Concurrent US Government chapters 5-8
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In a 2014 Gallup poll __ percent of Americans supported affording gay marriage the same legal status as traditional marriage.
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54
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The basic definition of public opinion is
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the collective attitudes of citizens on a given issue or question.
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the framers guessed that the ____ would reflect public opinion, especially on the crucial issues of taxes and gov. spending.
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House of Reprsentatives
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one critique that pluralists make of the public as a whole is that
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the public seldom demonstrates clear, consistent opinions on daily issues of gov.
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which of the following statements reflects the role public opinion should play according to the majoritarian model of democracy?
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government should do what a majority of the public wants.
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historians estimate that ___ percent of Americans supported the Revolution in July 1776.
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40
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a January 2014 poll showed that ___ percent of Americans knew that the Affordable Care Act prohibits companies from denying health insurance to people because of any illness they may have.
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54
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the goal of the statistical theory of samplingis
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to reflect the views of the population with some predictable degree of accuracy.
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today, the mass media conduct most polls by
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telephone.
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the accuracy of the population sample used for the public opinion polls depends on
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randomness of selection, size of sample, and variation in the population,
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A sample of 600 randomly selected individuals is usually accurate to (plus or minus)
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5% points
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recently, media outlets have started including ____ in their samples, particularly in response to the habits of younger Americans.
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cellphones
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one of the nation's oldest polls, the ___ , was started n the 1930s and was most notably wrong in 1948 when it predicted that Thomas Dewey, the republican candidate, would defeat the democratic, Harry Truman in the Presidential election.
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Gallup Poll
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a typical gallup national poll surveys approx. ___ individuals
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1,500
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in 19 presidential elections since 1936, gallup polls have been deviated from actual results by
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lss than 1.0 percent point.
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public opinion polls can be criticized on the grounds that
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the way a pollster words a question can determine the answer.
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when sampled, the public strongly favors the death penalty for certain crimes. the graph of such a distribution would be characterized as
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skewed.
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a polling company surveying public opinion on obama's health-care plan finds public opinion to be almost evenly divided, for and against. the graph of such a distribution would be characterized as
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bimodal
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a symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution around a single mode is called a
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normal distribution
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the most frequent response (such as "I favor") in a public opinion distribution is known as
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mode
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a distribution of opinions that shows little change over time is a
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stable
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when Americans are asked to identify themselves on left-right ideological scale, the data plotted on the graph is a
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skewed distrubution
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since surveying the American public about ideology began, the ideological distribution of the public has become
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skewed toward conservatism
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today, college students are much more ____ than the general public
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liberal
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the process whereby one becomes aware of politics, learns political facts, and forms political values is called
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political socialization
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the extent to which any socializing agent is influential depends on
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prolonged exposure to and good communication with the agent, as well as being receptive.
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generally, the first agent of political socialization that people are exposed to is
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family
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children are likely to adopt their parent's party identification when
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both parents strongly identify with the same party.
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young Americans are more reliably socialized into their parent's religions when
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both parents follow the same religion.
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the _____ principle indicates that what is learned first is learned best.
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primacy`
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Learning political party identification from parents is known as the ____ model of partnership
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transmission
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the major agents of early socialization in the united states are
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family, school, community, and peers.
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when elementary schools introduce students to authority figures outside the family, like the teacher, they prepare students for the value of ___; when they stress norms of democratic decision making and respecting the opinions of others, they teach
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order;equality
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the political knowledge of many young adults changes from high school to college if the college student's education includes
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exposure to third parties.
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the first political institution that young children tend to focus on is the
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president
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as students move from elementary school, to high school, their political socialization tends to transition from knowledge of ___ to development of _____.
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patriotic ritual;good citizenship.
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pressure on an individual to conform to community values or views is strongest whe
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the community is homogeneous.
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as parental and school influences wane in adulthood, ____ emerge as more important socialization agents
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adult peer groups and the mass media.
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a respondent who agrees with the statement "By law, a woman should be ale to obtain an abortion as a matter of personal choice" values
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freedom over order.
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according to the 2012 American National Election Study, about ___ percent of Americans believe the gov. should permit abortions in many, if not all, instances
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61`
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as a general trend, college-educated individuals are more likely to choose
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freedom over social order.
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individuals with higher education and income tend to favor __ over __
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freedom; order or equality
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in the presidential elections since 1968, the South has tended to vote
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for republican candidates.
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which of the following statements concerning Latinos is incorrect
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Latinos are a racial group.
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the contemporary political "gender gap" refers to the tendency of women to
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identify more with the democratic party than men do.
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the set of values and beliefs that a person holds about the purpose and scope of gov. is called
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political ideology.
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with respect to religion, the group that has grown rapidly in the 21st century and now makes up almost 20% of the American population is
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unaffiliated
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which of the following statements concerning ideological "moderates" is correct?
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many people identify as "moderates" because they do not understand the alternatives.
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in the current American context, a liberal would tend to promote
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business and gov. policy ahead of social order.
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in the current American context, a communitarian would tend to promote
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both order and equality over freedom.
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a libertarian is most likely to exhibit the characteristics of
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high income and high education.
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about __ of immigrants in America are undocumented.
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a third.
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the fact that ideological conservatives believed even more strongly that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before 2003 war after they were informed that subsequent investigations concluded that this was not true is an example of the
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backfire effect
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lack of political knowledge among individual Americans makes the ____ model more difficult to sustain
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Majoritarian.
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according to the self-interest principle, people tend to
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choose what benefits them personally.
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In the united states today, the mass media
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provide a two-way channel of communication between the people and the government.
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the traditional division of mass media into ___ has become made problematic by the
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print and broadcast.
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A poll of Americans who had seen or heard of Michael Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko found that _____ changed their mind and said health-care reform was more necessary.
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nearly half.
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a recent example of popular music conveying a political message is "Born this way: by Lady Gaga, which focuses on
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bullying.
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the first newspapers in the US were
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financed by political parties that advocated party causes.
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Newspapers did not move toward independent ownership and large circulation until
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the 1830s.
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___ occurs when a media outlet such as a magazine informs a relatively small number of group leaders who follow news in a specific area, and those leaders in turn mobilize their followers to put pressure on public officials
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the two-step flow of communication.
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Journalistic norms of objectivity and accuracy grew, some say, because of
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lack of competition, allowing focus on quality rather than sensationalism.
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counting both print and online users, news readership of newspapers
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is up overall.
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to stay in business in the digital age, many newspapers have ____ their online content, with varying degrees of success.
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instituted paywalls for
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_____ are group leaders who follow news in specific areas
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Attentive policy elites.
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the first media technology to make broadcast journalist into household names was
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radio
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despite new technological options, and despite criticism that in its current form it polarizes politics in an unhealthy way, ___ of Americans listen to traditional AM/FM radio weekly.
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90%
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the internet was started
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in 1969, with support from the US Department of Defense.
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___ percent surveyed adults indicated that they learned about the 2008 political campaign from comedy shows like the Daily Show, The Colbert Report, or SNL
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30%
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more and more, cable news seems analogous to
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early partisan newspapers.
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early TV network news programs focused their evening news on an
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"anchorman"
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some research indicates that people who watch partisan news become
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more extreme in their politics.
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reaction to a film posted on Youtube made by an Egyptian-American that mocked the muslim prophet Muhammad is an example of the influence of new media platforms; that they
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impact the types of stories that get picked up by the "mainstream media".
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The amount of information online is so vast that most people rely on ___ to help them determine which news is real and important.
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the mainstream media.
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Chinese political activists have used inflatable ducks and legos to
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recreate the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in a way that avoid censors.
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a country where he gov. heavily censors internet news and search engines is
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China.
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private ownership of the media in the US makes the American news industry
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dependent on advertising revenues
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a 2011 news analysis found that cable TV was particularly devoted to ___ whereas online news sites and newspapers provided more coverage of ___.
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election coverage; foreign affairs.
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a story that contains no policy content and is not related to the day's events but that commonly discusses popular personalities and is designed to draw greater viewer interest is
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infortainment.
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newspapers owned by publicly-traded chains are more likely to
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resort to negative or positive spin on the news.
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in response to financial stress, some suggested that newspapers operate as ____, allowing them to be funded through endowments, donations, and perhaps gov. support.
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nonprofits.
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regarding the internet, the federal Communications Commission FCC
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does not have jurisdiction to regulate internet content.
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the telecommunications Act of 1996
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relaxed the rules governing media ownership.
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the text suggests that the early days of radio, owners sought gov. regulation of the airwaves to
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restrict others' freedom to enter broadcasting and compete.
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the current debate about " net neutrality" concerns whether
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ISPs should be allowed to charge people more if they consume a large amount of bandwidth.
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the __ Amendment prohibits Congress from abridging freedom of the press.
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First.
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the reasonable access rule required
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the press to refrain from publishing strategic information during wartime.
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the now-abolished____ obligated broadcasters to discuss issues and to provide equal coverage of all opinions on those issues.
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fairness doctrine.
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the fairness doctrine, the equal opportunities rule, the reasonable access rule are all rules under which FCC has
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regulate broadcast media content.
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which president first provided space in the White house for reporters?
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Theodore Roosevelt.
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advocates of dropping FCC content regulations believe that
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broadcast media should be treated the same as other media.
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the phrase " on background" means that media are permitted to
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anonymously quote material without identifying the source.
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most news printed about Congress comes from
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congressional press releases and prepared reports.
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officials send out ___ when they intentionally leak news to gauge the reaction of the public or other political leaders.
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trial balloons.
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the phrase "off the record" means that media
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are not allowed to print the information.
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the media executives, news editors, and prominent reporters who decide which events to report and how to report them are known as
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gatekeepers.
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content analysis of network news suggests that most coverage focuses on
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the president.
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during a presidential election, the tendency of journalists to limit coverage of campaigns to coverage of which candidate is leading or behind in the polls at the time, rather than chiefly covering 'issues, is known as
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horse race journalism.
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until the early 1960s, most Americans cited ___ as the source from which they got most of their news.
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newspapers.
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after a 2012 election, which of the following received the lowest rating from Americans?
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the media.
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currently, __ is (are) most Americans' primary news source
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television.
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the "television hypothesis" is the belief that television
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is to blame for the low level of citizens' knowledge about public affairs.
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general entertainment programming that often includes discussions of political affairs, such as the Daily Show, the Today Show, and the View is called.
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soft news.
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research on the impact of soft news finds it
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all these choices are true.
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when the media regularly focus public attention on violent crime, political corruption, or economic woes, they are engaged in
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agenda Setting.
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most politicians and many scholars believe that the media's greatest influence on politics is ability to
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set the political agenda.
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crime rates fell in every major category from the 1980s until very recently, but as one journalist said, " crime coverage is not editorially driven; it's___
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economically driven.
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how do the mass media influence the socialization process?
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they play contradictory roles, sometimes promoting popular support for government and sometimes eroding public confidence in it.
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available evidence seems to indicate that there are ___ among journalists and reporters.
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liberal leanings.
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available evidence seems to indicate that there are _____ among editors and owners of the major news media.
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conservative leanings.
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it is quite possible that campaign coverage is affected by an ___ among journalists.
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anti-incumbent bias.
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when excluding horserace stories, media coverage of Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential campaign, compared to coverage of Obama, was
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about the same.
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which of the following statements is most accurate?
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the media in the US have played an important role in advancing equality.
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representatives of the mass media frequently defend the importance of freedom of the press, even if it comes at the expense of
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order.
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a 2006 survey found that if the government feels information threatens national security, ____ Americans favor gov. censorship.
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about a third of.
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the text defines ___ as the actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or support gov. and politics.
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political participation.
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one criterion that me met for a country to be democratic is that it must
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have more than one political party.
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Timothy McVeigh bombed the Oklahoma City Federal building because he
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believed the US gov. had become a police state.
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according to the text, violent unconventional political participation is
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sometimes worth the risk.
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which of the following was the first known act of unconventional participation in America?
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The Boston Tea Party.
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political scientists know less about unconventional forms of political participation because
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they are biased toward institutionalized, or conventional , politics, and it's easier to collect data on conventional practices.
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unconventional political participation involving assembling crowds to confront businesses and local gov. is known as
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direct action.
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the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is an an example of
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successful unconventional political participation.
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Americans are less likely to ____ than citizens of other countries.
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join demonstrations.
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a practical test whether or not a government is democratic is whether
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citizens can affect its policies by acting through its institutions.
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studies of Americans who engage in "contacting behavior" like complaining to city hall find
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they are not more likely to vote than other Americans.
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Americans contributing money to a candidate's campaign is best defined as a form of
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influencing behavior.
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___ is political action that expresses allegiance to country and gov.
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supportive behavior.
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the ability of groups to make government respond to their special problems is best described as a part of ___ theory.
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pluralist.
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citizen mobilization to stop construction of a nuclear waste facility near their homes would be an example of the ___ phenomenon.
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NIMBY.
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a legal action brought by a person or group on behalf of a number of people in similar circumstances i also known as a
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class action suit.
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the country with the lowest voter turnout among eligible voters in congressional elections is
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The US.
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researchers have found that political apathy is ___ in the US compared to almost all other nations.
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much lower.
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the text defines suffrage and franchise as the right to
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vote.
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which country was the first to provide for the general election of representatives through
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US.
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the framers of the Constitution left the issue of voter enfranchisement to
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the states.
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the __ amendment to the Constitution prohibits states from denying the right to vote " on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
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15th
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the purpose of the literacy tests that were used in the southern states after 1870 was to
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discourage African Americans from voting.
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in Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court found ___ is are unconstitutional,
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preventing blacks from voting in primary elections.
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the amendment granting women's suffrage is the
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19th amendment.
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compared with other nations in the world in granting suffrage to women, the US
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was among the first.
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a 2013 supreme court decision regarding the Voting Rights Act allowed numerous states to
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enforce new voter identification laws.
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women were granted universal suffrage in
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1920.
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which of the following qualifications for voting was virtually eliminated in all states by the 1850s?
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property ownership.
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the amendment lowering the voting age to 18 is the
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26th.
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a direct primary is a
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preliminary election to choose party candidates.
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mot referenda are placed on the ballot by
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legislatures.
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the typical procedure for initiative requires petitions to feature the signatures of __ of the number of registered voters in a state.
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5 to 10 percent.
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___ championed the direct primary.
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Progressives.
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one recent criticism of referenda and initiatives is that
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they create an expensive "industry" designed around circulating petitions and spending millions.
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in 2012 and 2013, voters approved a number of ballot propositions, including ones in Colorado and Washington that
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legalized marijuana.
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according to the text, if the criterion is ___, America has the best and most democratic gov. in the world.
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number of elections held.
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voting in the US decreased during the 1970s and 80s. other forms of participation
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increased or remained stable.
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the standard socioeconomic model of participation chiefly refers to
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education, income,and occupation.
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according to the text, Americans were ___ politically apathetic in 2012 compared to 1952.
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neither more nor less.
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characteristics frequently associated with nonvoters are
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low education, low income, and being relatively young.
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In general today, women politically participate
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at about the same rate as men.
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of all the social and economic variables affecting political participation, ___ is the strongest single factor.
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education.
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women compared to men, and blacks compared to whites, tend to have political participation rates today that are
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about the same.
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how does education affect voter turnout?
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well-educated people are more likely to vote than are their less-educated counterparts.
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the effect of the 26th amendment, which enfranchised 18-20 year olds was to
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reduce the national voter turnout rate.
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psychological explanations of turnout suggest that voting will rise if
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more Americans believe that gov. is responsive.
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by law, the US presidential election occurs
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the first Tuesday after the first monday in november.
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in nearly every other democratic country, the burden of registration is placed on
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the government.
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in Oregon, everyone votes by
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mail.
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if voter turnout was computed on the basis o registered voters, about ___ of American s vote.
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80 percent.
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the American emphasis on freedom over equality in political participation works to the benefit of
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those with greater resources.
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according to the text, with respect to political participation, "__ is the great equalizer".
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protest.
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during the Vietnam War, protesting students on college campuses
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all the above are true.
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to maintain order, the gov. has a stake in converting __ wherever possible.
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unconventional participation into conventional participation.
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Congress and the states moved quickly to pass the 26th amendment, which lowed the voting age to 18, because they
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hoped to channel student energy away from demonstrations and toward more conventional forms of participation.
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someone who asserts that elections "socialize political activity" is contending that elections are mechanisms that maintain
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order.
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the majoritarian model of democracy favors
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voting as the primary means of participation.
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elections, as an institutional mechanism,
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bolster the power and authority of the state.
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because it depends on mass participation in politics, majoritarianism tends to
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limit individual freedom.
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which of the following statements best describes the attitude of the American people toward political parties?
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Americans recognize the value of parties but distrust the existing ones.
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what most distinguishes political parties from interest groups like the AFL-CIO and the National Association of Manufacturers is that
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interest groups do not nominate candidates to run as their avowed representatives.
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the __ is not a national political party because it does not nominate its own candidates.
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Tea Party.
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according to a 2013 poll, ___ percent of Americans think the political parties do an adequate job representing the American people.
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24
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most democratic theorists agree that a modern nation-state cannot practice democracy without
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at least two political parties regularly contesting elections.
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suppose the US abolished political parties. Voters would then
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all the choices are true.
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presence of multiple political parties
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tends to split opposition to a dominant regime and help it maintain power.
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according to Edmund Burke, the reason people unite in parties is to
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enact a set of policies.
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where in the Constitution are political parties discussed?
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nowhere.
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the __ party is probably the oldest political party in existence.
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Democratic.
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in the early days of America, the president was chosen by
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a group of political elites in the Electoral college .
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who was the leader of the federalists?
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Alexander Hamilton.
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the early republicans were led by
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Thomas Jefferson
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George Washington, generally considered sympathetic to the Federalists Party, felt that political factions
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had negative effects on democracy,
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the first nomination process for two opposing candidates for the presidency was conducted in 1800 by
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congressional caucuses.
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the last candidate for president elected without party competition was
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James Monroe
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the era of Good Feelings was characterized by
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the lack of party competition.
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the 12 amendment
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required the electoral college to vote separately for president and VP.
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in his first fun for presidency, Andrew JAckson
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won a plurality of the popular vote but was not chosen as president by the house of Representatives.
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the ___ was the first "third" party in American history to challenge the two major parties for the presidency and called the first national party convention.
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the Anti-Masonic Party
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during the Jacksonian era, parties had to appeal to much larger numbers of voters , and one response was using ___ to select presidential candidates.
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national conventions.
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the republican party was established in response to the issue of
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slavery.
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which event helped shape the partisan patterns of the north and south for nearly a century?
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the Civil War.
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the term solid south refers to the
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South's consistent democratic voting record for much of the 20th century.
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since the present two-party system was established, how many minor-party candidates have been elected to the presidency?
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Zero.
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___ was the first candidate elected as a republican?
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Abraham Lincoln
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the ___ Party was an agrarian "free-silver" party that was attractive in part because it was seen as a response to the depression of 1896.
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Populist.
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during the decades from the economic depression of the 1890s until the stock market crash in 1929, presidential elections were dominated by the __ party
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Republican.
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a critical event that helped end the republican Party;s domination of national politics in the 1920s was
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the Great Depression.
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__ captured the presidency in 1968 and won five of the eleven southern states in the old Confederacy, signaling an electoral realignment that has seen republican candidates for president do very well in the south.
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Richard Nixon.
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the __ party won most presidential elections from 1932, during the Great Depression, though the election of 1964, when the turbulent 1960s created the environment for a major political realignment.
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democratic.
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the people's party (populist) could at least brag hat it was the first third party since 1860 to
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win any electoral votes.
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the shortlived ____ party nominated Robert La Follette of Wisconsin for the presidency in 1924, but carried on La Follette's home state and ceased to nominate candidates in 1925.
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progressive.
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the best the Socialist party has ever done in America was to capture 6 percent of the vote in the election of
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1912
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Congressman ___ was the 1988 Libertarian Party presidential candidate. he was elected to congress as a republican in 1996, where he served until 2013.
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Ron Paul.
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____, candidate for president in 1992, ran as an independent and won 19 percent of the popular vote.
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Ross Perot.
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if someone formed the "second amendment party" a political party to run on a platform of removing regulations on gun ownership, that would be an example of a __ party.
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single-issue.
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in the 2000 election, the candidacy of Ralph Nader
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resulted in a loss of support for the democratic candidate Al, Gore.
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research indicates that one important reason for the decline of third-party voting starting in the 1930s may be
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leftward drift of the democratic party to adopt issues otherwise raised by third parties.
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surveys show today that approx. ___ of the American population today think that the US needs a third party.
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one-half.
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the two ideological protest parties that together managed just over 1 percent of the vote in the 2012 presidential race were the __ party and the ___ party.
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Libertarian; Green.
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one of the most convincing explanations for the persistence of the two-party system in the US lies in its use of
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the presidency is a big enough political prize to induce parties to harbor uncomfortable coalitions of voters just to win the electoral vote and the presidential election.
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in the discipline of political science, party identification refers to
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a sense of psychological attachment to a party.
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Federalism in the electoral system refers to
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difference between national election trends and trends in states.
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black Americans shifted significantly to the democratic party n the 1960s largely in response to
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Democratic party support for civil rights legislation.
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according to a 2012 survey in your text, which of the following individuals is most likely to identify as a republican?
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earning between $75,000 to $99,000, college degree, male, age 42-53.
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about ___ of all Americans adopt their parent' party.
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50 percent.
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which president portrayed the democratic as big spenders, but his administration spent more than $1 trillion for defense?
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Ronald Reagan.
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content analysis of the 2012 party convention platforms found that Republicans were more likely to mention the word ___ whereas democrats were more likely to mention the word __.
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freedom; equality.
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in 2009, how many of the House Democrats voted against reforming health care, president Obama's most important policy initiative?
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39.
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According to the __, political parties are essential in making gov. responsive to public opinion.
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majoritarian model of democracy.
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the text uses the examples of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to make the point that, with respect to gov. spending,
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Republicans don't hesitate to spend large sums on federal programs that suit their ideology.
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political party platforms probably matter most to
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intraparty factions at party conventions.
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the democratic party national committee changed its internal procedures to be more open and inclusive in response to
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a traumatic 1968 convention following the assassination of Robert Kennedy and emphasizing opposition to the Vietnam War.
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voters favor one-party control of the presidency and the congress when
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their party is in control.