FA GOVT UNIT 2 EXAM REVIEW
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American Government 2305
Unit 2 Exam Review
1.
What role does political knowledge play in the formation of public opinion?
To be politically active and informed people need have energy which a lot of people don't have
2. How would you describe the term public opinion?
An individual's or groups personal thoughts & beliefs that shape the way they interact in society
3. Define political ideology.
Set of beliefs that shapes the way a person sees politics and gov.
4. Why do pollsters use random digit dialing?
Another method of drawing samples of the national population is a technique called random digit dialing of landline and cell phone numbers (but not business phones or inoperative home telephones). Given that 95 percent of Americans have telephones (cell
phones or landlines), this technique usually results in a random national sample because
almost every citizen has a chance of being selected for the survey. Telephone surveys are
fairly accurate, cost-effective, and flexible in the type of questions that can be asked; but
many people refuse to answer political surveys, and response rates—the percent of those called who actu- ally answer the survey—have been falling steadily, averaging less than 15 percent.
5. Define sample and simple random sample.
•Sample: A small group in a community picked to represent different types of people in the community
•Simple Random Sample: a method used by pollsters to select a representative sample in which every individual in the population has an equal probability of being selected as a respondent.
6. Discuss some of the factors that lead to measurement errors in polls.
Even with a good sample design, surveys may fail to reflect the true distribution of opinion within a target population. One frequent source of measurement error is the wording of survey questions. The words used in a question can have an enormous impact on the answers it elicits
7. Compare political value and attitude.
•Attitude: Mainly the preferences that people have on a subject
•Values: Principles that shape a person's public opinion about issues and events
8. Explain what push polls are.
When someone's political opponent runs a poll that is non-scientific & designed to smear someone else
9. Discuss the impact media monopolies have had.
Media Monopolies have been able to control what the American people see and hear on
various news networks; often very biased
10. Define agenda setting, priming, and framing.
•Agenda Setting: The power of the media to bring public attn. to particular issues and problems
•Selection Bias: The tendency to focus news coverage on only one aspect of an event or issue while avoiding other aspects
•framing: packaging of an element of rhetoric in such a way as to encourage certain interpretations and to discourage others. For political purposes, framing often presents facts in such a way that implicates a problem that is in need of a solution.
11. Discuss the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications through cable, radio, television, satellite and wire.
12. What are some of the roles of the media?
Advances in communication, largely through the internet, have improved community access to information
13. What types of media sources does the gov’t regulate?
Radio & TV; Over the air broadcast media
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14. Discuss the 1996 Telecommunication Act.
a broad effort to end most regulations. The legislation loosened restrictions on media ownership and allowed telephone companies, cable television providers, and broadcasters to compete with one another to provide telecommunication services. Following the passage of this act, mergers between telephone and cable companies and different entertainment media produced a greater concentration of media ownership than had been possible since regulation of the industry began in 1934
15. Explain the equal time rule, fairness doctrine and the right to rebuttal.
•Equal Time Rule: The first of these is the equal time rule, under which broadcasters must provide to candidates for the same political office equal opportunities to communicate their messages to the public. Under the terms of the Telecommunications Act, during the 45 days before an election, broadcasters are required to make time available to candidates at the lowest rate charged for that time slot.
•Fairness Doctrine: For many years, a third important federal regulation was the fairness
doctrine. Under this rule, broadcasters that aired programs on controversial issues were required to provide time for opposing views.
•Right to Rebuttal: right of rebuttal, which requires that individuals be given the opportunity to respond to personal attacks.
16. Define ranked-choice voting, divided government, proportional representation, party activist.
•ranked choice voting: any voting system in which voters use a ranked (or preferential) ballot to select more than one candidate (or other alternative being voted on) and to rank these choices in a sequence on the ordinal scale of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.
•divided government: control of the executive branch and the legislative branch is split between two parties, respectively, and in semi-presidential systems, when the executive branch itself is split between two parties.
•proportional representation: an electoral system in which parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them
•party activist: individuals voluntarily and regularly participating in party-related activities (i.e. not simply for electoral campaigns)
17. Explain what is an electoral realignment.
the changes that are sometimes needed between electoral boundaries to ensure that each division has approximately the same number of voters in it.
18. What is mean by the term “equal democracy?”
Democracy requires that persons be. treated equally insofar as they are autonomous participants in the process of self
19. Explain the different party systems that have existed in the nation’s history.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are the most powerful. Yet other parties,
such as the Reform, Libertarian, Socialist, Natural Law, Constitution, and Green Parties can promote candidates in a presidential election.
20. Describe the Alien and Sedition Acts.
the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts (long since repealed), which, among other things, made it a crime to say or publish anything that might tend to defame or bring into disrepute the government of the United States.
21. Compare internal versus external mobilization.
•Internal Mobilization: When party members and politicians within the government compete to win popular support
•External Mobilization: When a group outside of the government organizes support to win governmental power
22. What is a political party and what is its goal?
The job of a political party is to get nominees to win, develop policies favorable to their interests, recruiting candidates
23. What did Jeffersonian Republicans believe?
The Jeffersonian Republicans believed in a weaker natl. government and for the states to
retain most of the power. (Modern Day republicans) (Federalists were Modern Day Dems. )
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24. What is meant by dealignment?
Dealignment is when a large group of people try to go away from what has been the "norm" in the past. (e.g., In the 70's Texas used to be a Blue State but went Red and has been Red ever since) Definition: a movement away from the major political parties; a decline in partisan attachment
25. Explain the influence of third parties and who they represent.
Third Parties are mostly small in electoral size but when one of the two major parties can absorb their ideas their ideas can go mainstream and therefore affect the electoral size of the third party
26. What issue led to the demise of the Whig Party?
Conflicts over slavery led to sharp divisions between the Whig Party and the Democratic Party which led to Whig Party members to join the new Republican Party
27. Describe the Populist Party.
The populist was supported by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the South and West. They appealed mainly to farmers, urban workers, and miners. They elected governors in 8 states and later their ideas were adopted by the Democratic Party.
28. Define plurality, ballot initiative, referendum, & recall.
•plurality: the number of votes cast for a candidate who receives more than any other but does not receive an absolute majority
•Ballot Initiative: When a state allows its citizens to start a petition to get a law on the ballot for a popular vote.
•Referendum: the practice of sending a bill passed by legislature to the citizens and have
them vote on it.
•Recall: The practice of citizens being able to remove public officials from office before their terms are done by circulating petitions.
29. Whose responsibility is it to conduct public elections?
The state, county, and city election boards are responsible for organizing elections
30. Describe what 527 & 501 (c) (4) committees are.
•527: A 527 Committee is a group that can raise and disperse money for the support of candidates or to organize the defeat of other candidates as long as they are not working with a political campaign; named after IRS Tax Code.
•501(c)(4) committees politically active nonprofits; under federal law, these nonprofits can spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns and not disclose their donors as long as their activities are not coordinated with the candidate campaigns and political activities are not their primary purpose
31. Compare the technique of cracking and packing.
•cracking: diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts
•packing: concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their
voting power in other districts
32. What is meant by if politicians are attempting to “balance the ticket?”
When party's try to get as many minorities on a ballot as possible. Making certain that their party's ticket included members of as many important groups as possible.
33. Compare prospective versus retrospective voting.
prospective voting voting based on the imagined future performance of a candidate or political party
retrospective voting voting based on the past performance of a candidate or political party
34. What are polls and when are they conducted?
polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence intervals
35. Discuss how public interest groups are different from other interest groups.
political party is a group of people who organize to win elections, operate the government, and determine public policy, whereas an interest group is a group of people
who share common goals and who actively try to influence policymakers
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36. What is a free rider and why do they become a problem?
those who enjoy the benefits of collective goods but did not participate in acquiring or providing them
37. Discuss the court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010).
First Amendment prohibits limits on corporate funding of independent broadcasts in candidate elections. The justices said that the government's rationale for the limits on corporate spending—to prevent corruption—was not persuasive enough to restrict political speech
38. Describe what lobbying is.
a strategy by which organized interests seek to influence the passage of legislation by exerting direct pressure on government officials
39. Explain the different types of interest groups that exist.
•Economic interest groups represent businesses.
•Public interest groups, such as consumer groups, don't seek to profit from policy changes
•Religious groups seek changes to policy based on their particular faith
•Civil rights groups advocate for civil rights and against discrimination
40. Explain why the number of interest groups has increased.
interest groups of the past 20 years have been citizen groups or public interest groups organized largely around shared ideological goals, including government reform, election
and campaign reform, civil rights, economic equality, "family values," and even opposition to government itself.
41. Compare an iron triangle versus an issue network
iron triangle the stable, cooperative relationship that often develops among a congressional committee, an administrative agency, and one or more supportive interest
groups; not all of these relationships are triangular, but the iron triangle is the most typical. issue network a loose network of elected leaders, public officials, activists, and interest groups drawn together by a specific policy issue