V181 Final Exam Practice Quiz questions
The study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely found that the amount of wealth inequality that Americans want...
...is much more equal than the amount of wealth inequality that the policy system produces.
In the United States, wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle...
...is subject to state laws which vary across states.
Pennock says a good policy problem statement should be...
...just 1-2 sentences long.
Given their feelings about Lebanon after the explosion and recovery efforts, many young Lebanese were considering...
...leaving the country, because they had lost faith in the government.
A state that fails to provide adaquate protection, fairness, and benefits to its citizens may...
...lose the support of its citizens. ...fall into a civil war. ...experience revolutionary uprisings
Since becoming more widespread acrsoss US States, union dues laws (commonly referred to as "right to work" laws) appear to have...
...lowered wages for workers but increased the number of lower-paying jobs available.
Local governments in the US...
...vary a lot from place to place.
Audiences in policy-settings...
...are usually pressed for time and overwhelmed with policy communications.
Social movements...
...can be considered policy stakholders.
The "illusion of autonomy" refers to a situation where individuals...
...can choose among options, but all the options are bad.
In a direct democracy...
...citizens directly vote on all policy proposals.
Organizations that make policy-related appeals to government are often referred to as...
interest groups
The term "social contract" refers to the idea that...
...citizens give up freedoms and resources in exchange for state-provided benefits.
In the days after the explosion, Lebanese people...
... were concerned that divided political elites would provide little help to the general public.
A "closed shop" or "union shop" is...
...a business where all workers must join the union that represents them in contract negotiations.
To enact major policy changes in the U.S. that result in real changes in the lives of Americans, you probably need...
...a coalition of actors from different branches and levels of government.
As the spring 2006 immigration policy protests grew in size and number, an organization called the "Minuteman Project" (whose members would voluntarily patrol sections of the US southern border and report suspected immigrants to the official US border patrol) saw a rapid increase in members. The organization began lobbying public officials about border security and holding anti-immigration protest events. The sudden rise of the Minutemen could be considered an example of...
...a counter-movement.
A study by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely established that, on average, Americans want a policy system that produces...
...a modest amount of wealth inequality among Americans.
Kilroys on Kirkwood, a bar on Kirkwood Avenue in downtown Bloomington, regularly gives out free t-shirts that say "KOK" to people who enter the bar. This is an example of...
...a private policy, because Kilroy's is a private organization using its private resources to buy and give away t-shirts..
John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" is...
...a way to get past one's narrow self-interests when making policy choices.
Based on Larry Bartels's analysis of US Senators, policy makers from the Democratic and Republican political parties appear to respond to the preferences of low income constituents...
...about the same, with both parties largely ignoring their poor constituents.
A thorough cost-benefit analysis should...
...adjust for changes in the estimated costa and benefits over time. ...accurately identify all the potential costs and benefits of a proposed policy. ...assign a defensible dollar value estimate to each cost and benefit.
The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947...
...allowed states to forbid unions from collecting dues from non-union members covered by the union contract. ...allowed unions to collect agency fees from non-union members to cover the costs of collective bargaining. ...changed rules that had been set by the 1935 Wagner Act.
At the time of the story, David Bernhardt was the Deputy Secretary of the Interior. That position is appointed by the President and is the second-in-command of the federal Department of the Interior. That makes Dupty Secretary Bernhadt...
...an executive branch governmental policy actor.
Policy documents based exclusively on popular media sources...
...are likely to lack the depth of understanding needed for a complex policy issue.
Government contractors...
...are paid by the government to implement government policies with their private (non-government) employees.
After the Senate voted in favor of an immigration bill that include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in May 2006, the number and size of protest events quickly dropped. The bill, however, was never taken up by the House of Representatives. Without being passed by the House, the bill was never passed into law. The bill died at the end of the Congressional session and was not reintroduced in a meaningful way in future sessions. This suggests that demobilization was due in part to...
...co-optation.
While there are a lot of variations, think tanks generally...
...conduct research and publish reports and other policy documents.
Audience-centered writing...
...considers the needs of the intended audience during the writing process.
In a direct democracy, people in the majority (or, at least, voters in the majority) will determine policies--even if those policies infringe on the rights of some other people. In the U.S. certain rights have been established in the Constitution that new policies cannot infringe on. This makes the United States a...
...constitutional republic.
"Levels of government" refers to...
...differences in the geographic scope of certain authorities.
The founders of the United States designed a representative system partly out of concerns that...
...direct democracies can, at times, infringe too much on individual rights. ...majorities would oppress minorities in a direct democratic system. ...direct democracies posed too many challenges to a system of private property.
A representative democracy is a system where...
...each citizen can vote for for representatives who will vote on proposed policies.
The efforts of young people to help rebuild Beirut led those citizens to...
...feel less loyal and supportive of Lebanon and its government.
The explosion appears to have happened because... Multiple choice question
...government officials did not make or implement corrective policies.
As of November 2019, laws forbidding unions to collect dues or fees from non-union members covered by a union contract...
...had been passed in many states, especially in the south, midwest, and moutain states.
In a "strong mayor" mayor-council system, the city council...
...has no direct role in selecting the mayor.
Elected officials, bureaucrats (i.e. professional civil servants), and media representatives...
...have different policy information needs (and therefore require different kinds of documents).
After the passage of union dues laws (commonly referred to as "right to work" laws), an array of widely read and cited studies of the feelings of autonomy and equality among workers in particular workplaces...
...have not really materialized. Evaluation has focused more on things like union membership rates, worker wages, and unemployment rates.
An academic journal article that analyzes data collected from 1985 to 2005 is probably... Multiple choice question
...helpful for a policy document on a current policy issue if it addresses a similar phenomenon to the one you are writing about
When deciding if a policy has the appropriate level individual autonomy, it is often very difficult to determine... Multiple choice question
...how much one individual's actions infringe on the liberties of other individuals.
Opportunity costs are relevant to consider...
...if the resources used for one policy could instead be used for another policy.
A sentence outline...
...includes one sentence for each paragraph of a paper. ...includes placeholders for facts, data, and sources you need to research. ...should clearly reveal the logical order of your argument. ...includes all the source citations you need to support your argument. ...helps reveal what you don't know about a topic. ...includes all of the exact statistics you need to support your argument. ...helps you see what you know that is actually irrelevant for your paper. ...can be expanded into your paper by expanding each outline point into prose
It might be reasonable to make policy that limits autonomy if... Multiple correct question
...individuals might lack the information needed to make a reasoned choice. ...individuals might lack the opportunity to consider the information they have and make a reasoned choice. ...individuals might lack the ability to make a reasoned choice.
Getting feedback on drafts of your writing...
...is an essential part of crafting writing that communicates your ideas clearly and with sufficient support.
Research by political scientist Larry Bartels suggests that one reason why the top wealth holders in the US hold so much wealth...
...is because US policy makers are very responsive to the policy preferences of relatively rich people.
John Rawls argues that the most fair set of policies for a society is the set of policies that...
...makes the standard of living highest for the least well-off people in the society
Participants in the spring 2006 immigration policy protests were encouraged to participate by organizations like the We Are America Alliance, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the Day Without Immigrants Coalition--all of which are coalitions that include dozens of other organizations within them. This is a good illustration of the fact that...
...mobilization requires lots of organization and organizing effort.
Most labor unions in the US...
...negotiate with employers on behalf of their members in a process known as "collective bargaining." ...endorse political candidates for public office. ...collect dues from their members which are used to support the union's activities.
Social movements enter a mass mobilization phase when...
...new opportunities open for an outsider group to have influence over policy. ...organizers find ways to help potential participants see the importance of mobilzation and a chance of success. ...a community develops the level of resources and organization needed to mobilize mass participation. ...potential participants become so angry that they have no choice but go out and protest.
Membership associations that can become involved in the policy process...
...often directly advocate for policy changes and encourage their members to advocate individually as well.
In the book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argues that...
...people are naturally competitive.
Laws commonly referred to as "right to work" laws...
...prevent unions from collecting dues or fees from workers who are covered by a union contract.
Imagine a state decides to require all licensed drivers to renew their drivers licenses via a mail-in form. The state creates an extremely complicated form requiring many obscure details filled out in exceedingly precise ways. The form must then be place inside a special envelope and signed across the seal. That envelope is then place inside another envelope and a sticker with a bar code must be placed in precisely the right location on the outside of the envelope. The form and procedure are exactly the same for all drivers in the state and administrators at the Department of Motor Vehicles respond to all questions from drivers in the same timely and informative manner. Nevertheless, the state finds that within three years, younger drivers, older drivers, drivers with lower levels of education, and drivers for whom English is not their first language are being ticketed for driving without a license at much higher rates. This policy could be considered to embody...
...procedural justice but not distributive justice.
Kilroy's Sports, another bar in downtown Bloomington, restricts who can enter it's building to people over 21 years of age. This is an example of...
...public policy, because state law prohibits people under 21 years of age from entering a bar; Sports has to enforce that policy. This is public policy administered by private agents.
If you are having trouble starting to write a draft, Pennock suggests you should...
...remember your goal is to communicate an idea clearly, not create a global bestseller that will be read for hundreds of years. ...consider that your struggle is not about the writing but about fears that lead to procrastination. ...write as if you are having a conversation with a person in your intended audience. ...just write whatever you can as quickly as you can; you can always change it later.
Most places in the world today that can reasonably claim to be "democratic" are...
...representative democracies.
Wealth is...
...resources of various kinds that you own.
States that use physical force in ways that its citizens think are cruel or unfair...
...risk losing legitimacy.
Weeks after the explosion, the conditions in downtown Beirut...
...some clean-up and repairs were in progress, often done by individual youth volunteers.
Opponents to building a dam in the Hetch Hetchy value likely believed...
...that the natural environment in Hetch Hetchy valley has more value than all the possible benefits of the dam.
A policy philosophy guided by the pursuit of efficiency suggests that policies proposals should be chosen if...
...the benefits of the policy outweigh the costs of the policy.
Citizens of Beirut were angry in the days after the explosion because...
...the government had a long history of poor public administration.
The rules for where local governments have authority and what powers they have are set by...
...the governments of states.
Social movements often decline when...
...the movement splits into factions with different goals or tactics. ...the government finds ways to forcibly repress movement activity. ...public attention gets redirected to other issue
If five well-trained policy analysts conduct cost-benefit analyses of the same policy proposal, we can safely expect that...
...the results of all five will likely differ somewhat because of differences in assumptions.
The organization that coordinates and regulates behavior among people in a society is known as...
...the state.
When a proposal was developed to dam the Colorado River, flooding large portions of the Grand Canyon, opponents of the proposal successfully argued that...
...the value of water access and power generation did not outweigh the costs of tourism loss and natural space destruction.
Public administration includes...
...the way states deliver services. ...the way states collect taxes. ...the way states regulate businesses. ...the way states build roads and bridges. ...the way states maintain their armies.
In a commission system (of the kind discussed in the lecture)...
...there usually is no mayor, manager, or other chief executive.
When union dues laws (commonly referred to as "right to work" laws), go into effect...
...they change which groups have more political power in future policy debates.
Considering all we've learned about US policy and administration, it would be accurate to describe the the US policy system as...
...very complex, given its many branches and layers.
The major branches of U.S. government...
...were established in the U.S. Constitution.
Harold Lasswell famously defined politics as...
...who gets what what, when, how.
Andrew Pennock argues that "Writing about your policy problem consists of two important processes, thinking and communicating, each of which sharpens the other." He says this implies that good policy writers...
...work out their thinking by writing rough early drafts that include open questions and notes to themselves
Deleting 25% of the text and re-writing another 75% of the text you write in your first draft by the time you produce a final draft is a sign that...
...you are revising your drafts the way professional writers do.
In a council-manager system, the city manager is...
..appointed by the city council.
"Branches of government" refers to...
..different institutions, like legislatures and court systems.
In order to prevent the "war of all against all," Thomas Hobbes describes how people...
..gave up a few freedoms in exchange for safety and other benefits.
According to psychologist and philosopher John Dewey, to really learn something you need to...
..reflect on things you've done. The thinking cements the learning.
The explosion in Beirut in August of 2020 appears to have been caused by...
..the accidental burning of nearly 3,000 tons of a chemical used in fertilizer
The explosion was so large it...
..tipped over a large passenger ship across the harbor ...shattered glass windows more than a mile away ...created a shockwave that people mistook for an atomic mushroom cloud
A reactionary movement is one that...
.seeks to return policies or social arrangements to they way they existed in the past.
The definition of public policy that was discussed in lecture refers to impacts on "citizens." From the perspective of the author of that definition (Guy Peters) and for (most of) the purposes of our course, which of the following people will we consider to be "citizens" of the United States subject to US policies?
A computer programmer from Nigeria who has moved to California to take a job with Google. A person with a US passport that says they are a US citizen. A soldier in the US Army who was born in the US state of Oklahoma and is currently stationed in Afghanistan. A person who was born in India to Indian parents who has just gone through a US citizenship naturalization ceremony. A Honduran refugee being detained in a US-run facility at the US-Mexico border. We (and Guy Peters) are counting all legally-recognized citizens (no matter where they are located) and all people living in the country (no matter what countries legally-recognize them).
The definition of social movements states that movements are organized. Good examples of this from the reading include...
After Rosa Parks was arrested, the Women's Poltical Council--and organization that had already been working on civil rights issues--immediately began distributing leaflets about the situation. The Civil Rights Movement grew out of organizing efforts in Black churches Rosa Parks attended a community meeting about the death of Emmett Till days before she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The originators of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag collectively decided to use the hashtag as a tool for mobilization The NAACP had been actively pursuing racial justice by mobilizing support from Black communities since its founding in 1909.
Imagine the Olympic 100-meter dash finals end with a particularly surprising result. The winner wins in a time of 10.00 seconds and all 9 other runners finish exactly 1/100th of a second behind the runner in front of them (so, the second runner finishes in 10.01 seconds, the third runner in 10.02 seconds, the fourth runner in 10.03 seconds, and so on). While the differences between each runner are the same, only the top three runners get medals. The fourth place runner, who came in exactly as far behind the third place runner as the third place runner came behind the second place runner, is really upset. She claims that the Olympic policy is horribly unfair and not treating runners equally. She is right, from an equal returns to merit perspective. Which of the following solutions would we expect her to advocate for from this perspective? Multiple choice question
Each runner should get a medal of decreasing symbolic value in the same proportion of silver to gold and bronze to silver.
While there are many different kinds of policy documents aimed at different audiences, they all typically share a set of common components. Which of the following appear in most policy documents (even if they might look or sound different in different kinds of documents)?
Executive summary Problem definition (or framing) Background on the policy area Alternatives that might work to solve the problem Criteria for how someone should choose among options Trade-offs that compare alteratives to one another Recommendations for which alternative to choose
True or False: Policy is only considered public if it is implemented by government actors.
False. While it's true that lots of public policy is implemented by government actors, lots of public policy is also implemented by private organizations and individuals.
After the finals of the Olympic 100-meter dash, the person who ran the race fastest gets a gold medal, the person who ran second fastest gets a silver medal, and the person who ran third fastest gets a bronze medal. Thinking only about these three medal winners, in what way is this medal policy fair or equal?
It provides equal returns to merit, but merit differs across runners.
Which of the following authors is known for his writings on the importance of maintaining individual liberty?
John Stuart Mill
Social movements use a wide range of tactics, including those common "inside" conventional politics and "outside" tactics aimed at causing disruption of daily life and attracting attention to the cause. Good examples of "outside" tactics described in the article include...
Sit-ins by Black activists at "whites only" lunch counters. Black residents of Montgomery boycotting the bus system and organizing a rideshare program Black activists riding segregated interstate buses from Northern to Southern states Large numbers of protestors intentionally getting arrested so authorities would not have room to arrest more people.
Which of the following political entities were established by the U.S. Constitution?
State governments Federal Government
Imagine a devious criminal captures a cruise ship with 100 passengers. He holds all the passengers hostage. The criminal calls John Rawls and forces him to choose the fate of the passengers from the options listed below. If Rawls's decision-making is consistent with his philosophy, what option does he pick?
The criminal kills none of the passengers, but all 100 of them have to stay in small, dark, windowless cabins on the lower decks for two years.
Which of the following questions does Andrew Pennock suggest all policy writers ask themselves after identifying the audience they want to reach?
What are your audience's biggest weaknesses or deficiencies? What crucial knowledge is your audience missing? What kind of document will best help your audience process this new information? What are the primary sources of your audience's resources, and how many resources do they have? What does your audience already know about the topic? What are your audience's political biases and predispositions? Why does your audience care about your topic, and how much do they care?
Which of the following organizations mentioned in the article would be considered government policy actors engaged with this policy issue?
White house during Obama administration (when rule was proposed) the Department of Interior The bureau of Land Management The White House during the Trump Administration (when the rule was rescinded).
A parent decides that every day before leaving the house, they and their child will wash their faces, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, and comb their hair. No one will leave the house until all four tasks are completed. True or false: We could consider this a policy.
True. This is a course of action chosen by an individual. It counts.
Federal housing vouchers (often called "Section 8 vouchers") can be used by low income Americans to help pay for rent. The government provides far fewer vouchers than there are people who qualify to receive them. People who receive the voucher pay roughly 30% of their own income in rent and then can use the voucher for whatever rent amount is left to pay. This means recipients get different dollar amounts for their vouchers depending on their income level and rental cost. Regardless of dollar value differences, however, most voucher recipients do end up in rental units and not homeless. Which of the following dimensions of equality/inequality are components of this program?
Unequal needs across policy recipients. Equal outcomes across (most) policy recipients. Unequal benefits across policy recipients. Unequal access across people in the target population.
The approach to writing where the writer writes things that extend beyond what the writer know about a topic is...
trumpet writing
The approach to writing where the writer includes pretty much everything they know about a topic in a paper is...
tube writing
After years of advocacy by many organizations, and weeks of organizing work by local organizers, more than 100,000 people turned out for a march in Chicago on March 10, 2006 to protest a proposed change to US federal immigration policy. Between then and May 25, 2006, dozens of protest events occurred in cities across the country. Some events were small, with a few hundred people, but many were quite large with tens of thousands of participants. The largest single event, a march in Los Angeles, included between 500,000 and 1.5 million participants. The largest day of protest saw simultaneous protests in more than 100 US cities. After the US Senate voted in favor of a bill including a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in the US, protests subsided. Based on the concepts discussed in the lecture, should this sequence of events be considered a social movement?
Yes. It has all the main components of a social movement.
Which of the following people is a civil servant?
a Foreign Service Information Management Specialist at the US State Department
The best way to clarify your thinking about a policy problem is...
writing rough versions of your ideas from the start.
The approach to writing we will use this semester--and that, arguably, you should use for all the writing you ever do--is...
funnel writing
The approach to writing where the writer knows a lot about a topic and selectively chooses the right information to include for the audience and purpose of a piece of writing is...
funnel writing
The US Postal Service is a government agency, created by an act of Congress. That means we should consider mail carriers who deliver the mail each day...
government agents directly enacting public policy. That's right. The federal government decided mail should be delivered, so the people employed by the government who deliver it are directly enacting that policy.
Which of the following could be considered a policy stakeholder organization?
he National Coffee Association the Pour House Cafe, a coffee shop on Kirkwood Ave Starbucks, a US-based coffee chain
Morris argues that the Black Lives Matter movement...
is organized in a manner quite different from the Civil Rights Movement
A legal system that does not require anyone to wear a motorcycle helmet is offering riders...
maximum autonomy.
Policy options that we do not pursue once we have chosen to pursue one particular policy can be considered...
opportunity costs
Morris describes the assassination of two prominent leaders of the Black Panthers, a Civil Rights Movement organization, by police. This is an example of...
state repression of a social movement
Which of the following organizations mentioned in the article would be considered non-government policy stakeholders engaged with this policy issue?
the American Petroleum Institute each of the oil and gas companies impacted by the rule the Environmental Defense Fund
The primary justification for building the dam in Hetch Hetchy valley can be summarized as...
the benefits to people were of greater value than the value of environmental conditions in the valley.