Chapter 6: Public Opinion and Political Action
Public opinion - The distribution of the population's beliefs about policies and policy issues
Demography - The science of population changes
Census - An “actual enumeration” of the population, which the Constitution requires that the government conduct every 10 years.
A valuable tool for understanding demographic changes
Melting pot - A term used to characterize the United States, with its history of immigration and mixing of cultures, ideas, and people
Minority majority - The situation, likely beginning in the mid-twenty-first century, in which non-Hispanic whites will represent a minority of the U.S. population and minority groups together will represent a majority
A term used to describe the racial demographic of a nation, not one single race has a majority
Political culture - An overall set of values widely shared within a society
Reapportionment - The process of reallocating seats in the House of Representatives every 10 years on the basis of the results of the Census
Political socialization - The process through which an individual acquires political attitudes, views, and knowledge from, among other sources, the media, and school
Gallup - A company most notable for its public opinion polls
Polls - To record the opinion or vote of someone
Sample - A relatively small proportion of people who are chosen in a survey so as to be representative of the whole
Random sampling - The key technique employed by survey researchers, which operates on the principle that people should have an equal probability of being selected for the sample
Sampling error - The level of confidence in the findings of a public opinion poll.The more people interviewed, the more confident the researchers can be in their results
Exit poll - Public opinion surveys used by major media pollsters to predict electoral winners with spread and precision
Political ideology - A coherent set of beliefs about politics, public policy, and public purpose, which helps give meaning to political events
Liberal - Liberals, in general, support a larger government in the economy
Most commonly, Liberals tend to support policies that benefit the elderly or poor, less military spending, taxes for the rich, pro-abortion, etc.
Conservative - A person who isn’t fond of change and holds traditional values
Libertarian - A person who believes in the political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens
Heavily believes in one's liberty as well
Moderate - a person who holds moderate views, especially in politics
A person who does not conform to either the right nor left
Gender gap - The regular pattern in which women are more likely to support Democratic candidates, In part because they tend to be less conservative than men and more likely to support spending on social services and to oppose higher levels of military spending
The overall gender gap between men and women and the two main political parties. The majority of women tend to lean Democrat, the opposite is true for men
Political participation - All the activities used by citizens to influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue.
Some ways to participate politically include voting, contacting representatives, protesting, or civil disobedience
Conventional participation - Formal or institutional ways of getting active in the political sphere
Includes voting, attending local town hall meetings, contacting elected officials, or even getting active with a political party/committee
Unconventional participation - A less formal/desirable way of getting active in the political sphere
Protest - A form of political participation designed to achieve policy change through dramatic and unconventional tactics
Civil disobedience - A form of political participation based on a conscious decision to break the law believed to be unjust and to suffer the consequences
Inequality in political participation - when various groups are left out of the political sphere or excluded from various political rights