AP United States Government - Unit 4 - Chapters 4, 7, 8

unit 4 is small. prepare for unit 5

Political culture

a patterned and sustained way of thinking about how political and economic life ought to be carried out

Civic duty

a belief that one has an obligation to participate in civic and political affairs

Civic competence

a belief that one can affect government politics

Class-consciousness

a belief that one is a member of an economic group whose interests are opposed to people in other such groups

Orthodox

a belief that morality and religion ought to be of decisive importance

Progressive

a belief that personal freedom and solving social problems are more important than religion

Civil society

voluntary action that makes cooperation easier

Public opinion

how people think or feel about particular things

Poll

a survey of public opinion

Random sampling

method of selecting from a population in which each person has an equal probability of being selected

Sampling error

the difference between the results of random samples taken at the same time

Exit polls

polls based on interviews conducted on election day with randomly selected voters

Question wording

the way in which survey questions are phrased, which influences how respondents answer them

Political socialization

process by which one’s family influences one’s political views

Impressionable years hypothesis

argument that political experiences during the teens and early 20s powerfully shapes attitudes for the rest of the life cycle

Gender gap

difference in political views between men and women

Partisanship

an individual’s identification with a party; whether they consider themselves a Democrat, Republican, or Independent

Party sorting

the alignment of partisanship and issue positions so that Democrats tend to take more liberal positions and Republicans tend to take more conservative ones

Political ideology

a more or less consistent set of beliefs about what policies government ought to pursue

Political elites

persons with a disproportionate share of political power

Heuristics

informational shortcuts used by voters to make a decision

Political participation

the many different ways that people take part in politics and government

Voting-age population (VAP)

citizens who are eligible to vote after reaching the minimum age requirement

Voting-eligible population (VEP)

citizens who have reached the minimum age to be eligible to vote, excluding those who are not legally permitted to cast a ballot

Literacy test

a requirement that citizens show that they can read before registering to vote

Poll tax

a requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote

Grandfather clause

a clause in registration laws allowing people who do not meet registration requirements to vote if they or their ancestors had voted before 1867

White primary

the practice of keeping blacks from voting in the southern states’ primaries through arbitrary use of registration requirements and intimidation

Australian ballot

a government-printed ballot of uniform dimension to be cast in secret that many states adopted around 1890 to reduce voting fraud associated with party-printed ballots cast in public

Voter identification laws

laws requiring citizens to show a government-issued photo ID in order to vote

Activists

people who tend to participate in all forms of politics