AP US Govt.

Political Culture, Public Opinion, Political Participation

Read Wilson Chapters 4, 7, and 8 and answer the following questions.

1. What are the elements that the book identifies with our political culture? Do you agree?

2. What is the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of results?

3. What differences does our American political culture have with other countries’ political cultures?

4. Summarize (you can use bullet points) what the book says about the “culture war” in America.

5. What is the difference between internal and external efficacy? Look at the Figure 4.4 on p. 92 and figure out if you agree or disagree with these statements?

Public Opinion Chapter Seven 157-177

1. What was the Founders’ attitude towards public opinion? Give examples of how we see that attitude reflected in how they wrote the Constitution.

2. Identify three problems in assessing public opinion.

3. The book gives four factors that affect political attitudes. Identify those four factors and summarize the conclusions about how those factors and summarize the conclusions about how those factors affect people’s political attitudes. Memorize the list.

4.The book gives three factors that divide people’s political beliefs. Identify those three factors and summarize the conclusions about the correlation between these factors and people’s political opinions.

5. What were the meanings of the words “liberal” and “conservative” in the 19th century an how did these meanings change in the 20th century?

6. What are the three broad categories of opinion to which people subscribe? Make a chart or list showing how do liberals and conservatives feel about these three issues.

7. Summarize the four ideological labels the authors describe on pp. 170-171. Feel free to use a chart or bullet points for your summary.

8. What are the two reasons the book gives why activists tend to have more ideological consistency than those who aren’t active? What effect does those ideological consistency have on the difference ideologically between politicians and voters?

9. What does the term “new class” mean? What political ideology to those in the “new class” ascribe to? Why?

10. Why are there strains in the New Deal or traditional Democratic coalition?

11. How do elites influence public opinion? What are the limits to their ability to shape public opinion?

Political Participation Chapter 8 p. 177-196

1. Why does the book say that it is incorrect to say that Americans don’t vote as a result of apathy?

2. What did Congress pass to increase voter participation and what has been the result of that law?

3. How did states try to keep blacks from voting? Summarize those tactics and how they gradually were changed. What effect did the increase in black voting have on politics in the South?

4. What political effects have there been since the Nineteenth and Twenty-sixth Amendments?

5. Summarize the arguments as to why voter turnout has declined.

6. Make a list of the generalizations that the book makes about which groups tend to be more or less likely to vote. Memorize this list..

7. Summarize the five reasons the book gives for why Americans register and vote less frequently.

By the end of the unit, you will be responsible for being able to define and explain all these items.

1. Political Culture

2. Americanism

3. civic competence

4. civic duty

5. class consciousness

6. culture war

7. efficacy

8. equality of opportunity

9. external efficacy

10. internal efficacy

11. orthodox

12. political ideology

13. political culture

14. political efficacy

15. progressive

16. rights

17. secular humanism

18. work ethic

19. Conservative

20. elite

21. gender gap

22. John Q. Public

23. liberal

24. libertarians

25. Middle America

26. new-class

27. norm

28. partisanship

29. political elite

30. political ideology

31. poll

32. populists

33. pure conservatism

34. random sample

35. religious tradition

36. sampling error

37. silent majority

38. Public Opinion

39. Political Participation

40. activist

41. Australian ballot

42. campaigners

43. communalists

44. complete activists

45. Fifteenth Amendment

46. grandfather clause

47. inactives

48. literacy test

49. motor-voter bill

50. Nineteenth Amendment

51. parochial participants

52. poll tax

53. registered voters

54. Twenty-sixth Amendment

55. Twenty-third Amendment

56. Voting Rights Act of 1965

57. voting-age population

58. voting specialists

59. white primary