to become the government. It is a general term to refer to cover interest groups and cause groups. They are sometimes referred to as advocacy groups, campaign groups or lobby group
3 main types of pressure groups
- episodic groups: groups that are not usually politically active but become so when need arises.
- Fire brigade groups: groups formed to fight a specific issue, and dissolved when it is over.
- Political groups: engage in politics and to influence a wide range of public policies.
aligned groups:
pressure groups that lay themselves with a political party, the best examples being the trade union and left parties, and business organizations and right parties
new social movements
loosely knit organisations (networks of networks) that try to influence government policy on broad issues, including the environment, nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, economic development, peace, women and minorities.
insider groups
pressure groups with access to senior government officials, often recognised as the only legitimate representatives of particular interests and often formally incorporated into the official consultative bodies.
outsider groups
groups with no access to top government officials
umbrella organization
association of associations that coordinates the activity of their members organizations
corporatism
a way of organising public policy making involving the close cooperation of major economic interests within a formal government apparatus that is capably of concerting the main economic groups so that they can jointly formulate and implement binding policies.
tri-partism
looser and less centralized system of decision-making than corporatism involving close government consultation - often with business and trade union organizations
policy communities
small, stable and consensual groupings of government officials and pressure group representatives that form around particular issue areas.
policy networks
compared with policy communities, policy networks are larger, looser networks that gather around a policy area.
iron triangles
the close, three-sides working relationship between (1) government departments and ministries (2) pressure groups (3) politicians, that makes public policy in a given area.
pluralist democracy
a democratic system where political decisions are the outcome of the conflict and competition between many different groups.
mass society
a society without a plurality of organised social groups and interests, whose mass of isolated and uprooted individuals are not integrated into the community and who are therefore vulnerable to the appeals and manipulations of extremist and anti-democratic elites.
