Federalism, Political Culture, and Parties Lecture Notes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering federalism, state and local government, American political culture, political parties, voting, elections, and political psychology based on the lecture slides.

Unitary State

A system where power is centralized at the national level.

Confederation

A system where most power is held at local and/or regional levels, such as early America or the European Union.

Federation

A system where power is shared between local and national governments.

Layer Cake Federalism

Also known as Dual Federalism, it is characterized by distinct layers of government authority that do not intersect.

Marble Cake Federalism

Also known as Cooperative Federalism, it describes a system where some powers are exclusive to national or local governments while others are shared.

Elastic Clause

Also known as the 'necessary and proper clause,' it grants Congress the power to make all laws necessary and proper for executing its constitutional duties.

Commerce Clause

A constitutional provision giving Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states.

Police Powers

Reserved powers held by the state governments to regulate the health, safety, and morals of the public.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

A SCOTUS case ruling that the Necessary and Proper Clause grants implied powers and that states cannot mess with the federal level due to the Supremacy Clause.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

A SCOTUS ruling that established a wide scope for the Commerce Clause, defining commerce as anything between states.

NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel (1937)

A case where the SCOTUS expanded the Commerce Clause, ruling that the federal government could guarantee union rights.

Wickard v. Filburn (1942)

A SCOTUS ruling that even a farmer's own crops intended for animal feed could be considered interstate commerce under federal oversight.

United States v. Lopez (1995)

A modern era case that shrunk the influence of the Commerce Clause by ruling it does not cover the regulation of carrying guns in school zones.

Fiscal Federalism

The practice of the federal government providing grants to states to incentivize them to adopt specific policies.

Laboratories of Democracy

A theory of federalism suggesting that local experimentation lead to the best policies which can later be adopted at the national level.

Race to the Bottom

A disadvantage of federalism where state competition leads to worse public outcomes, such as lower tax rates or reduced minimum wage and benefits.

Line-item veto

A power held by many governors, but not the POTUS, allowing them to veto specific parts of a budget bill.

Dillon’s Rule

A legal principle that state laws take precedence over local ones, functioning like the Supremacy Clause at the state level.

American Political Culture

The social attitudes, behaviors, and expectations that distinguish the politics of the United States from other countries.

Alexis de Tocqueville

The author of 'Democracy in America' (1835) who observed that American culture was formed by those leaving Europe due to religion or class.

The American Creed

The core set of ideological beliefs generally shared by Americans, including Classical Liberalism, Egalitarianism, and Popular Sovereignty.

Nativism

A belief popular in the late 19th century in the superiority of non-immigrants in the United States over groups like the Irish or Italians.

Multiculturalism

The idea that a nation can successfully consist of various retained cultures sitting alongside a shared culture.

Religiosity

The extent of engagement with religion; Americans have higher levels relative to most other advanced democracies.

Individualism

An emphasis on the individual over the collective; a key trait of American exceptionalism.

Class Consciousness

The awareness of being part of a social or economic class; it is notably weaker in the U.S. compared to similar countries.

Long Coalitions

Power-sharing arrangements in government (parties) that ensure members vote together and avoid splitting the group.

The Era of Good Feelings

A period of low partisanship between 1816 and 1824 after the collapse of the Federalist Party.

Sixth Party System

The current American party system, beginning around 1980, characterized by high polarization and geographic divides.

Republican Revolution

The 1994 midterm election where Republicans gained 54 House seats and majority control for the first time since 1952.

Duverger’s Law

The principle that elections in pluralist systems will inevitably result in only two major political parties.

Suffrage

The legal right to vote in elections.

Australian Ballot

A comprehensive, publicly-funded, and secret ballot that eliminated party machines and intimidation.

Invisible Primary

The period where party elites attempt to control outcomes using money and endorsements before official voting begins.

Rational Choice Theory

The modeling of human behavior by measuring if the benefits of an action, like voting, outweigh the costs.

Voter Turnout Formula

$\text{Benefits} > \text{Costs}$ expressed as $p(B) + D > C$, where $p$ is the probability of the decisive vote and $D$ represents intrinsic benefits.

Voter Suppression

A situation where legally eligible voters are unable to vote or their ballots are not counted.

Dual Process Theory

A psychological theory describing System 1 (fast, automatic) and System 2 (slow, effortful) thinking.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut used by System 1 processing to make decisions quickly.

Moral Foundations Theory

The theory that attitudes result from automatic moral reactions determined by genetics and environment across six categories like Care/Harm and Fairness/Cheating.

Zaller’s R-A-S Model

A model of mass opinion stating that people Receive messages, decide whether to Accept them, and then Sample from memory when asked an opinion.

Motivated Reasoning

The tendency for emotionally invested individuals to reject conflicting information and rationalize existing beliefs.

Backfire Effect

The phenomenon where providing new information to someone actually strengthens their original incorrect belief.

Affective Polarization

A condition where partisans increasingly distrust and dislike members of the opposing political party.

Asymmetric Polarization

A phenomenon in Congress where Republicans have shifted towards the ideological extreme far more than Democrats since the 1970s.