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Answer Sheet -- Chapters1-3, Democracy and Federalism Test

         Define the following terms:

  1. rationality: Reaching a decision based on comparing costs and benefits.
  2. suffrage: the right to vote
  3. Pareto Optimum: when no one can improve his position with hurting someone else.
  4. power: Getting someone else to do what they otherwise would not do.
  5. representative democracy: decisions of government policy based on competition for people’s votes.
  6. franchise: the right to vote (extended to a group)
  7. utility - benefit or satisfaction
  8. authority: The right to exercise power.
  9. dichotomous variable: a quality that either exists or it doesn’t, a question answered yes or no.
  10. legitimacy -authority based on constitution or law
  11. pork barrel spending: wasteful government spending - a perception that often depends on whether you are benefiting from it.
  12. Plurality vs. Proportional (electoral systems:
    Plurality: the victor may have received less than 50%, but by receiving one vote more than the other guy, the winner takes the whole prize.
    Proportional - the benefit is divided among those who compete according to what they contribute to a winning coalition.

Textbook Questions--The Constitution

13. Chapter 1 of Wilson and DiIulio -- What is the theme of the book?
         Government is about competition between people groups and institutions to determine
         the purposes of government.

14. What are four theories of "Who governs?" Define:
        A) Marxists: the state is the governing committee of the capitalist (factory owning) class.
        B) Elitist: a small group of closely connected rich people controls everything.
        C) Bureaucratic: the people who work in the different departments of government agencies
         actually implement policies and frame the choices of elected officials.
         D) Pluralist: the interests of most people get represented most of the time.
15. What was the most important issue for those who wrote the constitution?
         Liberty
16. To what source does the constitution look in justification for its authority and that of the government?
         People with God-given rights.
17. What did these authors believe about the nature of man and from these beliefs,
        What conclusion did they draw about the design of government?

People are by nature evil, and therefore government must be divided and limited to prevent elected officials from becoming dictators or mobs from persecuting minorities.

18. What are the two most important threats to the values of the people in their view?
        A) mobs; B) dictators
19. Give two experiences from the history of these colonies that illustrate these threats.
        A) Shay’s rebellion and the French revolution; B) British oppression of the colonists.
20. What two values did these men try to balance and preserve?
         Liberty and order
21. What two conditions did the constitution have to fulfill in order to be regarded as successful?
        A) get ratified; B) preserve liberty.
22. What strategy did the framers of the constitution employ to preserve liberty?
         Design a government that was limited and divided.
23. What tactic was necessary for the constitution to be ratified?
        Compromises that gave smaller states protection from big states walking all over them.

24. What are two significant and distinct characteristics of the US political system that derive from this struggle?
         A) electoral college
         B) bicameral legislature with a strong senate.

25. Why was there no bill of rights in the constitution?
         A) state constitutions had them;
         B) the constitution specified some rights;
         C) their model of limited government would mean that specified rights are unnecessary.

26. Why didn’t they deal with the issue of slavery?
        The southern states would never have ratified it, but after a common unified state was formed,
         then perhaps it would grow strong enough to deal with the issue.

27. What are two categories of proposals for reforming the constitution?
         And what is your position in this debate?
         A) the president is too weak, and his privileges must be strengthened;
         B) government itself does too much and much be limited more.

"The Price of Federalism"

28. What two categories of spending does Petersen use in his book?
A) redistributive;
B) developmental

29. What two perspectives on federal government does Peterson use. Define and explain.

A) Functionalist says that each level of government has a function at which it is better suited and on which it should concentrate;

B) Legislative says that the needs of legislators cause them to promote policies that work against the natural function of each level of government.

30. What were the characteristics of early federalism?
         A) dual sovereignty; B) independent militias;
         C) belief in state nullification of federal laws that were despotic.

31. What are the characteristics of modern federalism?
         A) independent elections; B) independent taxing and spending authority.

32. Which level of government is most effective at which type of spending?
         [According to Peterson's functional theory.]

Federal is better at redistributive (take from the rich and give to the poor) because it can it can
try to keep poor people out and rich people are less willing to leave their home country.
States are better at promoting economic development because they can keep costs down,
and have better knowledge of local needs and requirements.

33. What is one very important advantage of federalism?
         States are the laboratories of democracy - they experiment in learning how to better promote economic development, they watch each other and imitate whatever works best.

34. What are two costs, or ways of describing "the price" of federalism?
         A) high cost of public services in central cities;
         B) inequalities between states and regions in standards of living and government spending.

35. What does Peterson predict about the future?
         Functionalism will increase.

Democracy

36. What is the strict definition of democracy?
         The alternation of parties in power.

37. What are the two most important ingredients in democracy?
         A) Competition; B) Participation.

38. How can the extent of democratization be measured?
         A) % of votes received by the party coming in 2nd;
         B) % of eligible voters voting

39. What are some of the forms of democratic systems?
         Democratic systems can be either:
         A) unitary or B) federal;
         and either C) presidential or D) parliamentary

40. According to Hedenius and Van Hanen, what are some of the social conditions that support the development of democracy?

A) large middle class; B) low spending on the military
C) lower taxes; D) % of protestants.
(other answers: low commodity concentration; high trade with the US, capitalism)

41. What does the phrase "Power structures become adjusted to resource structures" mean?
         The form of government will tend over time to adjust to whether money is concentrated in the hands of a few people or many.

42. What three factors did the professor say were not adequately covered in the handout on "Elements of Democracy?" Why is each one important?

A) "Civil society" - because these small groups which are formed to solve problems, teach people to be responsible for solving their own problems, they take some of the load off of government, reduce unhappiness, teach the role of constitutions and living according to rules that they, the people, themselves have written. They can lead to increased trust and lowered fear and suspicion between the people and government officials.
B) "Constitutions and the rule of law," because democracy depends on minorities being protected from majorities by rules and specific rights;
C) "The State and power" - so that you understand where a representative democratic republic fits in with, and compares to, other forms of government.

43. What are the limitations of direct democracy?

A. All common, everyday citizens cannot give the time necessary to be informed on all the issues of government policy, and meeting to debate these would take too much time;
B. People are fickle and change their minds rapidly based on emotion, which is not practical for stable policy.

44. What does democracy require?
         A) The operation of opposition parties;
         B) Media freedom so people can know the differences between parties;
         C) Perception of a choice.

45. What type of model does Anthony Downs apply to democracy?
         Rational actor model.

46. What three assumptions does he make about democracy?
         A) opposition parties operate;
         B) uncertainty;
         C) rational voters

47. What does he assume politicians want?
         A) power B) profit (money); C) prestige; D) joy of combat.

48. What does his model assume that a voter can do?
         A) know what policies each party will actually implement;
         B) know what the effect of the policies will be;
         C) Know what the value of these effects will be for him or her personally.

49. What are examples of "future oriented" voting?
         A) voting to strengthen a weak party for its future success;
         B) trying to force an existing party to move its policies back to the extreme - away from the center.

50. What is "The Arrow Problem?"
         Voters have a set of preferences that is ranked, (transitive) but when they are added together,
there is no single party with which a majority will be happy (intransitive).

51. What three types of groups are influential in democracy, what do they do and what does this mean for democracy?
         A) Political parties;
         B) interest groups;
         C) favor buyers. Because these groups provide information to the government, the people in them
         have more influence than other voters, thus violating the "equality of political influence" ideal
         of democracy.

52. Downs uses the distribution of voters on a political scale to determine what three major characteristics?
         A) Whether there will be two or more major political parties;
         B) whether government policy will be stable or not;
         C) whether new parties will replace, or only influence existing parties.

53. From logic, if there is a bell-shaped curve of political preferences, what can you predict will be the result?
         A) There will be two parties and their policies will be close to each other in the center
         of the political spectrum;
         B) They will remain distinct because they fear the rise of extremist parties;
         C) They will be vague and ambiguous about their policies;

54. What is the most important cost to voting?
         The time effort and emotion needed to sort through all the information.

55. Is political equality possible in democracy?
         (Or, "Can democracy live up to the hopes that people have for it?") Why, when, or why not?

Although political equality is not strictly possible, (because some groups will have more influence - because they solve an information problem for the government) democracy is rational and efficient when there is consensus about what policies are most important, or when political preferences are evenly distributed and there is proportional voting.

56. What are some examples of individually rational, but socially irrational voting?

Voting for a party that cannot win is socially or politically irrational, but individually rational if the person is future oriented.
This is also true of voting without a political party differential (knowing which party will give you more benefit than the cost) when the voter is only concerned with maintaining the democratic system itself.

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