Unit 5 Review: How citizens reach government
Four organizing questions rebuild this unit's logic. Who is legally eligible to vote, and who turns out, and why do those two questions require separate answers? Why do institutional rules, more than voter preference alone, explain why two parties keep winning? What separates a direct campaign contribution from an independent expenditure, and why does that distinction control what Citizens United decided? What can turnout data, polling, and media-use figures support, and where does description end and unproven causal explanation begin? Unit 5 compares the main ways citizens, parties, interest groups, candidates, and media organizations influence government and elections.
Chapter 31: Voting rights and behavior
Legal eligibility (voting rights) is different from participation (voting behavior). Know the amendments and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the four voting models (rational-choice, retrospective, prospective, and straight-ticket), the 2024 Census turnout figures (73.6% registered and 65.3% voted among the citizen voting-age population), and why a turnout number never explains itself.
Chapter 32: Parties
Parties are linkage institutions that nominate candidates and seek control of government, which separates them from interest groups. Single-member plurality districts give voters and candidates an incentive to consolidate around two coalitions. Realignment requires evidence across multiple elections, third parties influence politics without winning, and major parties absorb issues and constituencies.
Chapter 33: Interest groups
Groups match routes to resources: lobbying, grassroots mobilization, litigation and amicus briefs, administrative comments, and election activity. Free riders create a collective-action problem that selective benefits can reduce. Iron triangles are small and durable; issue networks are broad and shifting. Federalist No. 10 frames the faction problem.
Chapter 34: Presidential and congressional elections
The Electoral College has 538 electors and requires 270 to win, with Maine and Nebraska allocating some votes by district. Primaries (open and closed), caucuses, and conventions select nominees. Reapportionment reallocates House seats among states; redistricting redraws lines within a state. House members face election every two years; senators serve staggered six-year terms.
Chapter 35: Campaign money
Direct contributions are limited; independent expenditures are uncoordinated and protected as speech under Citizens United, which did not authorize unlimited direct corporate contributions. BCRA targeted soft money and added the "Stand by Your Ad" requirement. Money expands capacity but does not guarantee victory.
Chapters 36 and 37: Media
Agenda setting, the watchdog function, framing, and horse-race coverage describe how news media shape attention and interpretation, without proving that coverage causes particular opinions. Digital platforms reduce gatekeeping, enable targeting and selective exposure, and fragment audiences. Pew's 2024 data show a fragmented environment, not the replacement of other sources.
Applying the unit: a competitive House race
A House district redrawn after the latest census becomes more competitive. A political action committee runs advertisements that are not coordinated with either campaign, while both campaigns increase spending on voter contact and mobilization in the closest precincts. Work through it in three steps. First, identify the mechanism that made the district more competitive: redistricting redrew the boundaries and changed the partisan balance. Second, classify the PAC's spending: it is an independent expenditure, which can be unlimited because the absence of coordination reduces the risk of the corrupt exchange that justifies limits on direct contributions. Third, explain why the spending does not guarantee victory: money expands strategic capacity but does not mechanically convert into votes.
How to use the practice set
The 19 practice questions that follow are the book's Unit 5 set. They range across all seven chapters, so for each one first name the chapter concept, then check the answer. Read the explanations for all four choices: the distractors repeat the errors the unit warns against, such as confusing retrospective and prospective voting, calling a Super PAC expenditure a contribution, treating Citizens United as permitting unlimited corporate contributions, and treating agenda setting as proof of persuasion.