PLS 200 Final Exam Study Guide

Correlation is a sufficient condition for causation.

False

Cross-cutting cleavages increase polarization resulting in a higher likelihood of violence.

False

Democracy only requires free and fair elections.

False

Direct democracy is an ideal form of government and the most common type of democracy in the world.

False

Monozygotic twins have less shared genetic material than dizygotic twins, which is what lets us make inferences about the causes of political traits/attitudes.

False

Moving from dictatorship to democracy is negatively correlated with the relative frequency of revolutions.

False

Political culture is merely anecdotal and has no scientifically measurable impact on political outcomes such as foreign policy and tax policy.

False

Publication bias is the idea that researchers from more prestigious schools are more likely to be published in academic journals than those from less prestigious schools.

False

Puglisi and Snyder (2011) find that all newspaper, regardless of political leanings, have a lot of scandal coverage.

False

Puglisi and Snyder (2011) shows that partisan editorial boards have no relationship to coverage of scandals for news or editorials.

False

Referenda are put on the ballot by citizens; initiatives come from the legislature

False

Referendums are when citizens petition to have something on the ballot.

False

Revolutions are common because collective action is easy to achieve.

False

Shadow governments in parliamentary systems are an example of the legislature's legitimating function.

False

Speech clarity, speaking skills, and critical thinking are the three traits used least by political scientists according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

False

Statutory interpretation is an example of the dispute resolution function played by the judiciary.

False

Studies show that racial bias has no impact on preferences for social welfare programs.

False

Survey data suggest there is no liberal bias among university professors

False

The 'delegate' model of representation means the legislator bases their decisions on their judgments rather than their constituents' opinions and preferences.

False

The Democratic Peace Theory suggests that democracies are less likely to go to war with any other country.

False

The Prime Minister in a parliamentary system is chosen directly by the electorate.

False

The Supreme Court emphasizes the specific identity of the litigants over the broad interpretations of legal matters.

False

The Tragedy of the Commons occurs because individuals are ignorant of the fact that their actions make society worse off.

False

The US President, as the head of government, holds the power to declare war.

False

The fire alarm approach to bureaucracy involves Congress proactively reviewing bureaucratic behavior.

False

The majority of countries in the world have a head of state that is also the head of government.

False

The mutual exploitation model refers to the symbiotic relationship between media and the masses.

False

The shakiness of the qual environment assumption (EEA) in twin studies gives us good reason to doubt most of the political trait/attitude.

False

The subfield of Political Theory is mainly concerned with studying how nations interact with one another.

False

The three components of the Iron Triangle are interest groups, bureaucratic agencies, and voters.

False

There is more policy stability in a parliamentary system than in a presidential system

False

To ensure fairness for those involved in a dispute, appellate courts in the US review all aspects of a case.

False

Tragedy of the Commons example shows how common resources can be depleted because individuals are acting irrationally.

False

Under capitalism, the laborers own the means of production, and under socialism, landowners control the means of production.

False

Voter turnout for ballot initiatives is higher during midterm elections than during presidential election years.

False

Arcenaux et al. (2016) shows that congress members are generally more likely to act as "delegates" when constituents are paying attention.

True

Authority leakage is a miscommunication from top to bottom in the bureaucratic hierarchy; this can be accidental or intentional.

True

Autocratic regimes are those in which there is an absence of meaningful competition for office and ability for citizens to participate in elections.

True

Bicameralism is where a legislature has two houses in order to have more comprehensive representation.

True

Bureaucracy is the unelected policymaking arm within government.

True

Clientelism refers to the practice of "buying" votes, which harms the process of democracy.

True

Conceptual frameworks are created from our personal experiences, preferences, and expectations, which help us to make sense of our world.

True

Constructivism is a way to think about international relations in which everything is socially constructed.

True

Democracy is the only way to credibly guarantee property rights

True

Descriptive representation is how representatives "mirror" the electorate in terms of demographics.

True

Elections act as safety valves to prevent complete blowups like revolution

True

Experiments are powerful research tools because they have high internal validity.

True

Getting accepted to a political science graduate program is as much about how you and your interests fit with the department as your undergraduate GPA.

True

Government is an institutionalized alliance to move out of anarchy.

True

Highly educated voters are always very likely to vote, regardless of the amount of money spent on initiatives, whereas voters with low levels of education are influenced by the amount of money spent.

True

If there were absolutely no political difference among justices, there would not be dissenting opinions in cases.

True

In proportional representation, parties are more important than individual candidates.

True

The labor pool can generate a Tragedy of the Commons.

True

The legislature is an example of a government structure, and the senate is an example of a government institution.

True

The more initiatives on the ballot, the greater the likelihood that someone will go vote.

True

The panopticon is a form of self-policing that governments use to control populations.

True

The proportion of tenure-track teaching positions has decreased over the past four decades.

True

The relationship between variables may be both statistically significant and substantively insignificant.

True

The way in which religion in a geographic area interacts with political action is an example of political culture.

True

There are no pure socialist or capitalist economies, there are only mixtures of these concepts.

True

Unelected bureaucrats at the federal level in the US significantly outnumber elected policymakers

True

We use randomization to control for spurious relationships.

True

Your measure will get on the ballot in Michigan if you can collect signatures totaling at least 10% of votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election within 180 days of when you registered your petition.

True

"Every racial group should have a representative in the legislature." This statement is an example of substantive representation.

False

According to survey data, trust in government has gone up over time.

False

All judges are positivists, which means that when they decide cases they are influenced not only by the law and facts of the case, but also their ideologies, attitudes, personal preferences, and experiences.

False

Anarchy, by definition, is chaotic and dangerous.

False

As the Head of State, the political views of the Queen of England are essential to policymaking in the United Kingdom, especially under conditions of divided government.

False

Associate professors are the lowest on the hierarchy at doctoral institutions like MSU.

False

Bureaucrats and representatives are both elected, so they are both directly accountable to constituents.

False

Classical liberalism promotes government involvement to reduce inequality.

False

Collective action is a coordinated group action designed to achieve a common goal that could also be achieved individually.

False

Conflict narratives are difficult to sell- people prefer uplifting stories rather than stories of conflict.

False

Conflict on a single dimension leads to more opportunities for compromise.

False

Exposure to judicial symbols (things like judges in robes, scales of justice) make people more likely to accept a decision they oppose, but do not increase support for decisions.

False

Gerrymandering refers to the practice of drawing districts evenly and with no bias towards one party or another.

False

Idealism has more explanatory power than realism in political science.

False

If percent change is high, the raw numbers being used must also be high.

False

If we have a free and fair vote on an issue, then the choice of the largest group of voters will be the winning outcome.

False

In a parliamentary system, divided government is when the prime minister is from a different party than parliaments' majority.

False

In an effort to heal the party, candidates often choose rivals from the current election as their Vice-Presidential running mate.

False

In autocracies, there are no elections or legislative bodies.

False

In general, pro-individual judicial decisions are conservative and pro-government judicial decisions are liberal.

False

In theory, lack of overarching authority in an anarchic state, most people live safely and comfortably.

False

Institutions are differentiated by how much centralization of power there is. A confederation has the most centralized power.

False

Kalla and Broockman's (2016) research on Congress shows us that people who have donated have more influence over members of Congress.

False

Large research institutions like MSU prioritize a professor's teaching abilities and student reviews over his/her research.

False

Law in action always reflects law on the books.

False

Level of education has no impact on likelihood of voting in ballot initiatives.

False

Liberalism solves the Stag Hunt through the principal of anarchy.

False

Marvel and McGrath (2016) shows that hearings increase bureaucratic performance.

False

Military regimes are the longest-lived because they are more interested in self-preservation than political power.

False

A field experiment is considered the gold standard in social science research because it employs randomly assigned conditions.

True

A natural experiment occurs when conditions are randomly assigned by nature; social scientists can exploit these natural occurrences for empirical studies.

True

Agency theory is a solution to the problem of unelected bureaucrats: the legislature hires bureaucracy.

True

Anarchy's lack of structure allows strong individuals to exert their power and achieve their goals.

True

In social science, it is important to develop measures of phenomena that are both valid and reliable, meaning they measure what they are supposed to measure and they can be consistently reproduced.

True

In socialism, society controls the means of production.

True

In the Stag Hunt example, trust between actors is important for the community to achieve the best outcome.

True

In the realist school of thought, war is assumed to be inevitable

True

Institutions in the United States cause intentional delay in policy enactment, which protects minority rights.

True

It is difficult to transfer the "pure" scientific method to political science because our subject matter is social in nature.

True

Joshua Kalla and David Broockman (2016) find that meetings with a member of congress are rare, but when people do get meetings it is because they have donated.

True

Judicial review in the US is when the courts determine if a law violates the Constitution.

True

Leaders primarily seek wealth, power, and prestige.

True

Liberalism in international relations takes into account domestic politics to show why countries are not always at war.

True

Media is our primary source of agreement reality, so it is important to understand the bias inherent in the stories that are chosen to be reported on.

True

Motivated reasoning is the process of confirming our existing beliefs and discounting information that goes against our beliefs.

True

Natural resources, per capita income, country size, state weakness, and regime type all influence the relative frequency of revolutions.

True

News is both big business and a public service.

True

One way to decide whether you want to pursue political science is to work as a research assistant.

True

Percent change is calculated as ((T2-T1)/T1) x 100. This allows us to observe relative change (e.g., change in average NAPS score between assignments).

True

Policymaking refers to implementation of laws.

True

Political Science has borrowed heavily from other social sciences, such as sociology and economics.

True

Political capital is the reserve of power that leaders use to pursue their goals

True

Political culture affects institutions.

True

Political culture is the shared social context from which people make political choices.

True

Political ideology (i.e. liberal/conservative) has a substantial genetic component. However, political party (i.e. Democratic/Republican) does not.

True

Pork barrel spending is wasteful spending in which services are delivered to a very localized area to strengthen an incumbent.

True

Power is shared between national and local governments in a federal system.

True

Presidents are more likely to declare natural disasters when they expect elections to be competitive races.

True

Security is an example of a collective action problem.

True

Sometimes conflict in a country serves as a positive purpose.

True

Studies show that ideological agreement predicts senator voting in judicial confirmations.

True

Studies show that in general, Republicans are slightly more pro-security and Democrats are slightly more pro-civil liberty. However, partisanship does not perfectly predict these beliefs.

True

The American elections use the 'first past the post' system wherein the candidate that gets the most votes wins.

True

The Comparative Politics Subfield focuses primarily on foreign countries.

True

The Gini Coefficient is a relative measure of income inequality.

True

The Meltzer-Richard model states that redistributive preferences are only based on income, so voters below the median income should prefer higher taxes.

True

The Robin Hood Paradox persists because it is highly internally valid, but the mechanism is not borne out empirically.

True

The executive is in charge of implementing policy in the government.

True

The first-past-the-post system favors moderate candidates and a two-party system.

True