Politcal Parties and Election Vocab - AP Gov

Political Parties and Elections Vocabulary

Attentive public – Those citizens who follow public affairs carefully.  

Candidate appeal – How voters feel about a candidate’s background, personality, leadership  ability, and other personal qualities.  

Caucus – A meeting of local party members to choose party officials or candidates for public  office and to decide the platform.  

Centralists – People who favor national action over action at the state and local levels. Closed primary – Primary election in which only persons registered in the party holding the  primary may vote. 

Coattail effect – The boost that candidates may get in an election because of the popularity of  candidates above them on the ballot, especially the president.  Conservatism – A belief that limited government insures order competitive markets and  personal opportunity. 

Cross-cutting cleavages – Divisions within society that cut across demographic categories to  produce groups that are more heterogeneous or different.  

Crossover voting – Voting by member of one party for a candidate of another party. 

Dealignment – Weakening of partisan preferences that points to a rejection of both major parties  and a rise in the number of independents. 

Decentralists – People who favor state or local action rather than national action.   

Democratic consensus – Widespread agreement on fundamental principles of democratic  governance and the values that undergird them.  

Demographics – The study of the characteristics of populations.  

Direct primary – Election in which voters choose party nominees.  

Divided government – Governance divided between the parties, especially when one holds the  presidency and the other controls one or both houses of Congress.  

Electoral college – Electoral system used in electing the president and vice president, in which  voters vote for electors pledged to cast their ballots for particular party’s candidates.  

Ethnocentrism – Belief in the superiority of one’s nation or ethnic group.  

Fundamentalists – Conservative Christians who (as a group) have become more active in  politics in the last two decades and were especially influential in the 2000 presidential election.  

Gender gap – The difference between the political opinions or political behavior of men and of  women. 

General election – Elections in which voters elect officeholders.  

Green party – A minor party dedicated to the environment, social justice, nonviolence, and the  foreign policy of nonintervention. Ralph Nader ran as the Green party’s nominee in 2000.  

Liberalism – A belief that government can and should achieve justice and equality of  opportunity.  

Libertarianism – An ideology that cherishes individual liberty and insists on minimal  government, promoting a free market economy, a noninterventionist foreign policy, and an  absence of regulation in moral, economic, and social life.

Libertarian party – A minor party that believes in extremely limited government. Libertarians  call for a free market system, expanded individual liberties such as drug legalization, and a  foreign policy of nonintervention, free trade, and open immigration.  Majority – The candidate or party that wins more than half the votes cast in an election.  

Midterm election – Elections held midway between presidential elections. 

Minor party – A small political party that rises and falls with a charismatic candidate or, if  composed of ideologies on the right or left, usually persists over time; also called a third party.

Name recognition – Incumbents have an advantage over challengers in election campaigns  because voters are more familiar with them, and incumbents are more recognizable.  

National tide – The inclination to focus on national issues, rather than local issues, in an election  campaign. The impact of the national tide can be reduced by the nature of the candidates on the  ballot who might have differentiated themselves from their party or its leader if the tide is  negative, as well as competition in the election.  

National party convention – A national meeting of delegates elected at primaries, caucuses, or  state conventions who assemble once every four years to nominate candidates for president and  vice president, ratify the party platform, elect officers, and adopt rules.  

Open primary – Primary election in which any voter, regardless of party, may vote.  

Party convention – A meeting of party delegates to vote on matters of policy and in some cases  to select party candidates for public office.  

Party identification – An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most  people acquire in childhood.  

Party registration – The act of declaring party affiliation; required by some states when one  registers to vote.  

Plurality – Candidate or party with the most votes cast in an election, not necessarily more than  half.  

Political ideology – A consistent pattern of beliefs about political values and the role of  government. 

Political party – An organization that seeks political power by electing people to office so that  its positions and philosophy become public policy.  

Political predisposition – A characteristic of individuals that is predictive of political behavior.

Political socialization – The process by which we develop our political attitudes, values, and  beliefs.  

Presidential election – Elections held in years when the president is on the ballot.  

Primary election – Elections in which voters determine party nominees.  

Proportional representation – An election system in which each party running receives the  proportion of legislative seats corresponding to its proportion of the vote. 

Prospective issue voting – Voting based on what a candidate pledges to do in the future about  an issue if elected.  

Public opinion – The distribution of individual preferences or evaluations of a given issue,  candidate, or institution within a specific population.  

Random sample – In this type of sample, every individual has unknown and random chance of  being selected.  

Realigning election – An election during periods of expanded suffrage and change in the  economy and society that proves to be a turning point, redefining the agenda of politics and the  alignment of voters within parties. 

Recall – Procedure for submitting to popular vote the removal of officials from office before the  end of their term.  

Reform party – A minor party founded by Ross Perot in 1995. It focuses on national  government reform, fiscal responsibility, and political accountability. It has recently struggled  with internal strife and criticism that it lacks an identity.  

Reinforcing cleavages – Divisions within society that reinforce one another, making groups  more homogenous or similar.  

Retrospective issue of voting – Holding incumbents, usually the president’s party, responsible  for their records on issues, such as the economy or foreign policy.   

Safe seat – Elected office that is predictably won by one party or the other, so the success of the  party’s candidate is almost taken for granted.  

Single-member district – An electoral district in which voters choose one representative or  official.  

Socialism - An economic and governmental system based on public ownership of the means of  production and exchange.  

Turnout – The proportion of the voting age public that votes, sometimes defined as the number  of registered voters that vote.  

Voter registration – System designed to reduce voter fraud by limiting voting to those who  have established eligibility to vote by submitting the proper documents.  

Winner-take-all system – Election system in which the candidate with the most votes wins.