Political Science Practice Flashcards

Practice flashcards covering media roles, polling methodologies, campaign finance, economic inequality, democratic accountability, and current racial and immigration issues based on Lecture 14-19 and PORL poll data.

Fourth Estate

A term used to refer to the media as the fourth branch of government, protected by the First Amendment's freedom of speech and press.

Fairness Doctrine

A policy established in 1949 and ended in 1987 that required broadcasters to present multiple points of view on controversial issues.

FCC (Federal Communications Commission)

An independent agency started in 1934 to regulate media and communications.

Horse-race Coverage

Media coverage that focuses on 'who’s ahead, who’s behind' and treats politics as a sport rather than explaining policies or procedures.

Agenda Setting

The process by which the media chooses what to cover, thereby influencing the day-to-day subjects that receive public attention.

Priming

The media's determination of what information is presented and what is ignored, causing a political figure to become associated with specific traits, events, or ideas.

Framing

The media's emphasis on a specific context or angle from which a story should be considered, often used to present information in a partisan way.

Sampling Bias

A problem in polling where the selected sample is different from the intended population, often leading to inaccurate results.

Non-Response Bias

A bias that occurs when those who respond to a poll are systematically different from those who do not respond, a factor blamed for underestimating Republican support in 2016 and 2020.

Social Desirability Bias

The tendency of survey respondents to provide answers they believe are socially acceptable rather than their true beliefs.

Bradley Effect

The phenomenon where controversial candidates may have undercounted support in polls because respondents are hesitant to admit their support to pollsters.

Margin of Error (MoE)

A mathematical measure of the accuracy of a poll; for a sample size of $1,000$, the MoE is typically around $3\%$, and it increases as the sample size decreases.

Miracle of Aggregation

The theory that even if individual attitudes are unstable ('noise'), collective public opinion is stable ('signal') because random errors cancel each other out over time.

Interest Groups

Groups that are often materialistic and single-issue (e.g., corporate, labor unions), characterized by being professionalized and having small or wealthy memberships.

Social Movements

Large, ideological, and multi-issue groups that are often resource-poor and dependent on volunteers and group consciousness.

PAC (Political Action Committee)

Legal vehicles for giving, receiving, and spending political money; for individuals, donations are limited to $2800 per candidate per election and $5000 per PAC per election.

Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

A SCOTUS ruling that corporations and labor unions have First Amendment rights to engage in unlimited campaign spending, leading to the creation of Super PACs.

Super PAC

A political group that can receive and spend unlimited money with donor anonymity, but is prohibited from coordinating directly with candidates or parties.

Tullock’s Paradox

The observation that corporations and the wealthy get very high returns on investment for donating relatively small amounts to political campaigns.

Revolving Door Politics

The practice where lobbyists persuade politicians to help them by offering high-paying jobs in lobbying firms after the officials leave office.

Economic Inequality

The unequal distribution of income (money earned annually) or wealth (accumulation of assets) across a population.

Gini Coefficient

A measure of relative inequality within a population; the United States is a consistent outlier with higher inequality compared to other OECD nations.

Drift

Inequality caused by the inability of government policy to keep up with a changing world, often because major policies are not indexed to inflation.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut used to make quick judgments, such as using Party ID as a shorthand for voting, which avoids the need for slow, deliberate research.

Voter Myopia

The tendency for voters to only evaluate very recent economic performance when deciding how to vote in an election.

Sociotropic Voting

Voting behavior where individuals focus on the 'general mood' of the national economy rather than their personal economic circumstances.

De Jure Racism

Legal provisions expressly written on racial lines, such as the Black Codes or Jim Crow laws.

De Facto Racism

Racism practiced outside the law or by using proxies to discriminate, such as redlining or Northern segregation.

Redlining

The systematic denial of housing or underwriting in certain areas based on race, preventing families of color from accumulating generational wealth.

Implicit Bias

Automatic associations or unconscious biases that influence snap judgments, such as threat assessment or age estimation, measured by the Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT).

Sanctuary Laws

State or local laws that limit local officers from enforcing federal immigration laws or partnering with federal agencies like ICE.

Monroe Doctrine

A foundational American foreign policy stating that the U.S. would not interfere in world affairs and that Europe must stay out of the Western Hemisphere.

Dr. Freeder

The individual cited in the PORL results who noted that perceptions of the algae pool issue vary by party and that ballot language significantly impacts support for property tax amendments.