Chapters 7 and 8 Multiple Choice

The bureaucratic culture includes all of the following EXCEPT this:

A firm commitment to using plain, easy-to-understand language

According to James David Barber's typology of presidential personalities, which type of president is likely to perform best in office?

Active-positive presidents

Which of the following is an example of a government agency designed to serve a distinct clientele group?

Agriculture

The textbook identifies all of the following as types of representation EXCEPT this:

Authoritative representation

______ refers to bureaucrats' authority to use their own judgment in interpreting and carrying out the laws of Congress.

Bureaucratic discretion

Which of the following is NOT a type of organization within the federal bureaucracy?

Citizen advisory councils

All of the following statements concerning Hispanic representation in Congress are true EXCEPT this one:

In recent years, they have been voting more for the Republican Party.

The bureaucratic culture has all of the following effects EXCEPT this one:

It facilitates ease of movement by individuals from one agency to another during their careers.

According to the textbook, what has happened to the coattail effect in recent years?

It has decreased in importance due to declining party ties.

What do we know from looking at the approval level of Congress as shown by public opinion polls over time?

It is near an all-time low.

Which of the following statements is true about the modern use of treaties and executive agreements?

Most completed international negotiations (over 90 percent) end in executive agreements rather than treaties.

What is the most likely explanation for the lack of a female president thus far?

Not many women hold the positions that often generate presidential candidates, such as vice president, senator, or state governor.

President Obama's appointments to the bureaucracy differed from President George W. Bush's appointments in that ______.

President Obama's appointments were more likely to be made on the basis of policy expertise

The single largest program of the civilian federal bureaucracy today is ______.

Social Security

The courts generally play a modest role in controlling the bureaucracy for all of the following reasons EXCEPT this one:

The Constitution does not permit the courts to rule on executive branch decisions.

Which of the following is NOT an example of a government corporation?

The Food and Drug Administration

The response of a certain president to what event led to Americans' belief that government should play a much more active role in helping solve problems beyond their control?

The Great Depression

All of the following are designed to enhance citizen influence over the bureaucracy EXCEPT this:

The Kenneth Meier Act

According to the textbook, why does Congress have to be unified and motivated in order to pass legislation?

The founders designed the legislative process to have many possible disruptions and stagnations.

All of the following statements concerning the formation of the federal bureaucracy are true EXCEPT this one:

The greatest period of growth of the bureaucracy was in the 1800s.

Which of the following statements is NOT true concerning independent agencies?

The term independent refers to the fact that such agencies are free of presidential power.

The public dislikes Congress for all of the following reasons EXCEPT this one:

There has been an increase in corruption among members of Congress in recent years.

How have scandals such as Iran-contra and Whitewater affected the power and resources of the presidency overall?

They have weakened it.

When deciding whether to run for a seat in Congress, strategic politicians will ask all of the following questions EXCEPT this one:

Will this seat lead to the presidency?

In addition to his power to appoint heads of federal agencies, the president has additional involvement with the bureaucracy, including the presidential veto, the power to reorganize the bureaucracy, the power of persuasion, and ______.

a key role in the budget process

The primary justification for the creation of a government corporation is to provide ______.

a service that the private sector is unable to offer

According to the text, effective heads of government are expected to do all of the following EXCEPT ______.

act as a symbol for all Americans

The text authors classify Obama as a(n) ______ type of president.

active-positive

A close relationship developed between the oil industry and the agency charged with regulating drilling. This relationship is an example of ______.

agency capture

The president has the least power over ______.

an independent regulatory agency

The president's cabinet is composed of the ______.

appointees heading each of the fifteen major departments in the executive branch

According to the textbook, bureaucracies are often the only meeting ground for citizens and politics because they ______.

are often the only contact citizens have with government

The people who participate in citizen advisory councils ______.

are often unrepresentative of the general public but are chosen for their special credentials or interests

According to the textbook, life within the bureaucracy is ______.

as political as life outside of it

James David Barber classified presidents ______.

based on their energy level and their orientation toward life

A major assumption that the founders had concerning the Electoral College was that electors would ______.

be leading citizens who could be trusted to exercise good judgment

The bureaucracy engages in the lawmaking process ______.

because Congress often passes very general laws that require clarification before they can be enforced

In recent years, the filibuster has ______.

become a tactic regularly used by the minority party to block proposals of the majority party

The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 has ______.

been a step toward counteracting negative behavior

Engaging in both representation and law-making can be difficult for members of Congress because

being a good representative can mean doing things that are not in the national-interest.

President Obama initially tried a ______ approach to get his health care bill passed.

bipartisan

Bureaucracy is useful for all of the following EXCEPT tasks that ______.

can be handled on an ad hoc basis

All of the following are roles of the President of the United States EXCEPT ______.

chief justice of the Supreme Court

Groups of citizens whose interests are affected by an agency and who work to influence its policies are called ______.

clientele groups

Congress finds it difficult to make policy that solves national problems because ______.

constituents reward them for taking care of their individual interests

Presidents are limited to two full terms in office by ______.

constitutional amendment

The value of explicit rules in bureaucratic institutions is that they ______.

create standardization and predictability

According to the text, the congressional process is slow and involves a great deal of bickering and arguing because ______.

democracy is a messy process that involves bargaining and compromise

Pacts made by the president with another head of state that do not require Senate approval are called ______.

executive agreements

The term legislative liaison refers to ______.

executive personnel who seek congressional support for the president's agenda

The primary source of power for a member of the bureaucracy is ______.

expertise

The bulk of the federal bureaucracy is ______.

found in the executive branch

Presidents use their appointment power to ______.

gain necessary control over the bureaucracy or unnecessarily politicize the bureaucracy, depending on your perspective

Redrawing congressional district boundaries to favor a particular group or party is known as ______.

gerrymandering

The Privacy Act of 1974 ______.

gives citizens access to records that government agencies have on them

Many of the efforts by states to create majority-minority districts ______.

have been held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court

The significance of the president's inherent powers is that they ______.

have been used to expand the powers of the presidency beyond what is explicitly stated in the Constitution

One of the major advantages that incumbents have in raising campaign money is that they ______.

have more access to PAC money than do challengers

The Iran-contra controversy did not lead to the impeachment of President Reagan because ______.

he claimed he knew nothing about Iran-contra, and no evidence was found to contradict him

When Republican Jeff Flake resigned from the Senate, he said it was because

he was sick of watching his colleagues break the norms that support democracy.

Presidents must play their role as ______ in order to solve problems, but that requires them to behave in ways that conflict with their role as ______.

head of government, head of state

A clear chain of command with all employees knowing who their supervisors are as well as whom they are responsible for is an example of a(n) ______.

hierarchy

Polarization refers to

how far apart the parties are ideologically.

The job of being a member of Congress has become complicated in recent years by

hyperpartisanship.

Citizens view Congress with ______.

increasing disapproval

Activist nineteenth-century presidents tended to claim that they were exercising ______.

inherent powers of the executive implied in the Constitution

Most of the strength of the modern presidency is based on the ______.

inherent powers of the president

According to the textbook, the framers adopted the Electoral College as a way to ______.

insulate the president from the masses

In most advanced industrial democracies, the role of head of government ______.

is performed by the prime minister

According to the textbook, Congress ______.

is rarely able to override a presidential veto

The role of the vice president ______.

is, with the exception of presiding over the Senate, determined by the president

Iron triangles accurately depict the relationships among congressional committees, interest groups, and bureaucratic agencies, but the full range of politics is best seen when one looks at ______.

issue networks

The authors of the textbook drew which of the following conclusions from the "What's at Stake?" story concerning organic foods?

it is possible to energize a public audience to respond to the bureaucracy.

Which of the following is not an attraction offered by the job of member of Congress?

job security

Congress sets up most regulatory agencies as boards or commissions, with members having fixed terms, in order to ______.

make them independent of political pressure, particularly from the president

In the conclusion of the "What's at Stake?" feature at the end of the chapter, the textbook points out that it is difficult for the Senate to change the rules allowing filibusters because ______.

members of the majority know they could one day be in the minority and want to use it

The Supreme Court has ruled that the president has ______.

more inherent powers in foreign policy than in domestic policy

The president's veto power is not a very effective weapon for controlling the bureaucracy because ______.

most bills contain many provisions, and the president is unwilling to lose an entire bill in order to veto one provision of the bill

The fundamental difference between most private bureaucracies and public bureaucracies pointed out in the text is that ______.

most private bureaucracies have the explicit goal of making money, so accountability is straightforward

Obama has continued to use signing statements ______.

much less than George W. Bush and only on a limited basis to protect his constitutional prerogatives

The Supreme Court has ruled that House districts ______.

must adhere to the "one person, one vote" standard

The ultimate purpose of depoliticizing government bureaucracies is to create ______.

neutral competence

Because presidents and their appointees often struggle with entrenched bureaucracies, presidents ______.

often prefer to start new agencies rather than deal with the old ones

Divided government occurs when ______.

one party controls the presidency while the other party controls at least one house of Congress

The chief of staff ______.

oversees operations of all White House staff and controls access to the president

The practice in which successful party candidates reward supporters with jobs or favors is known as ______.

patronage

According to the text, presidents take into account all of the following when selecting their cabinets EXCEPT ______.

personal loyalty to the president

To pass their legislative agendas, presidents must ______ members of Congress to get Congress to support their proposals.

persuade

The term iron triangle refers to the ______.

phenomenon of members of interest groups, congressional committees, and bureaucratic agencies cooperating for mutual benefit

The primary effect of sunshine laws has been to open the ______.

policymaking process to the public

When political bureaucratic appointees conflict with career civil servants, ______.

political appointees have the advantage of a higher position of authority, but civil servants can stall to slowly kill policy changes

Strategic politicians are ______.

politically experienced nonincumbents who rationally and carefully weigh key considerations before they decide to run for Congress

According to the text, what group is not represented in Congress and gets no benefits from descriptive representation?

poor Americans

Inherent powers are the ______.

powers not explicitly stated in the Constitution

The different public assessments of President George W. Bush's and President Bill Clinton's characters show us that ______.

presidents have different styles and project different images to the public

All of the following statements concerning the president's veto power are true EXCEPT ______.

presidents have had the power of the line-item veto since 1995

According to the textbook, presidents have difficulty surviving two terms in office and maintaining their popularity because ______.

presidents have too little power to meet public expectations

the weakness in the presidential strategy of going public is that ______.

presidents struggle to maintain a high enough approval rating to make the strategy work

The Executive Office of the President was formed to ______.

provide expert advice, serve the interests of the president, and supply information

Presidents have been able to ignore the restrictions on their ability to go to war contained in the War Powers Act because ______.

public opinion tends to rally around presidents when they deem military action necessary abroad, and Congress has declined to challenge such presidents

Before it can implement new regulations, a regulatory agency must ______.

publish the proposed regulations in the Federal Register and hold hearings on them

The Supreme Court has decided which kind of district drawing is unconstitutional?

racial gerrymandering

The reallocation of congressional seats among the states every ten years, following the census, is known as ______.

reapportionment

The process of redrawing congressional districts to match population shifts in states with more than one representative is called ______.

redistricting

The goal of the Pendleton Act and the Hatch Act was to ______.

reduce political influence over federal government employees

The two major roles of members of Congress are ______.

representation and lawmaking

Which of the following summarize the points of essential tension faced by members of Congress?

representation, national law-making, and partisanship

If Americans wanted Congress to quit creating pork barrel projects (also known as earmarks), they would have to ______.

reward their representatives more for engaging in national lawmaking and less for acts of representation

The lower levels of the bureaucracy are held accountable through ______.

scrutiny by the news media

All of the following statements concerning presidents' judicial power are true EXCEPT ______.

senior senators of the president's party have a great deal of power over all of the president's judicial appointments

The Department of Justice enforces the laws and represents the American government before the U.S. Supreme Court. Therefore, it was created to ______.

serve an essential government function

To respond to clientele groups, some departments and agencies were formed to ______.

serve and regulate particular organized and unorganized groups

The responsibilities of the solicitor general include all of the following EXCEPT ______.

serving as head of the Department of Justice

Alexander Hamilton's principal argument about the presidency in Federalist No. 70 is that it ______.

should be vigorous, single-member, and unencumbered by a cabinet

The founders created the congressional decision-making process to be ______.

slow and deliberative

Who decides what congressional districts look like?

state legislatures

Citizen advisory councils are established to ______.

subject key policy decisions to the consideration of the general public

If there is a disagreement as to whether the president is disabled and should turn his duties over to the vice president, the issue is resolved by ______.

the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution

Descriptive representation is ______.

the idea that an elected body should demographically mirror its population

Among the president's legislative powers are all of the following EXCEPT ______.

the line-item veto

The fifteen departments that make up the major subdivisions of the federal government also represent ______.

the president's cabinet

Many observers have concluded that impeachment is not an effective check on presidents because ______.

the process is too crippling for the government because Congress and the president would be consumed with the impeachment and trial

It is generally more difficult to win the nomination of your party but easier to win the general election when ______.

the seat is open

The White House staff and the president's cabinet often conflict because ______.

the staff serves the president's interests while cabinet members seek support for their policy initiatives

According to your book, Americans' mixed emotions about Congress come from

their frustration because the things representatives have to do to keep their jobs clash with our national expectations about lawmaking and because the constitutional design of the Founders creates a very slow and careful legislative process

Agencies cultivate and serve powerful supporters because ______.

they need to be able to resist pressure from Congress and the president

According to the textbook, President Bush's use of signing statements ______.

threatened the system of separation of powers

Congress exercises control over the bureaucracy ______.

through the close scrutiny given to specific agencies by specific congressional subcommittees

Presidents' authority over foreign and defense policy comes from all of the following EXCEPT their power ______.

to declare war

One effect of the Twelfth Amendment on the selection of the president and vice president has been ______.

to encourage ticket balancing

The presidential impeachment process is intended to remove sitting presidents for ______.

treason, bribery, and high crimes and misdemeanors

The official constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment are ______.

treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors

In the United States, treaties are negotiated by the president and require ______.

two-thirds approval from the Senate

The desire by agencies to maintain total control over their own resources and policy decisions, rather than cooperating with other agencies, can lead to ______.

wasteful and inefficient policy decisions

Bureaucracy is preferable to democracy in making decisions when ______.

we require expertise and dispatch

Very few ______, African Americans, or Hispanics reach the highest levels of the civil-service ladder.

women

Hyperpartisanship means you are willing to make ______ your top legislative priority.

your party loyalty