Political Science Midterm

Midterm

Oligarchy

**government by the few**

Initiative

process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature by placing proposed statutes and, in some states, constitutional amendments on the ballot

Plurality

the winning candidate takes more votes than any other candidate but does not garner a majority

Direct Democracy

a form of government in which policies and laws are decided by a majority of all those eligible rather than by a body of elected representatives

Referendum

a general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision

Federalism

**mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its own integrity**

Popular Consent

**political concept that refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised**

Recall

**the process by which citizens can remove elected officials from office before their term is completed**

Impoundment

**An action taken by the president in which he or she proposes not to spend all or part of a sum of money appropriated by Congress**

Marble cake federalism

cooperative federalism/model of federalism holds that the local, state, and national governments do not act in separate spheres, but instead have interrelated policy goals and administrative duties

Confederation

a union of sovereign groups or states united for purposes of common action

Judicial Review

**power of the courts of a country to examine the actions of the legislative, executive, and administrative arms of the government and to determine whether such actions are consistent with the constitution**

Implied Powers

**political powers granted to the United States government that aren’t explicitly stated in the Constitution**

Dual Federalism

**political arrangement or a system of governance where the federal and state governments have separate and distinct powers, responsibilities, and resources, without interfering with each other**

Partisanship

**quality or state of being partisan, which means having strong and sometimes blind adherence, loyalty, or support for a person, group, party, faction, cause, or ideology, often without fair consideration of the facts and circumstances**

Unitary System

**a system of political organization in which most or all of the governing power resides in a centralized government, in contrast to a federal state**

Socioeconomic Status

**social standing or class of an individual or group**

Ethnocentrism

**tendency or attitude to judge other cultures by one's own culture or standards**

Political Socialization

**the process by which people develop their political knowledge, values, and ideology**

Reinforcing cleavages

**social and economic differences reinforce each other**

Cross-cutting Cleavages

**national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious divisions that affect political allegiances and policies**

Gross Domestic Product

**total market value of the goods and services produced by a country’s economy during a specified period of time**

Sun belt

a region of the United States generally considered stretching across the Southeast and Southwest

American Exceptionalism

the idea that the **United States is inherently different from other nations**

Public Sector Interest Groups

a **nonprofit association or group operating outside government that advocates and pursues policy objectives**

Lobbyist

**one who conducts activities aimed at influencing or swaying public officials and especially members of a legislative body on legislation**

Faction

composed of individuals or representatives of organizations that share a political aim or a set of political beliefs

Social Movements

**a loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values**

Federal Register

1. **a daily publication of the US federal government that issues proposed and final administrative regulations of federal agencies**

Soft Money

**positions where the funding source is based on external grants and contracts**

Issue Network

a coalition of interest groups and people who join together to advocate for a specific problem and for changing a government policy that pertains to that problem

Open shop/Closed shop

a system whereby employees in a place of work are not required to join a labor union

Dealignment

a trend or process whereby a large portion of the electorate abandons its previous partisan affiliation, without developing a new one to replace it

Patronage

a situation in which a person is rewarded for supporting a particular politician, such as campaigning or voting for them

Caucus

a closed meeting of a group of persons belonging to the same **political** party or faction usually to select candidates or to decide on policy

Direct Primary

a primary in which nominations of candidates for office are made by direct vote

Honeymoon

**a period of popularity enjoyed by a new leader**

Platform

a document stating the aims and principles of a **political** party

Hard Money

**the regulated funds that donors contribute to political candidates running for federal office**

United Government

The three distinct branches of the government

Selective Exposure

the motivated selection of messages matching one’s beliefs

Latency

**Political opinions that are held but not yet expressed**

Intensity

**an important source of organization among political attitudes**

Salience

the importance of issues, particularly for voters

Primary Elections

**an election to select candidates to run for public office**

Canidate Appeal

**one that aspires to or is nominated or qualified for an office, membership, or award**

Retrospective Issue Voting

voting for a candidate because you like his or her past actions in office

Midterm election

**general elections that occur every four years in the middle of the U.S. presidential term**