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Week 8 · Chapter

Chapter 8 — Midterm Review & Exam

Introduction to Political Science Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 1 (describe the subfields and methods of political science — political theory and philosophy, comparative politics, international relations, American government, and political methodology — and analyze a political text or dataset with the discipline's core tools: concept application, argument analysis, evidence evaluation, the comparative method, and the empirical/normative distinction), Objective 2 (explain power, authority, legitimacy, and the state — Weber's types of authority, the criteria of statehood, sovereignty, and the social-contract answers of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau — and apply these concepts to real and hypothetical cases), Objective 3 (compare the major political ideologies and normative theories evenhandedly — liberalism, conservatism, socialism and its family, and the smaller families; justice, liberty, equality, and rights; the harm principle; Rawls and Nozick — stating each position in its strongest form and distinguishing empirical from normative claims), Objective 4 (compare regime types and constitutional structures — direct and representative, electoral and liberal democracy; authoritarian and totalitarian rule; democratization and backsliding; what constitutions do; the rule of law, separation of powers, and checks and balances), Objective 5 (analyze political institutions — legislatures, executives, and judiciaries — including the parliamentary, presidential, and semi-presidential designs, government formation and removal, judicial review and judicial independence, and the counter-majoritarian debate) · Read it early this week, before the review activities and well before the midterm.

In plain language

This week you look back at the first seven weeks and see how they fit together. Each week so far asked you to keep one distinction (two ideas that sound alike but must be kept apart) and gave you one pinned text (a short passage from a real document, checked word for word) to practice on. You also learn one new tool, the three-layer read (a way to sort any claim about an institution by asking whether it is about the rules, about what really happens, or about what ought to happen). That tool carries you into the second half of the course, where courts, elections, and whole countries come under the same careful eye.

Why you already care about this

In 1776 the Second Continental Congress adopted a paragraph about "the consent of the governed". In 1788 an essay in The Federalist argued that "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." In 1947 a speaker in the House of Commons repeated a line about democracy and marked it with four words, "it has been said".

You have already read each of those texts in this course, and you can quote all three. Now picture three people you know talking about them. A classmate in a group chat says, "The Constitution gives every state two senators, so the Senate is unfair." A coworker on a lunch break says, "The Senate has two senators per state, so small states always get their way." A cousin at a family dinner says, "It says two per state right there in the text, end of story."

All three are talking about the same sentence of the Constitution, and all three are doing different jobs without noticing. One is judging. One is predicting what happens. One is reading the rules. This chapter gathers the first half of the course into one map and gives you a tool for telling those three jobs apart.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

name the one distinction and the one text each of Weeks 1 to 7 asks for, and apply the distinction to a new case;
rerun the course's worked tallies and date gaps with the arithmetic shown;
sort a claim as empirical or normative and say why its topic does not decide its kind;
sort a claim about an institution onto the design, practice, or verdict layer;
run the three-layer read on the Senate and hand the verdict back to the reader.

Carry this line with you: name the layer first — rules, practice, or verdict.

Where we are

Already covered: Weeks 1 to 7 built the empirical/normative sort, power and legitimacy, the ideologies and normative theory, regime types, constitutions, and legislatures and executives.
This week: a review of all seven weeks, one distinction and one text per topic, plus one new tool, the three-layer read, and the midterm.
How they connect: the three-layer read grows out of Week 1's empirical/normative sort and the design and practice layers you met in Weeks 6 and 7.
Where we're going next: Week 9 turns to judiciaries, courts, and judicial review, and the three-layer read goes with you into every institution after that.

Week 1 taught you that an empirical claim says what is and can be checked against evidence, while a normative claim says what ought to be and is argued from values. Week 6 named two layers when you read illustrative Ostrel: what its constitution said and what really happened there. Week 7 named a third when you asked whether Pelandia ought to switch designs. This chapter puts all three layers together. Every section below reuses a text or a value you have already met; no new numbers and no new texts appear this week.

1. Sort claims by kind, not topic: the Declaration

Think about two sentences you might hear at a campus senate meeting. "Our senate has 24 seats." "Our senate ought to have more seats for transfer students." Both are about the same senate. They are not the same kind of sentence.

That is Week 1's distinction:

An empirical claim says what is, or why something happens, and you check it against evidence. It can turn out to be false.
A normative claim says what ought to be, and you argue for it from values and premises. It can be argued well or badly.

You sort by kind, not by topic. The course's own pair makes the point: "the Senate has 100 members" and "the Senate ought to be proportional to population" share a topic and differ in kind. The first you check against Article I, Section 3. The second you argue about.

The week's text was the Declaration of Independence (1776), read in the National Archives transcript. Its premises open with "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Worked example — the claim sort, revisited. Take the four claims Week 1 sorted from the second paragraph.

"all men are created equal" is normative, a claim about how people ought to be regarded.
"Governments are instituted among Men" is empirical-leaning, a claim about where governments come from.
"deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" is normative, a standard for judging any government.
"it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it" is normative, the paragraph's conclusion.

Tally: 3 normative + 1 empirical-leaning = 4 claims. In words, the paragraph is mostly an argument about what ought to be, built on one claim about how governments begin.

Misconception check — the wrong trio. Students often write that the Declaration promises "life, liberty, and property". It is tempting, because the phrase sounds right and chatbots repeat it. But "life, liberty, and property" is Locke's trio. The pinned text reads "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". The cure is to check the fragment against the transcript every time, not against your memory.

Memory hook: same topic, different kind — sort by kind, not topic.

2. Tell power from authority and legitimacy: Hobbes against Locke

Picture a pickup basketball game. A referee blows a whistle and everyone stops. A stranger yelling "stop" from the sidewalk gets ignored. Then picture an armed robber who takes your wallet with no right to it at all. Each of them gets someone to do something, but in very different ways.

That is Week 2's distinction:

Power is the capacity to make another actor comply, with force included among the means.
Authority is power that the people subject to it recognize as rightful, a right to command.
Legitimacy is the broad, widely shared belief that a ruler or a whole system deserves obedience.

The armed robber has power over you and neither of the others. The referee has authority inside the game. A whole system of rules that people believe deserves obedience has legitimacy.

The week's texts were a pair. Hobbes (1651), Leviathan, Chapter XIII, pictures life without a common power as a war "where every man is Enemy to every man", with life "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short". The pinned Project Gutenberg edition keeps the 1651 spelling. Hobbes fears chaos, so his remedy is a strong sovereign. Locke (1689), Second Treatise of Government, §95, holds that no one can be "subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent". Locke fears tyranny, so his government is a limited trust the people can revoke.

Worked example — the gap between the two books. Leviathan appeared in 1651 and the Second Treatise in 1689. So 1689 − 1651 = 38 years separate the thinker who fears chaos from the thinker who fears tyranny. Both were answering the same question, why obey anyone at all, and they reached opposite worries.

Misconception check — the swap. Students often credit Locke with "nasty, brutish, and short" and Hobbes with government by consent. It is tempting, because both wrote about a state of nature in the same century. The cure is the memory hook below: the fragment about chaos belongs to the thinker who wants a strong ruler, and the fragment about consent belongs to the thinker who wants a limited one.

Memory hook: Hobbes fears chaos; Locke fears tyranny.

3. Describe an ideology without ranking it: the Manifesto against Burke

Imagine three neighbors at a town meeting arguing about the town's only bus line. One wants to sell it, one wants to expand it with new taxes, and one wants to keep it running as it has for decades. Each brings a package of ideas, not one opinion.

That package is an ideology: a coherent set of ideas about how society should work and who should hold power. Week 3's distinction is between describing an ideology and ranking it. This course describes. You ask every ideology the same three questions:

What does it value?
What does it fear?
How does it argue from its premises to its conclusions?

The week's text pair was Marx and Engels against Burke. Marx and Engels (1848), Manifesto of the Communist Party, opens Part I with "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles." The pinned Project Gutenberg edition reads "societies" where other editions read "society". Burke (1790), Reflections on the Revolution in France, holds that "A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."

Worked example — the same three questions, twice. You run both texts through the questions in the same order.

The Manifesto. It values a classless society. It fears that those who own the means of production keep ruling those who do not. It argues from class struggle, an empirical claim about history that could be found false, to abolishing private ownership of the means of production, a normative conclusion.
Burke. He values established institutions and gradual, tested change. He fears sweeping change that throws away the experience institutions carry. His change fragment is empirical-leaning, a claim about how states survive.
The gap. Burke wrote in 1790 and Marx and Engels in 1848, so 1848 − 1790 = 58 years separate the two texts.

You give neither a verdict. You have described each in words a thoughtful adherent would accept as fair.

Misconception check — one family, three things. Students often treat socialism, communism, and totalitarianism as one thing. It is tempting, because the three words show up together in heated arguments. The cure is to sort them by kind: socialism is a family of economic ideas, communism is that family's revolutionary Marxist branch, and totalitarianism is a regime type, not an economic ideology at all.

Memory hook: values, fears, argues — then stop before the verdict.

4. Read the harm principle exactly: Mill, Rawls, and Nozick

Picture a city council debating whether adult scooter riders must wear helmets. One side says helmets save lives. The other says adults should decide for themselves. Both sides are arguing about when power over a person is rightful.

Week 4's distinction is harm versus offense, and the text is Mill's harm principle, word for word. Mill (1859), On Liberty, Chapter I, in the Project Gutenberg edition that spells it "civilised":

"the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others"
"His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."

The principle is a limit on power. It rules out paternalism, restricting an adult for that adult's own good, as a reason. And the word is harm, not offense.

Worked example — the four cases, revisited. You ask one question of each case: who bears the risk?

Helmet. The only reason offered is the rider's own good. Ruled out.
Drunk driving. The risk falls on other people on the road. Permitted.
Offensive book. Offense is not harm in Mill's sentence. Ruled out.
Outbreak. Infection could harm others, but how much risk counts as harm is a further judgment. A hard case.

Tally: 1 permitted + 2 ruled out + 1 hard case = 4 cases. In words, the principle settles three of the four cases and leaves one open.

Week 4 also set two theories of justice side by side, each taught in words because the books are in copyright. Rawls (1971), A Theory of Justice, asks you to choose principles behind a veil of ignorance that hides your own place in society. Nozick (1974), Anarchy, State, and Utopia, holds that people are entitled to what they hold when it came to them through rightful acquisition and rightful transfer, and that only a minimal state is justified. Rawls draws the veil of ignorance, and Nozick keeps the state minimal. Which one is right is your call.

Misconception check — harm or offense. Students often read Mill as saying power may stop "harm or offense". It is tempting, because offense feels like a kind of injury, and chatbots often add the two words. But neither pinned sentence says offense. The cure is to quote the sentence exactly and ask, "Is anyone other than the person acting being harmed?"

Memory hook: harm to others counts; offense and paternalism do not.

5. Separate the floor from the house: electoral and liberal democracy

Think about a club that holds a fair vote for president every year, but the president can expel any member who criticizes the board. The club has real elections. Something important is still missing.

That is Week 5's distinction:

An electoral democracy has the floor: free, fair, competitive elections that incumbents can lose.
A liberal democracy has that floor plus protected rights, a free press, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law.

In Week 5's illustrative sort, Regime B held free, fair, competitive elections that incumbents had lost before, yet its government could remove judges at will and prosecute journalists. It met the floor and lacked the liberal protections, so it was an electoral democracy.

The week's text was a record of a speech. Look in the Hansard record of the House of Commons for November 1947, column 207. There Churchill says "it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

Worked example — sourcing one sentence. You ask who, where, and what kind before you ask whether it is wise.

Who and where: Churchill, in the House of Commons, recorded in Hansard for November 1947, column 207.
Kind: normative, a ranking of forms of government.
The four words: "it has been said" mark the line as one he was repeating. He marked the line as repeated, not coined, so you never credit him with coining it.

Misconception check — elections are the whole house. Students often think democracy means elections and nothing more. It is tempting, because elections are the most visible part of democracy. But elections are the floor, the minimal definition. A liberal democracy adds protected rights, a free press, independent courts, and the rule of law, and a regime can have the first without the rest.

Memory hook: elections are the floor, not the whole house.

6. Ask whether the rulebook binds: constitution and constitutionalism

Picture a club whose bylaws say the treasurer cannot spend more than a set amount without a member vote. Now picture a treasurer who spends far more anyway, and nobody stops it. The club has bylaws. Do the bylaws bind?

That is Week 6's distinction:

A constitution is the fundamental set of rules for how a political system is organized.
Constitutionalism is the practice of those rules actually binding the people who rule.

Having a rulebook versus the rulebook binding the rulers: those are two separate questions. Week 6's text was The Federalist No. 51 (1788), which answers the design problem with "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Give each branch the means and the motive to resist the others, and the rulebook has a better chance of binding.

Worked example — entrenchment and Ostrel, revisited. You check one design rule and one practice record.

The State count. The Senate's 100 members, two per State, give 100 ÷ 2 = 50 States.
Three fourths. Three fourths of 50 is 50 × 3 ÷ 4 = 37.5. A State cannot ratify by half, so an amendment needs 38 States.
Ostrel. Illustrative Ostrel had a written constitution and met only 2 of the 5 rule-of-law elements. Its decrees rewrote the tax rules with no notice, and its president could dismiss judges at will.

In words, Article V makes the U.S. rulebook hard to change, and Ostrel shows that a rulebook on paper does not limit a government by itself.

Misconception check — paper means limits. Students often think that having a constitution means having limited government. It is tempting, because the word sounds like a guarantee. But nearly every state has a constitution, and Ostrel had a written one. Constitutionalism is a practice, and you check it against what happens, not against what the text says.

Memory hook: written is not self-enforcing.

7. Apply the removal test: fused and separate powers

Picture two student clubs. In one, the board picks a chair it can replace at any meeting. In the other, members elect a president for the whole year, and the board can remove that president only for serious misconduct. Same campus, two wirings.

That is Week 7's distinction, fused versus separate powers, and it comes with one question, the removal test: how would a failing government be removed? A vote of no confidence points to a parliamentary design. Impeachment for serious wrongdoing points to a presidential design. A cabinet that can fall while the elected president stays points to a semi-presidential design.

The week's text pair was Bagehot against Article II. Bagehot (1867), The English Constitution, "The Cabinet", writes: "The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers." Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution states the opposite design: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."

Worked example — the count and the test, revisited. You read one count and run one test.

The count. Of 188 national parliaments, 81 are bicameral and 107 unicameral, as the Inter-Parliamentary Union counts them, and 81 + 107 = 188. The count describes the world's parliaments. It is a count, not a cause, and it does not say which design is better.
The test on Pelandia. In illustrative Pelandia, the 120-seat legislature can remove the prime minister with 61 votes, a majority of all members. Removal by a confidence vote means the design is parliamentary, even though Pelandia also has a ceremonial president.

Misconception check — the title decides. Students often think a country with a president must be presidential. It is tempting, because the title is the first thing you see. But Germany, India, Israel, and Italy have presidents and are parliamentary. The cure is to run the removal test before you name the design.

Memory hook: ask how it falls — not what the leader is called.

8. Name the layer first: the three-layer read

Here is the one new tool this week. Picture a neighborhood association arguing about its board. One neighbor reads the bylaws aloud. Another reports that the board has not met in months. A third says the board ought to be replaced. They are all talking about one board, and they are talking past each other.

The three-layer read is a classroom model, like Weber's types of authority: a simplification you can hold in one hand. It says every claim about an institution sits on one of three layers.

The design layer is what the rules say. You check it against the pinned text: a constitution, a statute, a set of bylaws.
The practice layer is what actually happens. You check it against evidence such as a case, a count, or an index.
The verdict layer is what ought to happen. You argue for it from values.

A careful analysis names its layer before it says anything else, and so do you. Notice how this grows out of Week 1. Design and practice are both empirical: both can be checked, one against a text and one against evidence. The verdict layer is normative. The three-layer read splits the empirical side in two, because "what the rules say" and "what really happens" can come apart, as Ostrel showed.

Worked example — the six-claim layer sort. You name each claim's layer first, then its kind.

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State" (Article I, Section 3). Layer: design. Kind: empirical, checked against the pinned text.
Pelandia's 120-seat legislature can remove the prime minister with 61 votes (illustrative, from Week 7's made-up constitution). Layer: design. Kind: empirical, checked against that constitution's text.
A second chamber slows legislation and catches errors (the running analysis's third premise). Layer: practice. Kind: empirical and contested; it needs evidence.
In Ostrel, decrees rewrite the tax rules several times a month with no notice (illustrative, from Week 6). Layer: practice. Kind: empirical, a report of what happens.
Giving smaller units a voice they would lose in a population-only chamber is worth slower lawmaking (the running analysis's normative premise). Layer: verdict. Kind: normative.
Pelandia ought to switch to a presidential design (illustrative, from Week 7). Layer: verdict. Kind: normative.

Layer tally: 2 design + 2 practice + 2 verdict = 6 claims. By kind: 2 + 2 = 4 empirical and 2 normative, so 4 + 2 = 6. In words, two-thirds of the claims can be checked, and only the last two must be argued.

One caveat: the layers are a model, and a real sentence can mix them. "The bylaws give the board seven seats, and that is too many" carries a design claim and a verdict in one breath. When that happens, split the sentence and label each half.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it for yourself in two or three sentences.

(a) Recall a rule at your workplace, club, or campus. Write one design-layer sentence about it and one practice-layer sentence, and say what evidence would check the second.
(b) Recall an argument you heard about a rule. Find the verdict-layer sentence in it, and say what value it rests on.

Misconception check — the text says so, so it happens. Students often treat a design claim as if it settled practice: "the constitution protects judges, so judges are protected." It is tempting, because the text is right there and easy to quote. But Ostrel's constitution named three branches while its president dismissed judges at will. The cure is to check a practice claim against evidence, never against the rulebook alone.

Memory hook: name the layer first — rules, practice, or verdict.

9. Run the three layers on the Senate

Go back to the three people from the start of this chapter. The cousin read the rules. The coworker predicted what happens. The classmate judged. Now you can say which layer each was on, and why none of them could settle the others' question.

Worked example — the Senate, three layers. You take one institution and read it on every layer in turn.

Design layer. Article I, Section 3 says "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State". Senators serve six-year terms. With 100 senators, 100 ÷ 2 = 50 States. This layer is empirical, and you check it against the text.
Practice layer. What two senators per State produces in lawmaking is a question for evidence such as a case, a count, or an index. The running analysis's claim that a second chamber slows legislation and catches errors is contested, and this course pins no figure that settles it. So you name the evidence you would need instead of inventing a number. That is an honesty note worth carrying into every week ahead.
Verdict layer. Whether the Senate ought to be built this way is the running analysis's own question. Proponents argue that equal representation gives smaller units a voice worth slower lawmaking, in the spirit of Federalist No. 51's design logic: give each part the means and the motive to resist the others. Critics respond that most parliaments are unicameral (107 of 188) and that a malapportioned chamber can dilute accountability. The reply holds that the worry argues for an elected, well-apportioned second chamber, not for none. The verdict is yours.

Now sort the three speakers. The cousin's "it says two per state right there in the text" is design, and it is correct as far as it goes. The coworker's "small states always get their way" is practice, and it needs evidence the text cannot supply. The classmate's "the Senate is unfair" is verdict, and it needs an argument from values. You have grown Week 1's habit, the one you first used on "the consent of the governed", into a tool that fits any institution you will meet.

Misconception check — reading the verdict off the design. Students often think that once they have quoted Article I, Section 3, the fairness question is answered. It is tempting, because the design is the part you can check fastest. But a rule's text tells you what the rule is, not whether it ought to be. The limitation runs the other way too: a verdict, however strong, does not change what the text says.

Memory hook: design is checked; practice is tested; verdict is argued.

Key terms

Empirical claim — a claim about what is, or why something happens, that can be checked against evidence and can turn out to be false. (first used: 1. Sort claims by kind, not topic: the Declaration)
Normative claim — a claim about what ought to be, such as what is fair or worth doing, that is defended by argument from values and premises and can be argued well or badly. (first used: 1. Sort claims by kind, not topic: the Declaration)
Power — the capacity to make another actor comply, to do what it otherwise would not, with force included among the means. (first used: 2. Tell power from authority and legitimacy: Hobbes against Locke)
Authority — power that the people subject to it recognize as rightful, a right to command that is usually attached to an office or a rule. (first used: 2. Tell power from authority and legitimacy: Hobbes against Locke)
Legitimacy — the broad, widely shared belief that a ruler or a whole system has a right to rule and deserves obedience. (first used: 2. Tell power from authority and legitimacy: Hobbes against Locke)
Ideology — a coherent set of ideas about how society should work and who should hold power; it is normative at its core and rests on empirical claims about human nature and about how economies behave. (first used: 3. Describe an ideology without ranking it: the Manifesto against Burke)
Harm principle — Mill's rule, from On Liberty (1859), that power over an unwilling adult member of a community is rightful only to prevent harm to others, never for that person's own good. (first used: 4. Read the harm principle exactly: Mill, Rawls, and Nozick)
Electoral democracy — the minimal definition of democracy: a regime with free, fair, competitive elections that the people in power can lose, whether or not rights, the press, and the courts are fully protected. (first used: 5. Separate the floor from the house: electoral and liberal democracy)
Liberal democracy — a regime that meets the electoral floor and adds protected rights, a free press, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. (first used: 5. Separate the floor from the house: electoral and liberal democracy)
Constitutionalism — the practice of a political system's fundamental rules actually binding the people who rule, so that officeholders stay within the limits the rules set. (first used: 6. Ask whether the rulebook binds: constitution and constitutionalism)
Removal test — the question of how a failing government would be removed, by a vote of no confidence, by impeachment, or by both, used to tell the three executive designs apart. (first used: 7. Apply the removal test: fused and separate powers)
Three-layer read — a classroom model for reading any claim about an institution by first naming which of three layers it sits on: what the rules say, what actually happens, or what ought to happen. (first used: 8. Name the layer first: the three-layer read)
Design layer — the layer of an institutional claim that reports what the rules say, so it is an empirical claim checked against the text of a constitution, a statute, or a set of bylaws. (first used: 8. Name the layer first: the three-layer read)
Practice layer — the layer of an institutional claim that reports what actually happens when the rules are used, so it is an empirical claim checked against evidence such as a case, a count, or an index. (first used: 8. Name the layer first: the three-layer read)
Verdict layer — the layer of an institutional claim that says what ought to happen, so it is a normative claim argued from values and premises rather than settled by the text or the evidence alone. (first used: 8. Name the layer first: the three-layer read)

Summary

Week 1: sort a claim by its kind, not its topic; the Declaration's trio is "the pursuit of Happiness".
Week 2: power is not authority; Hobbes fears chaos and Locke fears tyranny.
Week 3: describe an ideology by values, fears, and argues; never rank it.
Week 4: the harm principle says harm to others, not offense and not your own good.
Week 5: elections are the floor; a liberal democracy adds rights, press, and courts.
Week 6: a constitution is not constitutionalism; written is not self-enforcing.
Week 7: the removal test, not the leader's title, names the design.
New: every institutional claim sits on the design, practice, or verdict layer.
New: design and practice are empirical; the verdict is normative and yours to argue.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative neighborhood association is debating its board. Sort each claim onto a layer. Then count how many are empirical.
- (a) "The bylaws say the board has seven members elected for two-year terms."
- (b) "At the last three meetings, fewer than ten residents attended."
- (c) "The board ought to meet in the evening so working residents can come."
- (d) "Since the bylaws changed, board meetings have run shorter."
A chatbot summary says Hobbes wrote that people are "by nature, all free, equal, and independent" and Locke described life as "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short". What went wrong, and how would you fix it?
An illustrative campus constitution needs two thirds of a 30-member student senate to propose an amendment and three fourths of the campus's 12 clubs to ratify it. How many senators must vote yes, how many clubs must ratify, and how many clubs refusing would be enough to block the amendment?
In illustrative Marveth, the legislature elects a ceremonial president for a seven-year term, and the cabinet governs only while it keeps the legislature's confidence. A classmate calls Marveth presidential "because it has a president." Run the removal test and say which layer the classmate's mistake sits on.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

(a) is design: it reports what the bylaws say. (b) is practice: it reports what happened at meetings. (c) is verdict: "ought" marks an argument from values. (d) is practice: it reports what has happened since a rule changed. Tally: 1 design + 2 practice + 1 verdict = 4 claims, and 1 + 2 = 3 of them are empirical. Notice that (d) also hints at a cause; checking it would take evidence beyond the bylaws.
The chatbot swapped the two thinkers. The consent fragment belongs to Locke (1689), Second Treatise of Government, §95, and the "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" fragment belongs to Hobbes (1651), Leviathan, Chapter XIII. Fix it by checking each fragment against its pinned edition and using the hook: Hobbes fears chaos, Locke fears tyranny.
Proposing needs 30 × 2 ÷ 3 = 20 senators. Ratifying needs 12 × 3 ÷ 4 = 9 clubs. If 4 clubs refuse, at most 12 − 4 = 8 can ratify, which falls short of 9, so 4 clubs can block it. If only 3 refuse, 12 − 3 = 9 can still ratify. This is entrenchment on a small scale, and it is design-layer arithmetic.
Marveth is parliamentary. The removal test asks how a failing government would be removed: here the cabinet falls to a loss of the legislature's confidence, and the president is ceremonial and chosen by the legislature. The classmate read the title, not the rules, so the mistake sits on the design layer: the rules say parliamentary even though the office is called president.

Next up in this module: the lecture, the slide deck, the Readings & Resources page, the practice set, the discussion, and the midterm. Next week your three-layer model meets judicial review, the rule that lets a court set aside a law.

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