HPC - Semester 1

Political Socialization

Political Socialization

Where people acquire political views, attitudes, and knowledge through family, schools, peer groups, mass media, race, religion, income, ethnicity

Party Identification

Identifying/aligning yourself with a party

Liberal

• Changing the status quo

• Environment has large impact on behavior, factors one cannot control: Gov should correct

  • poverty, racism, sexism, albelism

• more gov economically, less gov socially

• care/harm (racism)

• fairness/cheating (affirmative action)

Conservative

• preserve status quo or return to historical position

• One is responsible for their own happiness

• more gov on social matters, less on economic

• fairness/cheating

• loyalty/betrayal (kneeling for flag, supporting troops)

• authority/subversion (BLM and blue lives matter)

Socialism

calls for public rather than private ownership of property and natural resources

Libertarian

• Freedom

• Gov should have less control over people’s lives

Centrist

Having moderate political views or policies

Statist

Someone who favors a political system in which the state has control over social and economic affairs

The Political Spectrum

• left

• moderate

• right

Status Quo

The existing state of social or political issues

Radical

Intent to transform of replace the principles of a political system often through social change

• often left-wing

Reactionary

One who opposes political or social liberalization or reform

• one who opposes the removal or loosening of restrictions on economic or political systems

• often right-wing

Census

• Counting every person living in the U.S. regardless of citizenship status

• in Article 1 of Constitution

• Every 10 years

• collecting data

  • affects reallocation of funds

  • reapportionment

    • how many representatives in the House of Re[s each state gets

Minority Majority

Eventually, white people will be the minority and minority groups together will be the majority

• Asians and Hispanics populations have been increasing

• birthrates have been higher among minorities

Political Culture

An overall set of values widely shared within a society

• ex: equality in America

Reapportionment

Reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years based on Census`

Redistricting

drawing electoral district boundaries to account for population shifts

• ensuring that each district has roughly the same population

Gerrymandering

• When party in power in state draws district boundaries to benefit themselves

• redistricting that helps party in power win elections by weakening voting power of the other party’s citizens

• Packing

  • drawing districts so all opponents are concentrated in one area

• Cracking

  • breaking up opponents so they can’t have a majority anywhere

Random Sampling

everyone has an equal chance/opportunity of being picked

Sampling error

Measure of how accurate results of a survey are

• ± 3% accounts for good range

Exit Poll

To predict electoral winners with speed and precision using public opinion surveys

• widely criticized

  • discourages people from voting and affects outcome of state and local races

• altering wording of question can manipulate results

Gender Gap

• Women are more likely to support Democrats because they’re less conservative than men

• More likely to support spending on social services and to oppose higher levels of military spending

Scarcity

• Limited resources to meet unlimited wants

• scarcity of resources sets up prices of things

Need

Something necessary for survival

• food, shelter, saftey

Want

An item we desire but is not essential to survival

• phones, makeup, etc.

Opportunity cost

The value of trade-offs

• What will I lose from option A if I choose option B?

Sunk Cost

Money is spent that cannot be recovered

There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Just because something seems free doesn’t mean it is. That money is coming from somewhere.

Supply

Amount of goods or services

Demand

Amount of goods and services people want/willing to buy

Normal Goods

Increase in demand for a good when consumer’s income increases

Inferior Goods

Decrease in demand when one’s income increases.

Complements

Goods/services that can be used together

• ex: milk and cereal

Substitutes

Goods and services that can be used in place of others

• Indirect subs: video games for board games

• Direct subs: Coke for Pepsi

1962 Baker v. Carr

Gave the Supreme Court the authority to review redistricting by the states by using the 14th amendment to justify the decision

1993 Shaw v. Reno

Prohibited race based gerrymandering

Political Parties

A linkage institution that helps communicate people’s preferences to the government institutions —> get candidates elected

number one goal is getting candidates elected

Ticket Splitting

People vote for members of both parties

Tripartite Model

1. Party in Electorate

   • shaped by party identification

   • not monolithic (ticket splitting is popular)

   1. Decline is major party affilation

      • more independents than ever before —> polarization of Congress

Party as Organization

• operates as an organization 365 days a year

  • writes party platform

  • funds and supports logistics for campaigns

  • run by a national committee

    • party representatives from all states and territories

Party in Government

• parties form coalitions in government to gain majorities to pass legislation

  • groups comprised of different types of people that work or vote together to accomplish a common goal

• parties are responsible for turning their platform into policy