Political Institutions
Exam Questions
Course Introduction
This course explores the structures, functions, and dynamics of political institutions across different political systems. Students will examine the roles and interactions of formal organizations such as legislatures, executives, judiciaries, and bureaucracies, as well as informal institutions that influence political outcomes. The course analyzes how institutions are designed, how they evolve, and their impact on governance and policy-making. Comparative approaches will highlight variations in institutional arrangements globally, enabling students to critically assess concepts such as power distribution, accountability, representation, and the rule of law within diverse political contexts.
Recommended Textbook
Political Science An Introduction 14th Global Edition by Michael G. Roskin
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Chapter 1: Politics and Political Science
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Q1) Political scientists use __________ data to look for patterns and eventually form theories.
A)anecdotal
B)empirical
C)rhetorical
D)clinical
Answer: B
Q2) If a political leader convinces the public to support legislation that is against its own interests,the public is behaving irrationally.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Which of the following is one reason why Marx believed the capitalist system would eventually collapse?
A)Capitalists would completely strip the world of its natural resources.
B)The bourgeois would rise up in revolution.
C)A severe economic depression was inevitable.
D)The global financial system would become too integrated.
Answer: C
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Political Ideologies
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Q1) Which of these figures is one of the founders of classic conservatism?
A)G.W.F.Hegel
B)Edmund Burke
C)Margaret Thatcher
D)Niccolo Machiavelli
Answer: B
Q2) Neoconservatism emerged in the United States during the __________.
A)1920s
B)1940s
C)1970s
D)2000s
Answer: C
Q3) Which statement best explains the pro-choice position of libertarians?
A)A fetus has no political rights.
B)Outlawing abortion will not prevent it from happening.
C)Reproductive choice helps keep women out of poverty and off of welfare.
D)The government has no place making personal decisions about peoples' private lives.
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: States
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Q1) A first-past-the-post country with multiple political parties is likely to see parties merge until there are only two viable parties remaining.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Gerrymandered electoral districts __________.
A)make seats "safe" for one party or the other
B)heighten electoral competition
C)dramatically increase voter turnout
D)are illegal in the United States
Answer: A
Q3) The fact that the Soviet Union ceased to exist by the end of 1991 is indicative of
A)the collapse of liberalism as a system
B)the collapse of conservatism as a system
C)the collapse of communism as a system
D)the collapse of neoconservatism as a system
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Constitutions and Rights
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Q1) Which of these is a weakness of the Brazilian constitution?
A)It weighs aristocracy more heavily than democracy.
B)It does not give the government effective national security tools.
C)It confers too many rights for the government to realistically guarantee.
D)It creates an electoral system that is too difficult for most citizens to understand.
Q2) Whether minority students have the right to be educated in their first language is primarily an issue of __________.
A)judicial restraint
B)multiculturalism
C)checks and balances
D)parliamentary procedure
Q3) What was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's example of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater intended to illustrate?
A)Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right.
B)People tend to overreact when caught in dangerous situations.
C)The right to free speech is an absolute right in the eyes of the court.
D)All places of commerce must be equipped with emergency fire escapes.
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Chapter 5: Regimes
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Q1) Which statement represents a pluralist explanation for increases in defense spending?
A)Increases in defense spending mainly reflect intense lobbying by weapons manufacturers.
B)Increases in defense spending reflect the personal preferences of elected officials.
C)Defense spending increases when the public demands greater attention be paid to national security threats.
D)Increases in defense spending are typically random adjustments reflecting fluctuations in tax revenue.
Q2) Postcolonial leaders,having picked up socialist views while students in Europe,contributed to the proliferation of authoritarian regimes in developing nations.
A)True
B)False
Q3) One benefit of a system with frequent alternation in power is __________.
A)a guarantee of economic growth
B)effective control over corruption
C)peaceful use of civil disobedience
D)high citizen engagement in politics
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Chapter 6: Political Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Political culture takes many decades to change even slightly.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The act of __________ is merely the starting point for political participation.
A) A.voting
B)joining a political party
C)spreading awareness about political issues
D)running for political office
Q3) What source of socialization works through the use of parades with flags and soldiers,proclamations of top leaders,and prestigious sporting events such as the Olympics?
A)government
B)civil society
C)education
D)powerful subculture
Q4) Convention delegates tend to be more __________ than average voters.
A)apathetic
B)educated
C)religious
D)mainstream
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Chapter 7: Public Opinion
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Q1) The 2008 U.S.financial bailouts were met with public opposition despite the fact that they staved off a depression and were being repaid.This illustrates that __________.
A)opinion polls have no impact on government decisions
B)elected officials often misunderstand what opinion polls show
C)mass opinion should play a greater role in economic policy making
D)the public is often swayed by emotional rather than rational considerations
Q2) Published surveys tend to be more carefully watched by the public during __________.
A)wartime
B)election years
C)times of great social change
D)upturns in the stock market
Q3) France bans the publication of polls close to election day.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Even in the long-term,most presidents who shrug off public opinion remain vilified.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: Political Communication
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most newspaper revenue comes from advertising rather than subscription fees.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A person who believes in the importance of __________ would be likely to believe that Edward Snowden is a hero rather than a traitor.
A)the status quo
B)non-paternalism
C)diplomatic immunity
D)accountability journalism
Q3) Non-paternalism is defined as __________.
A)a decline in family values
B)an increase in federal oversight
C)the absence of supervision or guidance
D)the absence of a father figure in the family unit
Q4) The Supreme Court would be likely to receive more news coverage if __________.
A)more cases were decided each term
B)the Court were as divided as Congress
C)the Court issued more unanimous decisions
D)television cameras were allowed in the courtroom
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Chapter 9: Interest Groups
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Enron energy scandal and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis illustrate which problem?
A)voter apathy
B)bureaucratic incompetence
C)interest groups setting up laws that favor only themselves
D)too much government regulation of interest group activity
Q2) Interest groups typically approach __________ looking for a favorable interpretation of existing rules and regulations.
A)legislators
B)bureaucrats
C)wealthy donors
D)third-party candidates
Q3) Which statement describes how France differs from the United States with respect to the interest group system?
A)French interest groups are publically accountable.
B)French interest groups only lobby the executive branch.
C)French interest groups operate in a more constrained atmosphere.
D)French interest groups are informally controlled by the government.
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Chapter 10: Parties
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Q1) Which of these changes is likely to have the greatest impact on the number of parties in a country's political system?
A)a wave of anti-corruption reform
B)a tightening of campaign finance regulations
C)the loosening of rules about who may run for office
D)the introduction of a proportional representation system
Q2) The parties in Sweden's Riksdag maintain a right-leaning ideological bent.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In democratic societies,large political parties are typically__________.
A)based on a complex ideology
B)run by charismatic individuals
C)supported by single-issue voters
D)coalitions of distinct interest groups
Q4) The Republican Party became more coherently conservative under the leadership of
A)Dwight D.Eisenhower
B)Gerald Ford
C)Richard Nixon
D)Ronald Reagan
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Elections
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Sample Questions
Q1) Divided government would most likely appeal to voters who are concerned about __________.
A)partisan brinksmanship
B)presidential overreach
C)judicial activism
D)political stalemates
Q2) Why do Americans vote so little compared to the voters in other democracies?
A)Most nonvoters are recent immigrants,many of whom come from countries without a strong democratic tradition.
B)Most nonvoters believe American elections are rigged anyway.
C)Most nonvoters are not satisfied with the two major parties or their candidates.
D)Most nonvoters live in deep red or deep blue states where their vote makes no difference.
Q3) The last major party realignment in the United States came in 2000 when George W.Bush was elected president.
A)True
B)False
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Legislatures
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Sample Questions
Q1) As political institutions become more modern,they tend to __________.
A)respond less to special interests
B)crumble under labyrinthine bureaucracy
C)become more specialized,complex,and differentiated
D)establish a militaristic nature to better control the population
Q2) South Africa once had a three-chambered parliament based on different __________.
A)class statuses
B)party memberships
C)races
D)religions
Q3) Standing committees in the U.S.Congress are always __________.
A)ad hoc
B)bipartisan in make-up
C)focused on domestic issues
D)dominated by junior-level staffers
Q4) Most work on bills under consideration by the legislature is done by the staff members of party leaders.
A)True
B)False
Page 14
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Chapter 13: Executives and Bureaucracies
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Q1) A U.S.president is most likely to look to members of the cabinet for __________.
A)help campaigning for re-election
B)advice on a foreign policy crisis
C)assistance in forming a legislative agenda
D)reports on the effectiveness of the bureaucracy
Q2) Parkinson's Law best explains which of these phenomena?
A)Bureaucrats tend to claim that they have no power over the law.
B)As the number of regulations and bureaucrats increases,corruption increases.
C)Political appointees and permanent civil servants view the policy-making process differently.
D)The number of regulations enforced by bureaucracies tends to increase rather than decrease.
Q3) As the primus inter pares,the prime minister cannot dismiss any ministers in his or her cabinet unless he or she appointed them.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The U.S.military is a bureaucratic system.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 14: Judiciaries
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Sample Questions
Q1) How was Soviet law an example of the commitment to Marxist principles?
A)Soviet law put the working class in charge of the administration of justice.
B)Soviet law had a deeply adversarial process that mirrored the class struggle.
C)Soviet law focused more on crimes of conscience than crimes of commission.
D)Soviet law made little or no mention of bourgeois concepts like private property.
Q2) In an inquisitorial system of justice,judges are most similar to __________.
A)administrators
B)detectives
C)legislators
D)referees
Q3) What is the primary jurisdiction of the U.S.Supreme Court?
A)It makes initial rulings on all federal cases,civil and criminal.
B)It rules on high penalty cases,including those with life sentences and the death penalty.
C)Its jurisdiction is almost entirely appellate,from lower federal or state supreme courts.
D)Its jurisdiction is broad,ranging from appellate rulings to original rulings in federal crimes.
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Page 16
Chapter 15: Political Economy
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Q1) Which statement explains how Medicare differs from Medicaid?
A)Medicare is an entitlement while Medicaid is a form of welfare.
B)Medicare is completely free while Medicaid requires a recipient contribution.
C)Medicare pays for itself while Medicaid costs the government billions of dollars.
D)Medicare subsidizes health insurance while Medicaid provides direct payments to doctors and hospitals.
Q2) How does the American welfare state compare to those of other industrialized nations?
A)Much less is allocated to welfare in the United States.
B)The United States allocates about the same to welfare.
C)Other nations allocate less to welfare than the United States.
D)Few nations besides the United States maintain funds for welfare.
Q3) The Vietnam War contributed to the high inflation of the 1960s because it
A)diverted money from the private sector
B)increased spending without an increase in productivity
C)led to higher taxes that pushed down the real value of wages
D)pushed up interest rates as private borrowers competed with the government
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Chapter 16: Violence and Revolution
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the crux of radical revolutionary thinking?
A)an economic plan to back up political idealism
B)the belief that it is possible to remake society
C)the belief that violence is an end in itself
D)the willingness to make sacrifices for the greater good
Q2) At the 1968 Democratic Convention,Chicago police attacked __________ protestors and bystanders.
A)Vietnam War
B)feminist
C)civil rights
D)Republican
Q3) What did anthropologist Eric R.Wolf argue inspires peasant revolutions around the world?
A)poverty caused by government corruption
B)poverty caused by famine and drought
C)poverty caused by exploitative global corporations
D)poverty caused by the shift from simple subsistence farming to cash crops
Q4) Lenin was a prominent Soviet intellectual.
A)True
B)False
Page 18
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Chapter 17: International Relations
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Sample Questions
Q1) How does international relations compare to domestic politics?
A)There are more international rules than domestic laws.
B)The power structure of international relations is less complex.
C)There is no central power that can enforce rules in international politics.
D)The number of interest groups involved in international politics is much smaller.
Q2) The recent global contraction brought a new wave of __________.
A)offshoring
B)outsourcing
C)isolationism
D)protectionism
Q3) Canada limits the showing of U.S.-made movies and requires radio stations to play a certain percentage of Canadian-produced content.These policies are an example of
A)bipolarity
B)Thatcherism
C)globalization
D)protectionism
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