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constituency

 
Dictionary: con·stit·u·en·cy   (kən-stĭch'ū-ən-sē) pronunciation
n., pl., -cies.
    1. The body of voters or the residents of a district represented by an elected legislator or official.
    2. The district so represented.
    1. A group of supporters or patrons.
    2. A group served by an organization or institution; a clientele: The magazine changed its format to appeal to a broader constituency.

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Political Dictionary: constituency
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Area whose electorate returns a representative to a national parliament. There are 659 in the United Kingdom, their number and dimensions continually subject to reform under the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act. The functional equivalent is a ‘district’ in (for instance) the United States, and a ‘riding’ in Canada. ‘Constituency’ may be taken to mean more broadly the support which a politician appeals to or seeks. (See also apportionment.)

— Jonathan Bradbury

Wikipedia: Constituency
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A constituency is any cohesive body of people bound by shared identity, goals, or loyalty. Constituency can be used to describe a business's customer base and shareholders, or a charity's donors or those it serves. In politics, a constituency can mean either the people from whom an individual or organization hopes to attract support, or the people or geographical area that a particular elected official represents.

A constituent is any member of a constituency, including those who did not vote for an elected representative.

The term is frequently used in US politics. In most democracies the term is not that relevant, since the electorate is represented by more than one elected legislator, and the elected legislator has a responsibility to all the electorate rather than to his constituents. In the US system electorate and constituents are identical groups, but that is not the case in representative democracies. The electorate are all who can vote in the election (e.g. to the parliament), but the constituents are only those who can vote for a particular candidate in that election.

In US political campaigns the term is often used to divide the legislator's electorate into separate groups, for instance along racial lines, religious lines, cultural lines, sexual preference lines, etc. (e.g., 'the LGBT constituency', which shall be interpreted as the intersection of the LGBT community, and the Constituency).

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Outreach to a constituency

The franking privilege in the United States Congress allows elected members to freely send direct mail to their entire constituency.

Core constituency

The term core constituency is sometimes used to refer to a base of supporters. The constituency of a member of Congress, for instance, might be every citizen in his district, but his core constituency could be the people who voted for him in the last election.

See also

References


Misspellings: constituency
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Common misspelling(s) of constituency

  • consituency

Translations: Constituency
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - vælgere, valgkreds, kundekreds

Nederlands (Dutch)
kiesdistrict, achterban, clientèle

Français (French)
n. - (Pol) circonscription électorale, électeurs, (US, Pol) groupe de supporters

Deutsch (German)
n. - Wählerschaft, Wahlkreis

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (στενή) εκλογική περιφέρεια

Italiano (Italian)
corpo elettorale, elettorato, circoscrizione elettorale

Português (Portuguese)
n. - eleitorado (m), clientela (f) (coloq.)

Русский (Russian)
избиратели, избирательный округ

Español (Spanish)
n. - electorado, colegio electora, distrito electoral

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - valkrets, valmanskår, stödjande grupp

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
选民, 读者, 顾客

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 選民, 讀者, 顧客

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 유권자, 단골, 후원자

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 選挙権者, 後援者, 顧客, 選挙区

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) دائرة انتخابيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מחוז בחירות, ציבור הבוחרים‬


 
 
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Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Political Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Constituency" Read more
Answers Corporation Misspellings. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

 

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