Chapter 1 Government Quiz

Which of the following is a good formal definition of politics:

A controlled study of the impact of an independent variable on a dependent variable

The process through which individuals and groups reach agreement on a course of common action even as they continue to disagree on the goals of the action

Any system where the governed make all important decisions regarding governance

A two-party system that governs nationally

An example of collective action is which of the following:

Parents and a teenager negotiate over the use of the family car

A boss and an employee haggle over pay

Organized crime families jockey over turf for illegal activity

All of the above

Politics occurs whenever a solution to a problem requires cooperation even when that cooperation is, which of the following:

Achieved through force alone

Costly or difficult

Irrelevant to the success of the course of action

Already what everyone agrees upon

Successful politics almost always requires which of the following:

cheating the other side

lying and misrepresentation

imposing one's will on the opponent

Bargaining and compromise

Political institutions include which of the following:

A set of rules prescribing a political process for reaching and enforcing collective agreements

The places where the former Yugoslav government put dissidents

training centers for party operatives and campaign workers

the official buildings where government employees work

Without rules and procedures for promoting successful collective action, as participants and preferences multiply:

government grows more efficient

broadly acceptable collective decisions are made more rapidly

Unstructured negotiation rarely yields a collective decision all parties can accept

the institutions of governance become less important

All organizations are governed by rules and procedures:

that are very difficult to change

that rarely impact the actual decisions made by those organizations

for the resolution of contested elections

For making and enforcing decisions

Constitutions, charters, and bylaws all serve which of the following purposes:

inhibiting the whims of the majority

resolving every conceivable conflict in an organization

Guiding the organization's members in making essentially political decisions

avoiding any disputes that could ever arise in any political decision-making process

Which of the following is true of the constitution of a nation:

it is always written

it is divinely inspired and theologically grounded

It creates the governing institutions and the set of rules prescribing the political process these institutions must follow to reach and enforce collective agreements

it creates barriers to collective agreements so as to ensure that the political process does not get captured by special interests

Which of the following is a formal definition of a government:

Those institutions created by a constitution and the legally prescribed process for making and enforcing collective agreements

only those systems that elect a prime minister and parliament

only those systems that elect a president and congress

any institution that relies on force to implement its decisions

Government institutions consist of which of the following:

only well-known popular icons

the mechanisms through which revolutions are always planned

the rules of government that exist apart from the roles of government

Offices that confer on their occupants specific authority and responsibilities

The difference between authority and power is which of the following:

Authority is the right to make a particular decision and power is the actual influence the institution has over that action

authority is seized and power is given

there is no difference; they are perfectly interchangeable

power describes the formal parameters of influence while authority describes the informal parameters

"Collective action" refers to which of the following:

The efforts of a group to reach and implement agreements

action by an individual on behalf of the collective, usually without the collective's permission

the decisions made by absolute dictators

whether people participate in their government

An example of a coordination problem is which of the following:

members of a string quartet playing their individual portions of a piece in order to create one coherent performance

senators detemining the rules of procedure in the Senate

the decision made by a government regarding on which side of the road its citizens should drive

All of the above

A "prisoner's dilemma" arises in which of the following instances:

when a convict pleads guilty to a crime he or she did not commit

Whenever individuals who ultimately would benefit from cooperating with each other also have a powerful and irresistable incentive to break the agreement and exploit the other side

whenever there are conflicting provisions in a constitution

when a civilian is the commander in chief of the military

A member's withholding his or her contribution to a group's undertaking is referred to as which of the following:

a protest vote

an institution

A free-rider problem

a voluntary tax

The problem that arises from the costless consumption by a large number of individuals of a public good that results in its ruination is called:

A tragedy of the commons

a perfectly elastic supply curve

an imperfect market solution

institutional rigidity

Assigning to make and implement decisions to a smaller number of persons who are expected to act on behalf of the larger group's interest is an example of which of the following:

a conformity cost

an example of an institution

a prisoner's dilemma

Delegation

Two distinguishing features of public goods are that:

Their costs are born collectively and no one can be excluded from their benefits

they are paid for by the rich in order to benefit the poor

they are paid for by the poor in order to benefit the rich

their costs are paid as they are used and most people can opt out of paying for them

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Chapter 1 Government Quiz

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