political science questions

Examples of long-standing dominant party systems include all of the following EXCEPT ______.

India

Usually, it is easier to amend the constitution of ______.

Majoritarian democracies

In an open-list proportional representation system, voters choose ______.

a candidate

When all the territorial units in a federal system have the same relationship to the national government, it is called ______.

a symmetrical federal system

What is one reason why the role of women is so critical to the construction of other identity groups?

-As the traditional childcare providers, women pass on important cultural elements to the next generation. -Women are used as symbolic markers of community identity. -Ideas about gender often demarcate group boundaries

The primary models of secularism arose first in ______.

Europe and North America

Semipresidentialism originated in ______.

France

Nigeria requires its political parties to meet which criteria for a winning presidential candidate?

at least 25% of the vote in two-thirds of the states

The head of government in a parliamentary system is ______.

chosen from the members of the legislature

Interest groups are an example of ______.

civil society

The sphere of organized citizen activity between the state and the individual family or firm is called ______.

civil society

Populist rulers in Latin America often relied on ______ to ensure political support.

clientelism

The United States has which kind of legal system?

common law

Civic nationalism is based on ______.

commonly held political beliefs

Which of the following political parties will most likely oppose social welfare spending, according to von Beyme?

conservatives

What are von Beyme's categories of political parties?

conservatives, Christian democrats, extremists, liberals

Explicit power-sharing between specific ethnic groups that provides each with some amount of power in the central government is called ______

consociationalism

Primordialism rejects the idea that ______.

culture is constructed

With regard to the state, devolution is understood as ______.

decentralization of power

Which of the following is not among the usual purposes of federalism?

decreasing the saliency of regional identity

The gender gap in both Western and postcolonial societies is narrowest in ______.

educational attainment

The collective action problem faced by democratic governments is that ______.

expending time or money toward any political goal may be irrational

According to Duverger's law, which of the following voting systems will eventually result in a two-party system?

first-past-the-post (FPTP)

Cadre parties ______.

have a small, elite membership

The New Public Management movement sought to ______.

increase citizen satisfaction with government services and introduce market-based principles

Which of the following leads to increased power of the executive branch?

increasing complexity and functions of a state, increasing reliance on the bureaucracy by the legislature, increasing the power of the bureaucracy

Which of the following is NOT one of the demands sometimes associated with the politics of recognition?

independence

Vertical accountability refers to the ability of ______.

individuals and groups to hold state institutions accountable

The ability of judges to decide cases as they think appropriate, regardless of what politically powerful officials or institutions desire is called ______.

judicial independence

The right of the judiciary to decide whether a specific law contradicts a country's constitution is known as ______

judicial review

Germany historically has primarily relied on ______ as a basis for citizenship.

jus sanguinis

A majority group is ______ to see its political interests as connected to its racial identity than a minority group.

less likely

Multicultural integration and assimilation differ in the fact that ______.

multicultural integration preserves the cultural differences among groups

A coalition government arises when ______.

no party has a clear majority in parliament in a parliamentary system

In a neocorporatist system:

peak associations unite interest groups and represent the main interests in society

Which of the following best describes India's secular approach?

positive accommodation

A common-law system differs from a code-law system in that in a common-law system, judges take into consideration ______.

previous court cases

Nationalist leaders tend to believe in ______.

primordialism

Theorists who believe that full inclusion for equal citizenship is not possible due to cultural difference will tend to advocate what type of policies?

recognizing and preserving distinct cultures and granting group autonomy

Samuel Huntington argued that the world could be divided into eight major "civilizations" based largely on ______.

religion

Horizontal accountability refers to the ability of ______.

state institutions to hold each other accountable

Which of the following branches of government MUST exist in all modern states?

the executive

In a parliamentary system, the head of state is different from the head of government because ______.

the head of state holds little or no political power the function of the head of state is purely ceremonial the head of government has power to make political decisions

The power of Brazil's president is limited by ______.

the highly fragmented multiparty system

Which of the following is most usefully thought of as a principal-agent problem?

the problems elected leaders have in ensuring bureaucrats carry out their wishes

Rent seeking often refers to:

using government regulations to one's personal benefit

An electoral threshold in a proportional representation system refers to the percentage of the ______

vote a party must receive to gain representation in parliament

What is the potential effect of dual legitimacy on a presidential system?

weakening of accountability, winner-take-all mentality of the executive, government deadlock