POS2041 Final Exam Study Guide PDF

POS2041 Final Exam Study Guide Lecture 12: Political Parties What did the founding fathers think about parties? How quickly did we get parties? What is the first function of parties? What is a long coalition? What are their goals? What is the second func...

POS2041 Final Exam Study Guide Lecture 12: Political Parties What did the founding fathers think about parties? How quickly did we get parties? What is the first function of parties? What is a long coalition? What are their goals? What is the second function of parties? What are some aspects of it? What is the third function of parties? What does it mean to be a heuristic or identity?  What is the fourth function of parties? What is an Intense Policy Demander? You don’t need to know details about each party system, but you should have a general sense of what parties do and don’t stand for across time. How do the parties “flip” in terms of issues/coalitions in the 1960s? What is Duverger’s Law? How does it explain our two-party system? What are some other major disadvantages third parties face? Can they ever succeed?  Lecture 13: Polarization What is ideological polarization? Is it happening among the public? How have political elites polarized? What is “asymmetric” polarization? What is coalitional polarization? What’s the difference between sorting and polarization? What is ideological sorting? Demographic sorting? Geographic sorting? Examples? What is affective polarization? Examples of its change over time?  What are some consequences of polarization? How did interest groups contribute to polarization? How did elected officials contribute to polarization? What are some other, later causes of polarization?  Lecture 14: Political Psychology What is the difference between operational and symbolic ideology? How ideological are people? What are some big ideological disconnects in the student poll? How often are moderates “moderate”? Why is this sometimes hard to tell? What are the moral foundations? How do they differ across partisans?  What factors explain where our partisanship and attitudes generally come from? What is the R-A-S model? How does it explain our attitudes? What is motivated reasoning? The backfire effect? How hard is it to persuade others?  Lecture 15: The Media What are the media’s main goals? Which is most important to them? What is the difference between bias and accuracy? Which is more important? What is “horse-race coverage”? Why is it problematic? What type of person is most easily persuaded by the media? Why?  What is the difference between a one-message and a two-message environment? What is agenda-setting? Examples of different networks doing it? What is priming? What is framing? What’s the difference? What are some effects of online media and cable news media? Be specific.  Lecture 16: Attitudes and Polling What explains why polling in the 2020 election was inaccurate? How does sample size impact accuracy? Can an 800-person sample be accurate? How accurate are polls generally? What is some evidence? What is social desirability bias? Why is it a problem for polling?  What does it mean to have “meaningful” attitudes? What is “stability”? How stable are the public’s attitudes generally? What leads to stability? What is “robustness”? How robust are attitudes generally? What does it mean that the public “fails to consider tradeoffs”?  Lecture 17: Voting, Campaigns, and Elections What is the Australian Ballot? How did we vote prior to using it? What are ballot measures (referendums, initiatives, propositions?) What is the Invisible Primary? Why does it matter? How does voter turnout compare to other countries? Why is it that way? Understand the “voter turnout equation”, and how it works.  What are some “benefits” of voting? What are some “costs”? What are the most significant factors that determine voter turnout? What are some ways to increase voter turnout? How much of a problem is voter fraud? What about voter suppression? What factors determine vote choice? How important are campaigns? Why might they be less effective than we think?  Lecture 18: Race and Ethnicity What is the difference between “race” and “ethnicity”? What is the difference between “de jure” and “de facto” racism? What are some psychological and institutional sources of racism? What are the major features of outgroup stereotyping? What problems did freed slaves face after the Civil War?  What is redlining? Why does it matter? What is meant by the phrase “the new Jim Crow”? What is implicit bias? What is its relationship to police shootings/prosecutions? Lecture 19: Immigration Historically, when does immigration fall? Why? When does it rise? Why? What does public opinion about immigration look like over time? When, and under what circumstances, do different Asian/Latino groups migrate?  What are sanctuary laws? Why do they get adopted? What are some major current issues in immigration policy? Lecture 20: American Political Culture Who is Tocqueville? What did he believe about Americans? What are the widely agreed-upon aspects of the American Creed? To what extent does speaking English matter to being American?  What is birthright citizenship? Where does it come from? What are its requirements? What is nativism? When was it popular? How was it linked to party politics? What is multiculturalism? Why does it grow as a popular viewpoint? What are some ways that America is “exceptional” from the rest of the world?  Lecture 21: Organized Politics What difficulties do groups face when trying to organize politically? What are “concentrated” versus “diffuse” groups? Which organize more easily? What is Group Consciousness? What are the differences between interest groups and social movements? What are some tools interest groups use to gain influence?  What are some tools social movements use to gain influence? What is pluralism? What is biased pluralism? Lecture 22: Money in Politics What did the Tillman Act do? Why was this ineffective? What did the Taft-Hartley Act do (to money in politics)? Why was this ineffective? What did the FEC Act do? What is a PAC?  What did the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act do? What did the Citizens United case do? What is a Super PAC? Advantages? Disadvantages? Effects? What are some reasons to be skeptical that money “buys” policy? What do political scientists think is the actual effect of campaign donations?  What do lobbyists do? Why are they important? What is revolving door politics? Why does it matter? Lecture 23: Economic Inequality What are some reasons to care about economic inequality? How unequal is wealth/income in the US? Perception vs. reality vs. ideal?  How does inequality in the United States compare to other OECD countries? How does inequality in the United States change over time? What is the argument that diversity explains inequality? Evidence? What is the argument that globalization explains inequality? Evidence? What is the argument that technology explains inequality? Evidence?  How do veto points, gridlock, drift, and lobbying explain inequality? What are some policies that lobbyists have championed, leading to inequality? What does public opinion on economic inequality look like? What are some common proposals for reducing our inequality?  Lectures 24 and 25: Democratic Accountability What is “democratic accountability”? What is the “miracle of aggregation”? How does it work? Why doesn’t this “miracle” cause politicians to represent us well? What are some problems with “heuristics” as a solution to our problems?  What is attribute substitution? How does it create problems? What is meant by “follow the leader”? How is it a problem for accountability? What is “retrospective voting”? How is it “unfair but effective”? How does federalism create problems for retrospective voting? What is myopia? What problems does it create for retrospective voting?  What are “selective perception” & “selective attribution”? What problems do they cause? What are some examples of voters being “irrational” in retrospective voting? What does the evidence say about “who” gets represented in American politics? What are some reasons that the wealthy get much better representation?