The Logic of American Politics
CHAPTER 10
Vocabulary
From: Samuel Kernell, Gary C. Jacobsen, Thad Kousser and Gregory Giroux, The Logic
of American Politics.
Aggregate Partisanship - The distribution, or percentage, of the electorate that identifies
with each of the political parties. (Page 482)
Aggregate Public Opinion - In a democracy, the sum of all individual opinions. (Page
480)
Ambivalence - A state of mind produced when particular issues evoke attitudes and
beliefs that pull one in opposite directions. (Page 477)
Attitude - An organized and consistent manner of thinking and feeling about people,
groups, social issues, or more generally, any event in one’s environment. (Page 467)
Cognitive Shortcut - A mental device allowing citizens to make complex decisions
based on a small amount of information. For example, a candidate’s party label serves as
a shortcut by telling voters much about his or her positions on issues. (Page 484)
Conservative - In the United States, a proponent of a political ideology that favors small
or limited government, an unfettered free market, self-reliance, and traditional social
norms. (Page 468)
Core Values - Moral beliefs held by citizens that underlie their attitudes toward political
and other issues. As integral parts of an individual’s identity, these beliefs are stable and
resistant to change. (Page 469)
Framing - Providing a context that affects the criteria citizens use to evaluate candidates,
campaigns, and political issues. (Page 479)
Ideology - A comprehensive, integrated set of views about government and politics.
(Page 468)
Issue Publics - Groups of citizens who are more attentive to particular areas of public
policy than are average citizens because they have some special stake in the issues. (Page
484)
Liberal - In the United States, a proponent of a political ideology that favors extensive
government action to redress social and economic inequalities and tolerates social
behaviors that conservatives view as deviant. Present-day, they advocate policies
benefiting the poor, minority groups, labor unions, women, and the environment and
oppose government imposition of traditional social norms. (Page 468)
