PLCY 220 Unit Study Guide: Constitution, Legitimacy, and Mass Politics

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering constitutional design, democratic legitimacy, mass politics, policy-centered analysis, comparative political economy, American political economy, and party polarization.

Faction (Madison)

A number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

Article V

The section of the U.S. Constitution specifying the amendment process, requiring a double supermajority: proposal by $2/3$ of both houses of Congress (or a convention called by $2/3$ of state legislatures) and ratification by $3/4$ of the states.

Counter-majoritarian institution

A rule, body, or structural feature (such as the Electoral College, the malapportioned Senate, or the filibuster) that enables a political minority to block majority legislative action or win executive power without winning a popular majority.

Malapportionment

Unequal political representation resulting from legislative districts or states having drastically different population sizes despite having equal voting power (e.g., Wyoming with $580{,}000$ residents having the same two Senate seats as California with $39\text{ million}$).

Vetocracy

A system of governance characterized by an excessive number of veto players and points, making it exceedingly difficult to enact policies, build infrastructure, or deliver effective outcomes for citizens.

Folk theory of democracy

The classical, textbook model assuming that citizens hold informed policy preferences based on their values, elect candidates matching those preferences, and hold politicians accountable through elections.

Vote-maximizing party

In Anthony Downs's rational choice framework, a political organization composed of team members who formulate public policies solely as a means to win elections and hold office, rather than winning elections to formulate policy.

Median voter theorem

A proposition in spatial voting theory predicting that in a two-party system with single-member districts, both parties will converge toward the ideological preferences of the voter in the exact middle to maximize votes.

Blind retrospection

The political phenomenon where voters irrationally punish or reward incumbent leaders for major external shocks completely beyond political control, such as droughts, floods, or natural events.

Policy feedback

The dynamic process by which enacted policies reshape future politics, creating new organized interest groups, altering resource allocations, and establishing durable political battlegrounds ('new policies create a new politics').

Policy drift

A mode of institutional change where formal legal statutes remain constant while economic or social context changes, resulting in altered real-world impacts (e.g., statutory minimum wage value eroding due to inflation).

Intense policy demanders

Organized interest groups, activists, and coalitional demanders who pool financial and political resources to screen candidates in primaries and influence party platforms to secure specific policy outcomes.

Submerged state

A bundle of policy programs, subsidies, and incentives delivered indirectly through tax provisions (e.g., mortgage interest deductions) that citizens often do not recognize as government welfare or intervention.

Vested interests

Actors, organizations, or mass constituencies that receive material or institutional benefits from an existing policy setup and actively organize to defend those structures against reform.

Race-class subjugated (RCS) communities

Marginalized, low-income Black and brown neighborhoods where citizens primarily experience the state through criminal justice contact, policing, surveillance, and extractive financial fines rather than supportive public services.

Coordinated market economy (CME)

A variety of capitalism (such as Germany or Scandinavia) where strategic interactions among employers, labor unions, and financial networks dictate wage setting, vocational training, and industrial relations.

Liberal market economy (LME)

A variety of capitalism (such as the United States or the United Kingdom) where economic activities and labor market arrangements are primarily coordinated via competitive market mechanisms and contractual relations.

Dualization

A trajectory of economic change where institutional protections remain strong for a core group of labor 'insiders,' while an expanding tier of labor 'outsiders' experiences low protection and precarious employment.

Embedded flexibilization (Flexicurity)

A labor market model (characteristic of Denmark and Sweden) combining flexible employment rules for businesses with robust income security, public active labor market policies, and social safety nets for workers.

Flailing state

A political entity (such as India) possessing strong macro-level technical capacity and success with episodic tasks, but exhibiting weak micro-level administrative capacity for routine daily service delivery.

Precocious democracy

A nation where universal franchise and democratic elections were instituted prior to the establishment of strong administrative state capacity, literacy infrastructure, or economic development (e.g., India in $1950$).

American Political Economy (APE)

An analytical approach defining the distinctiveness of the U.S. political economy around three constitutive features: institutional fragmentation, strong business power combined with weak labor, and deep racial divisions.

Structural power

The leverage enjoyed by business and capital holders due to their systemic control over private investment decisions and job creation, forcing policymakers to anticipate capital flight even without direct lobbying.

Sorting

The political realignment over recent decades wherein political ideology and social identities have aligned almost perfectly with party labels, eliminating ideological overlap between Democrats and Republicans.

Custodial citizenship

A orientation toward civic life acquired by individuals frequently subjected to state surveillance, policing, and punitive authority, teaching them that government exists to control rather than represent them.