Contemporary Political Issues
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Course Introduction
Contemporary Political Issues examines the major political challenges and debates shaping societies today at the local, national, and global levels. The course explores topics such as globalization, populism, inequality, climate change, migration, and the impact of technology on politics. Students analyze policy responses, the role of political institutions, identity politics, and the media's influence in contemporary discourse. Through case studies and current events, the course encourages critical thinking about the causes and consequences of pressing political developments, equipping students with analytical tools to understand and engage with the complex political landscape of the 21st century.
Recommended Textbook
Cases in Comparative Politics Sixth Edition by
Patrick H. ONeil
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14 Chapters
420 Verified Questions
420 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Introduction
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30 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Marjorie believes that private property and capitalism create inequality,but she also places a high value on individual political freedom.Her ideology is called A) liberalism.
B) fascism.
C) anarchism.
D) communism.
Answer: C
Q2) In which of the following ways do multimember districts differ from single-member districts?
A) Multimember districts are considered a less democratic method of representation.
B) Multimember districts are more likely to favor two dominant political parties.
C) Multimember districts are less well-suited to proportional representation systems.
D) Multimember districts are more likely to grant small political parties seats in the legislature.
Answer: D
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Chapter 2: United Kingdom
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements best describes the Third Way of the Labour Party today?
A) It is a means of governing with a very slim majority that requires courting votes from the opposition.
B) It involves a frequent coalition government between the Labour Party and the Green Party.
C) It represents devolution to regional governments in order to quell nationalist sentiment.
D) It is a moderate compromise between the ideological right and the left of moderate free-market policies and ambitious constitutional reform.
Answer: D
Q2) The Conservative Party is also known as the A) Whigs.
B) Reds.
C) Backbenchers.
D) Tories.
Answer: D
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Page 4
Chapter 3: United States
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Sample Questions
Q1) The U.S.president serves as head of
A) state and government.
B) government and the judiciary.
C) state and chair of the Electoral College.
D) the party and leader of the Senate.
Answer: A
Q2) In which of the following ways did U.S.foreign policy in the latter half of the twentieth century differ from foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century?
A) The United States was less concerned with acting militarily to prevent the growth of communism.
B) The United States established supremacy over affairs in the Western Hemisphere.
C) The United States accepted a greater role in peacekeeping and settling ethnic conflicts.
D) The United States shifted its concern away from communism and took a more isolationist stance on global issues.
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: France
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Sample Questions
Q1) What event immediately preceded and,in part,led to Hollande not seeking reelection in 2017?
A) the collapse of the Fifth Republic
B) his failure to pass referendums on constitutional reform
C) a scandal involving anti-Semitism
D) an unpopular reform of French labor laws
Q2) Which of the following statements best describes the upper house (Sénat) of the French Parlement?
A) It is more powerful than the lower house.
B) It is weaker than the lower house.
C) It is directly elected.
D) It is directly appointed by the president.
Q3) The French legal system is based on A) precedent.
B) codes.
C) religious law.
D) common law.
Q4) What effect did the dirigisme system have on the French economy in the decades after World War II? How has this model fared through the economic changes of the last 20 years?
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Chapter 5: Germany
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Sample Questions
Q1) Germany's current head of government is
A) Angela Merkel.
B) Horst Köhler.
C) Gerhard Schroeder.
D) Christian Wulff.
Q2) Germany's democratic arrangement whereby business,labor,and the state work within an explicit framework to guide the economy toward future goals is called
A) clientelism.
B) federalism.
C) welfarism.
D) codetermination.
Q3) Which of the following was among the short-term results of the unification of East and West Germany?
A) relocation of the capital of the German state to Bonn
B) increasing gap in per capita wealth between the two halves
C) huge spending to modernize West German infrastructure
D) massive unemployment in East Germany
Q4) What are the consequences of Germany's mixed electoral system for the political makeup of parliament and the legislative process?
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Chapter 6: Japan
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about the position of the Japanese prime minister is accurate?
A) The prime minister is appointed by the emperor and then sent for approval by the Diet.
B) The prime minister is chosen by the House of Representatives and is subject to approval by the House of Councillors.
C) The prime minister draws the cabinet from the House of Councillors.
D) The prime minister is elected by the political party holding a majority of seats in the House of Representatives.
Q2) How does Japan's current economic situation compare to its economy during the 1980s?
A) Iron triangles have less influence in the current economy.
B) The current economy experiences lower unemployment but higher GDP per capita than was seen in the 1980s.
C) The developmental capitalist model has been traded for a liberal model with very little state influence.
D) The government carries more public debt now than it had in the 1980s.
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8
Chapter 7: Russia
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Sample Questions
Q1) After Stalin's death in 1953,the Soviet leadership made which of the following changes?
A) Use of centralized power was reduced.
B) Power was taken away from the Politburo.
C) The nomenklatura lost their authority over the daily life of citizens.
D) Economic control was taken away from the central planning bureaucracy.
Q2) The Commonwealth of Independent States is
A) a body used by Russia to retain influence over former Soviet republics.
B) the post-Soviet military alliance of Russia,Cuba,North Korea,and Vietnam.
C) the coordinating body that manages relations between the European Union and Russia.
D) the name for the European Union before it took in Russia as a full member.
Q3) Which of the following statements about the Russian Constitutional Court is accurate?
A) Its members are subject to 20-year term limits.
B) It does not serve as a court of last appeal for criminal cases.
C) Its members are nominated by the Duma.
D) It has the power of concrete review but lacks the power of abstract review.
Q4) What were the central factors that allowed for the 1917 revolution?
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Chapter 8: China
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following statements about China's political culture is accurate?
A) Chinese paternalism has weakened substantially in recent decades as women have regularly accepted top CCP leadership posts.
B) The large degree with which the Chinese people have accepted CCP leadership suggests that Maoism has had a deep and lasting impact on Chinese political culture.
C) Chinese leaders today promote Confucian values as a means of increasing governmental legitimacy,even though Mao opposed Confucianism.
D) Communist control of Chinese political culture remains evident in the inability of China's rural poor to organize any serious attempts at protest and dissent.
Q2) The Chinese Communists' disastrous attempt in the late 1950s to depart from the Soviet model by rapidly establishing locally directed communes was known as A) reform and opening.
B) the Hundred Flowers Campaign.
C) the Cultural Revolution.
D) the Great Leap Forward.
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Chapter 9: India
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Sample Questions
Q1) India's Green Revolution
A) introduced enhanced crops and cropping methods in the 1960s and 1970s.
B) promises to halve India's carbon emissions by 2050.
C) pitted Muslims against Hindus in a nineteenth-century civil war.
D) pitted Communists against nationalists in a civil war following independence.
Q2) Which of the following statements about India's House of the People is accurate?
A) It is the weaker of the two legislative houses.
B) It represents India's 29 states and seven territories.
C) Each representative in the chamber serves roughly 2 million people.
D) Most of its members are elected to fixed six-year terms.
Q3) How does a representative get elected to the House of the People?
A) winning the plurality of the vote on the first ballot in an SMD
B) winning a required majority of the vote on the first ballot in an SMD
C) winning a plurality of the vote on the first ballot and a majority on the second in an SMD
D) being on the party ballot that wins a high enough proportion of the vote in an MMD
Q4) What is the modern legacy of the ancient patterns of division and settlement between Indo-Aryans and the Dravidians in India?
Q5) Identify and discuss three primary obstacles to economic development in India.
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Chapter 10: Iran
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Sample Questions
Q1) Executive power in Iran lies primarily with the A) supreme leader and president.
B) president's Assembly of Experts.
C) supreme leader and Majlis.
D) president and the Guardian Council.
Q2) Why did the Second Khordad Front ultimately fail to bring about major reforms?
A) The prime minister ultimately opposed the party's goals.
B) It had the support of the Expediency Council but not the Guardian Council.
C) It only controlled the Majlis and the presidency,both of which were relatively weak institutions.
D) It couldn't win a majority in the Majlis and couldn't form a coalition.
Q3) Israeli assassinations of Iranian scientists over the past decade may serve as potential precedents for what future action?
A) U.S.destruction of terrorist training camps
B) Israeli embargoes against Iranian oil exports
C) preemptive Israeli military attack on Iran's nuclear program
D) conventional military engagements between Iranian and Egyptian forces
Q4) Describe the three events in 1979 that turned public protest against the shah into a revolution.What was the United States' role in these events?
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Chapter 11: Mexico
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Sample Questions
Q1) Mexican elections for the lower house of the legislature use which electoral system?
A) proportional representation
B) single-member district with plurality
C) single transferable vote
D) mixed proportional representation and single-member district
Q2) How has the Mexican state sought to prosecute the drug war over the last few decades? What is the primary drawback of this method of combating drug trafficking?
Q3) In which of the following ways did the policies of the Calderón administration differ from those of its predecessor,Vicente Fox?
A) Calderón took concrete steps to make government more transparent and less corrupt.
B) Calderón reduced the government's support of free-market policies.
C) Calderón lacked the typical PAN social conservative ideology.
D) Calderón made defeating Mexico's drug cartels a centerpiece of his administration.
Q4) Which events led to the PRI's base of power weakening? What parties were positioned to compete with the PRI and on what policy platforms did they compete?
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Chapter 12: Brazil
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Sample Questions
Q1) What has been the most controversial aspect of affirmative action in Brazil?
A) racial quotas at public universities
B) racial quotas in the state bureaucracy
C) affirmative action in the diplomatic corps
D) cash payments for indigenous workers who have lost jobs
Q2) What has been the relationship between the Bolsa Familia and the governmental politics of Brazil?
A) The Bolsa Familia has encouraged the growth of the "catchall" parties of the political center.
B) Former president Rousseff benefited from major support among the poor in Brazil's north,which likely would not have happened without the Bolsa Familia.
C) State finances have been drained to pay for the Bolsa Familia,which has reduced political support for the ruling Worker's Party.
D) The success of the Bolsa Familia has allowed its backers to push through electoral reforms and reduce political party fragmentation in Brazil.
Q3) Describe the three main problems of Brazil's economy-inflation,public debt,and unemployment.Has democratization had a positive effect on these problems?
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Page 14
Chapter 13: South Africa
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Sample Questions
Q1) South Africa's legislative-executive system is
A) parliamentary,though a president serves as head of government.
B) presidential,though the legislature is referred to as a parliament.
C) a traditional parliamentary model.
D) semi-presidential.
Q2) The most important antiapartheid organization was the
A) Pan Africanist Congress.
B) African National Congress.
C) National Party.
D) South African Communist Party.
Q3) Describe the system of apartheid in South Africa.How did its supporters justify white rule? How was it able to survive for so long?
Q4) South Africa's largest ethnic group is
A) Afrikaner.
B) Zulu.
C) Xhosa.
D) Tswana.
Q5) Describe the state of crime and corruption in modern South Africa.What steps,if any,have recent ANC governments taken to address these problems,and how successful have they been?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Nigeria
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Sample Questions
Q1) Nigeria's Second Republic rejected the parliamentary system of the First Republic and adopted a presidential system much like that of the United States.What might have been the reasons for the change,and has it been successful?
Q2) Boko Haram is
A) a nongovernmental organization promoting environmental awareness.
B) a radical Islamist sect.
C) an environmentally sensitive savanna region.
D) Nigeria's largest trade union.
Q3) Divisions among Nigeria's political parties are primarily based on A) ethnicity. B) ideology.
C) history.
D) constitutional mandate.
Q4) What has been the Nigerian state's strategy for dealing with the growing threat of Boko Haram? How have Boko Haram's tactics and targets changed in recent years?
Q5) Describe how the abundance of oil in Nigeria has influenced the development of the political-economic system.Identify the economic problems that exist because of Nigeria's oil wealth.
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