In politics, a political party is an organized group of people who have the same ideology, or who otherwise have the same political positions, and who field candidates for elections, in an attempt to get them elected and thereby implement their agenda. Political parties are a defining element of representative democracy.
Rational ignorance is refraining from acquiring knowledge when the supposed cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the expected potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.
Philip Ernest Converse was an American political scientist. He was a professor in political science and sociology at the University of Michigan who was a seminal figure in the field of public opinion, survey research, and quantitative social science. He has been described as "one of the most important social scientists of the 20th century."
Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. Eligibility varies by country, and the voting-eligible population should not be confused with the total adult population. Age and citizenship status are often among the criteria used to determine eligibility, but some countries further restrict eligibility based on sex, race, or religion.
In politics, polarization can refer to the divergence of political attitudes to ideological extremes. Almost all discussions of polarization in political science consider polarization in the context of political parties and democratic systems of government. In most two-party systems, political polarization embodies the tension of its binary political ideologies and partisan identities.
Valdimer Orlando Key Jr., usually known simply as V. O. Key, was an American political scientist known for his empirical study of American elections and voting behavior. He taught at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard. According to Chandler Davidson, "When Southern Politics in State and Nation was published in 1949, Key's reputation...was established beyond question. The book was magisterial, a brilliant sweeping survey of eleven southern states that destroyed once and for all the myth of the 'solid South.'"
Dealignment, in political science, is a trend or process whereby a large portion of the electorate abandons its previous partisan affiliation, without developing a new one to replace it. It is contrasted with political realignment.
An independent voter, often also called an unaffiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party. An independent is variously defined as a voter who votes for candidates on issues rather than on the basis of a political ideology or partisanship; a voter who does not have long-standing loyalty to, or identification with, a political party; a voter who does not usually vote for the same political party from election to election; or a voter who self-describes as an independent.
Sir Ivor Martin Crewe, DL FAcSS was until 2020 the Master of University College, Oxford and President of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was previously Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex and also a Professor in the Department of Government at Essex.
Party identification refers to the political party with which an individual identifies. Party identification is affiliation with a political party. Party identification is typically determined by the political party that an individual most commonly supports.
Voter registration in the United States is required for voting in federal, state and local elections in the United States. The only exception is North Dakota, although cities in North Dakota may register voters for city elections. Voter registration takes place at the county level in many states and at the municipal level in several states. Most states set cutoff dates for voter registration and to update details, ranging from 2 to 4 weeks before an election; while a third of states have Election Day or "same-day" voter registration which enables eligible citizens to register or update their registration when they vote before or on election day.
The Sixth Party System is the era in United States politics following the Fifth Party System. As with any periodization, opinions differ on when the Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the late 1960s or 1970 to the 1990s.
Warren Miller was an American political scientist in the field of American political behavior. Best known as a co-author of the seminal book, The American Voter, alongside Angus Campbell, Philip Converse and Donald Stokes, which provided the basis for the social-psychological "Michigan school" of thought in American political behavior, Miller had a full and impressive career as a political scientist.
Albert Angus Campbell was an American social psychologist best known for his research into electoral systems and for co-writing The American Voter with Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. Campbell published his work under the name Angus Campbell. He was a professor at the University of Michigan. He died in Ann Arbor, Michigan on December 15, 1980.
The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is one of the largest academic social research and survey organization in the world, established in 1949. ISR includes more than 250 scientists from many academic disciplines – including political science, psychology, sociology, economics, demography, history, anthropology, and statistics. It has been said to be "the premier center for survey research methodology in the world."
The term issue voting describes when voters cast their vote in elections based on political issues. In the context of an election, issues include "any questions of public policy which have been or are a matter of controversy and are sources of disagreement between political parties.” According to the theory of issue voting, voters compare the candidates' respective principles against their own in order to decide for whom to vote.
Voter ID laws in the United States are laws that require a person to provide some form of official identification before they are permitted to register to vote, receive a ballot for an election, or to actually vote in elections in the United States.
Political cognition refers to the study of how individuals come to understand the political world, and how this understanding leads to political behavior. Some of the processes studied under the umbrella of political cognition include attention, interpretation, judgment, and memory. Most of the advancements in the area have been made by scholars in the fields of social psychology, political science, and communication studies.
Donald E. Stokes was an American political scientist and dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Stokes was a founder of public opinion research, and a coauthor of the seminal book The American Voter.
The mathematical theory of democracy is an interdisciplinary branch of the public choice and social choice theories. It operationalizes the fundamental idea to modern democracies — that of political representation, in particular focusing on policy representation - how well the electorate's policy preferences are represented by the party system and the government. The representative capability is measured by means of dedicated indices that are used both for analytical purposes and practical applications.
