Deck 1: Introduction

Question 1

A major criticism of comparative politics at the turn of the twentieth century was that it:

A)focused too strongly on religious explanations.
B)was descriptive rather than explanatory.
C)was too quantitative.
D)was too broad in geographic scope.
E)was too focused on postrevolutionary states.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Which of the following served as a major modern turning point for the study of comparative politics?

A)World War I
B)the Great Depression
C)the American Civil War
D)the birth of the United Nations
E)the growth of European countries as colonial powers

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Which of the following best describes the current trend in comparative politics research?

A)There is hopeful talk of moving away from models that describe politics, but much research in comparative politics remains descriptive and focused on a single country.
B)An evolution toward models that analyze politics and compare its role in different countries-inductively, deductively, qualitatively, and quantitatively-is well under way.
C)There has been a strong trend in comparative politics toward using quantitative methodologies to the near-total exclusion of qualitative methods.
D)Most comparative politics scholars use full mixed-methods models to conduct research.
E)There is a new emphasis among comparative politics researchers on building their research around the promotion of a particular ideal.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

What is inductive reasoning?

A)the means by which we go from a hypothesis to studying a number of cases
B)the means by which we go from studying a case to generating a hypothesis
C)the means by which we test evidence using logic and mathematics
D)the means by which we test evidence using extensive field research
E)the means by which we use ideological assumptions to create policy

Question 5

Which of the following could be considered a major challenge faced by political scientists in their use of the comparative method?

A)the difficulty in controlling variables
B)the large number of comparable cases and difficulties in choosing between them
C)university restrictions on carrying out field research
D)a general reluctance to look at historical factors
E)the tendency of researchers to focus on too broad a geographic area

Question 6

Critics of the behavioral revolution accused it of which of the following?

A)It had come to emphasize methodology over knowledge.
B)It relied too much on Marxist assumptions regarding politics.
C)It was too focused on history.
D)It had not fully embraced mathematical innovations.
E)It was not interested in developing predictive models of politics.

Question 7

An institution can be defined as any:

A)organization or activity that is self-perpetuating and valued for its own sake.
B)large, monolithic organization that depends on a core bureaucracy and a set of standard operating procedures.
C)object or value that people support through public funds.
D)organization or action that is subject to government regulation.
E)spontaneous movement that is unable to sustain itself.

Question 8

Which of the following statements about game theory is accurate?

A)It assumes rational, predictable behavior by individual human beings.
B)It is most closely associated with qualitative methods of research.
C)Its primary political actor of focus is the institution.
D)It considers cultural factors to be a major determinant of human political choices.
E)It demonstrates a bias against western political thought.

Question 9

Recent discussions of the future of comparative politics and political science have called for:

A)a greater connection to real-world concerns and contribution to the ideals of civic life.
B)a greater use of social media to promote findings.
C)a greater focus on the relationship between politics and environmental change.
D)a greater distance between scholarship and real-world politics in order to remain objective.
E)making comparative politics a field of history rather than of political science.

Question 10

The shift in comparative politics away from political institutions (such as legislatures and constitutions) and toward individual political behavior is known as the:

A)mathematical revolution.
B)behavioral revolution.
C)statistical turn.
D)analytical revolt.
E)causal transformation.

Question 11

In which of the following ways were behaviorialism and modernization theory similar?

A)They both constituted a set of hypotheses about how countries develop.
B)They both rejected the study of politics as a means to generate specific policy outcomes.
C)They both constituted new, more scientific attempts to study politics.
D)They both constituted a set of methods about how to approach politics.
E)They both attempted to broaden comparative politics outside of the European model.

Question 12

One big rift within the study of comparative politics is:

A)quantitative versus didactic research.
B)epistemology versus ontology.
C)religious versus secular research.
D)quantitative versus qualitative research.
E)structural versus ideational.

Question 13

Politics is defined in the text as the:

A)ability to impose your values on others.
B)struggle in any group for the power to make decisions for the larger group.
C)battle over economic resources and their use.
D)result of conflict between cultures.
E)relationship between international actors.

Question 14

Which of the following would be an example of selection bias?

A)studying female literacy to see if it is correlated with nondemocratic regimes
B)only studying material that is consistent with your political ideology
C)only using statistical methods to conduct research
D)studying causes for the emergence of democracy by looking only at case studies where democracy emerged
E)studying revolution by looking at case studies of revolution and nonrevolution

Question 15

Modernization theory can be defined as the view that:

A)few countries will ever modernize and embrace democracy.
B)as societies develop, they will become capitalist democracies.
C)each country and region will modernize in a different way, each with a different result.
D)significant change is possible only through revolution.
E)the only way to modernize is to apply scientific methods to policy problems.

Question 16

A true comparative approach to politics only emerges with the work of:

A)Machiavelli.
B)Hobbes.
C)Rousseau.
D)Montesquieu.
E)Marx.

Question 17

Endogeneity refers to:

A)the problem of distinguishing cause from effect.
B)intellectual obstacles to new scholarship in social sciences.
C)the use of tools such as psychology to understand comparative politics.
D)the belief that most major political questions are close to being understood by scholars.
E)the use of new information from biology to study human political behavior.

Question 18

What is deductive reasoning?

A)the means by which we go from a hypothesis to studying evidence
B)the means by which we go from studying a single case to generating a hypothesis
C)the means by which we test evidence using logic and mathematics
D)the means by which we test evidence using extensive field research
E)the means by which we use ideological assumptions to create policy

Question 19

Which of the following statements about the current institutional approach to comparative politics is accurate?

A)It merges the core characteristics of modernization theory and behavioralism.
B)It rejects the value of individual political behavior in shaping politics.
C)It has adopted the basic tenets of modernization theory and supported them empirically.
D)It shares an emphasis on the importance of institutions with pre-1950s comparative politics research.
E)It differs from behavioralism in its rejection of cause-and-effect relationships.

Question 20

In case study research, one problem that can emerge is the choosing of only cases that match the expected results of the research question, or what is known as:

A)selection bias.
B)inference liability.
C)choice limiting.
D)norm bounding.
E)area studies.

Question 21

A greater focus on collective equality is associated with:

A)a smaller state.
B)greater government control of private economic assets.
C)political violence.
D)civic responsibility.
E)political parties.

Question 22

What changes in the world, and in the United States' place within it, helped give rise to modernization theory and behavioralism in comparative politics? How do the two approaches differ from each other, and how are they similar?

Question 23

Should comparative politics simply describe and explain politics around the world, or should it seek solutions to political problems? What might be some of the benefits or dangers of the latter approach?

Question 24

The substance of politics is inevitably bound up in the struggle between:

A)individual freedom and collective equality.
B)individual rights and collective responsibilities.
C)equality of opportunities and equality of outcomes.
D)liberty versus security.
E)revolutionary versus evolutionary change.

Question 25

In which of the following ways did behavioralism differ from modernization theory?

A)It was more of a method than a general hypothesis.
B)It was more in touch with real-world concerns than theory.
C)It put less of an emphasis on empirical research.
D)It demonstrated a more narrow geographic range of interest.
E)It put greater emphasis on the evolution of political institutions.

Question 26

A greater focus on individual freedom is most likely to require:

A)a smaller state.
B)a larger state.
C)political violence.
D)civic responsibility.
E)political parties.

Question 27

Why has it been so difficult to create a science of comparative politics? Is it simply because this area of study is relatively new, or are there fundamental obstacles that will always limit what we can know?

Question 28

In which of the following ways can multicausality affect comparative politics research?

A)It reduces limits to information and information-gathering procedures.
B)It allows comparative politics researchers to make more accurate predictions about real-world phenomena.
C)It helps provide a wider number of cases for researchers to study.
D)It encourages research to lean more toward the quantitative method.
E)It complicates the comparative method and makes it more difficult to develop concrete explanations about real-world phenomena.

Question 29

In which of the following ways does quantitative research differ from qualitative research?

A)Its variables tend to be less rigorously defined.
B)It is more likely to be reduced in utility by multicausality.
C)It is more likely to use inductive reasoning.
D)It favors a wider use of cases not restricted by area specialization.
E)It is more likely to have a specific geographic focus.

Question 30

Describe the debate about whether or not qualitative or quantitative methodology is better for studying comparative politics.How has this evolved over time? How does a mixed-methods approach fit into this debate?

Question 31

To a comparativist, which would be of more value: discovery of a correlation or discovery of a causal relationship? Why?

A)correlation, because it demonstrates more empirically that two variables are interrelated
B)causal relationship, because it describes a more concrete, specific relationship between two variables
C)correlation, because it is more valuable for quantitative research findings
D)causal relationship, because it is more valuable for qualitative research findings
E)neither, as both terms describe essentially the same relationship between two variables

Question 32

How strongly is democracy institutionalized in your country? Has its level of institutionalization changed over time, and how difficult would it be to de-institutionalize democracy? What formal structures support its institutionalization?

Question 33

Which of the following forms of research or data would more likely be used by a quantitative research study than by a qualitative research study?

A)economic data
B)interview data
C)observational research
D)archival data
E)documentary research

Question 34

Which of the following is true of the concept of political institutions?

A)Strong institutions generate good norms and values; weak institutions generate negative or destructive ones.
B)Baseball and soccer are considered to be national institutions in the United States.
C)U.S.democracy is an institution in both the formal and informal sense.
D)Most countries lack common formal political institutions.
E)When taxation is "institutionalized," tax evasion often increases as a result.

Question 35

Which of the following is true of the work of most comparativists?

A)They try to choose countries with radically different political systems in order to maximize variability in cases.
B)They seek to study countries for which the least amount of established research has been accomplished.
C)When they expand study outside of a single country, they tend to limit their focus to a single geographic region.
D)They tend to limit their focus to a single level of economic development.
E)They exhibit bias toward regions with rapidly expanding influence in the world, like east Asia.