Political Science Questions

Political Science Questions

Question 1: Cracking and Packing

Congressional districts in the United States are a requirement of the constitution for there to be reasonably uniform elections, especially in the continuity of the geography. The districts are therefore redrawn every decade to accommodate the changes in the populations.

Cracking of congressional districts entails the spreading out of voters from one voting bloc in the district for them to lose the power of voting in masses. In most cases, cracking weakens the voting power of the electorate and allows reduces competition among the people that are being voted for. Cracking causes the division of supporters of a given party for them not to reach the majority needed for a party to qualify as a winner in the elections.

Packing, on the other hand, involves the concentration of voters who have similar opinions in one voting bloc for them to reduce their influence in other districts. Packing concentrates voters from one party so that the district on which they are packed gets a huge win and hence improves their chances of winning in those districts. Packing reasons that with voters being spread out, chances to win in particular districts would be wasted. A party that has a majority uses packing to dilute the voting strength of the opposing party in other states where the opposing party has more voting power. The few districts that have a party’s majority voters would then seek to disperse the voters from the opposing party. Eventually, both cracking and packing allows specific parties to win the elections by a majority vote all across the districts. Both strategies are effective in micro-targeting campaigns used to fairly get an advantage in areas where a party would otherwise not have the likelihood of winning that election

.Question 2: how people use information from their lived to vote in campaigns

1. How the voters use information

According to Popkin, voters usually have low information about the government. Thus they like to follow shortcuts to obtain this information. The voters may even have the information, but they do not understand how this information relates to the government and their lives. Thus, even if they are aware of an issue, they still tend to ask for others’ opinions about a certain candidate because they are unable to clearly evaluate the information they hold to assess the performance of a given candidate or the government in general. They are also unable to understand to which standard is a candidate marked as a performer or a non-performer. Thus, they end up relying on other people’s opinions to interpret the meaning of certain news and connect them with certain events. Also, they end up relying on the newest information about a government instead of evaluating all the previous information.

1. How campaigns provide clarity

Popkin states that voters are faced with uncertainty when they are evaluating a government, it may be lack of clear information about the government, or the theory which should be used when evaluating policies and often look for short cuts to source interpret and store this information and that is what the campaigns were designed for.  The campaigns are a means of persuading voters to vote for a given party or candidate. They provide voters with new information on a candidate so that they can make a link between the candidate and specific problems, issues of even specific government departments. The political parties rely heavily on focus groups so that they can understand exactly how the voters perceive a certain candidate or party. They will then use ideologies to help the voters reflect on the previous success and to differentiate themselves from other parties to give the voters a foundation to base their decisions on.

Question 3: Conflicts over rules are conflicts over outcomes

Mr. Ingram simply means that failure to set the same rules will cause conflict even in the outcomes. If in the political system, the parties involved do not come to an understanding, even in the outcomes of there will still be conflicts and indifferences. He was trying to put across the point that in the political parties or in the government, conflicts mostly arise due to the difference in ideologies and interests. Candidates are likely to want to set policies that will favor each and everyone’s interests. Thus, if the interests are different, then there will definitely be conflicts even in the outcomes. For instance, different views of parties will lead to people voting differently. People often vote the congress and the president as they link the two with different perspectives. This way, the congress, and the parliament may have different ideologies which cause a divided government.

Question 4: political tools and institutions innovated in the campaigns for and against the End Poverty in California movement

The political tools used to boost the End Poverty plan was based on seizing land. The idea was to hold idle farmers and lands and especially where no taxes were being paid appropriately. The unemployed personnel would then be hired to work in these idle lands. These lands were supposed to provide for the workers and still have returned for advancement. The major institutions which were established to implement this plan include the California Authority for Production (CAP), which was I charge of overseeing the production was efficient. The California Authority afford Money (CAM), which was in charge of fund allocation for cultivating the seized lands. The other institution was the California Authority for Land, which was in charge of analyzing the idle lands and lands which were not taxed. Johnson got a lot of support from the rural areas because he heavily supported farming.  However, his influence in the south was diluted by Philip Stanton, and his votes started to go down. There was tension between the republicans and the progressive party. Workers were attracted to the democratic banner, and they started voting for the progressive party rather than the republican party. The workers started to shift to the progressive party. The shift in the political party preferences confused party patterns, and party alignment had a limited impact on the people.

Question 5: What did we learn from watching the development of presidential campaign spots that were shown on TV in the 1950s and 60s?

We learn that the media had a huge influence on what decisions the people made when electing their leaders. The new technology, which by then was tv, affected the landscape of politics. The people had a great appetite for finding out exactly what the government does. Thus, many were interested in watching the news, and the message they got from the Tv influenced their opinions about leaders. Thus, the leader who used TV as their campaigning tool. Most of the people preferred stations that covered information that was based on their point of view on the major issues. Most leaders do not like to go against what the people think as they wouldn’t get the support they want.  The TV was a more trusted source of information according to the people