Download Topic 2 political behavior - South Dade Senior High School

TOPIC 2 POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
Mr. Kallusingh
POLITICAL PARTIES
The purpose of political parties is to give the
people a voice, nominate candidates, inform
and activate supporters, control candidates,
govern, act as a watchdog
 Two-Party system started with the federalist
and anti-federalist, and continues the main
reason it continues is that people can be stuck
in their ways

POLITICAL PARTIES NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
National Convention- comes together to chose the
Presidential and vie-presidential candidates
 National Committee- is comprised of the major
political figures in the party, mainly is in charge of
planning the national convention
 National Chairperson- helps with party unity,
raising money, and recruiting new voters
 Congressional Campaign Committee- is in charge
of selecting candidates to run for congress

POLITICAL PARTIES STATE AND LOCAL LEVEL
State Organization- look for party unity, finding
candidates, campaign funds
 Local Organization- local structures are so
different across the nation that it is hard to
define, most work within their ward/ precincts
at election times

POLITICAL PARTIES COALITION

In multiparty systems coalitions need to be
formed to have a majority and avoid constant
change and upheaval, coalitions are
agreements among competing party groups to
work together to form a majority
POLITICAL PARTIES (THIRD PARTIES)
Ideological Parties- focus on a comprehensive
view of social, economic, and political matters;
have usually been long lived
 Single-issue Parties- usually focus on one issue
i.e. slavery, abortion; fade away as the issue
becomes less prevalent

POLITICAL PARTIES (THIRD PARTIES)
Economic Protest Parties- a rooted in periods of
economic discontent; disappear as the
economy gets better
 Splinter Parties- usually rally around a strong
personality that leaves a major political party;
go away when the candidate returns to their
original party

INTEREST GROUPS
Are private organization that tries to persuade
public officials to follow their beliefs
 Interest groups are not concerned with broad
concepts; they do not care who is elected but
do care about what they do; they are not
accountable to the public but to their members

INTEREST GROUP TYPES
Business Groups- promote the interest of their
individual business or business type
 Labor Groups- are workers in a similar field;
they press the government for favorable
policies in their field
 Agricultural Groups- farmers makeup less than
2% of the population; different groups usually
compete against each other (dairy vs. soy)

INTEREST GROUP TYPES
Professional Groups- occupations that require
extensive training i.e. medicine, law, teaching;
usually are not very organized; want to promote
profession and influence policy
 Groups that promote causes like NRA,
American Civil Liberties Union, and Planned
Parenthood

INTEREST GROUP TYPES
Groups that promote welfare like the American
Legion, the Veterans of Foreign wars, and AARP
 Religious Organizations that promote their
religion
 Public-Interest groups try and promote the well
being of all people and not a particular
segment of society

INTEREST GROUP TECHNIQUES
Give public information, build positive image of
group, promote favorable legislation
 Use propaganda to make people believe their
argument to be true regardless of the truth
 Lobbyist try to influence the policies that are
put into place to help their own interest groups,
Lobbying Disclosure Act 1995 tries to regulate
this influence

VOTING BEHAVIOR
The right to vote started with white male land
owners and has expanded to any citizen over
18 is eligible to vote
 Each state has the right to control voting
qualifications, but they must follow certain
federal guidelines and can be overridden by the
federal government

VOTING BEHAVIOR
Voter qualifications citizenship, residence, age,
registration
 Sociological Factors- lower-income voters tend
to be more democratic and higher income are
more republican; more educated tends to vote
republican; women more demo men more
repub; young more demo older more repub;
protestants more repub, Catholics and Jews
more demo;

ELECTORAL PROCESS
The nomination process can be done by the
caucus, convention, or a direct/ open primary
 People use secret ballots to vote by their
precinct in a polling place; if you can not be
present to vote you can request an absentee
ballot

ELECTORAL PROCESS
Campaign spending is mostly used on the
Presidential election 2000 1.5 billion dollars
 Campaign funding can come from many
different sources small contributors, wealthy
individuals, candidates (Perot $65 million),
political action committees PAC, temporary
organizations; people giving money either like
the party or want something in return

ELECTORAL PROCESS

The government has enacted a few laws that
try and regulate how much money can be given
to campaigns, but parties have found loopholes
and exploited them
PUBLIC OPINION
Public opinion is a group of people that believe
the same thing; these beliefs come from
personal experience
 Another influence on public opinion is mass
media tv, newspaper, magazine, radio, internet
