Midterm Practice Exam

Matching by office rather than by officeholder, which statement about who serves as head of state and who as head of government is accurate?

Select one.

• In Germany, the chancellor is head of state
• In Japan, the monarch is head of government
• In the United Kingdom, the monarch is head of state
• In the United States, a prime minister heads government

In an illustrative village, people accept an elder's rulings on grazing rights because elders there have settled such disputes for generations. Which of Weber's three types of authority is at work?

Select one.

• Legal-rational authority, because a written code assigns the elder an office
• Charismatic authority, because the villagers admire the elder's personal gifts
• No type applies, because the villagers never elected the elder to the role
• Traditional authority, because custom and long practice back the rulings

Which of these claims, drawn from or about the Declaration of Independence's second paragraph, are empirical or empirical-leaning rather than normative? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• "Governments are instituted among Men"
• "all men are created equal"
• The National Archives holds a transcript of the Declaration.
• "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"
• The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration.

In The Federalist, Madison writes "you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself". How is this fragment sorted by kind?

Select one.

• Empirical-leaning, because it reports how governments behave
• A definition to apply, like Madison's definition of a faction
• Not a claim, because it is a quotation from a famous essay
• Normative, a design rule for what government should be built to do

An illustrative country is recognized abroad and runs its own foreign policy, but armed militias, not the national government, make the binding rules in two of its provinces. Which kind of sovereignty is weakened?

Select one.

• External sovereignty, because outsiders now steer its foreign policy
• Neither kind, because sovereignty only measures the size of a state's army
• Both kinds equally, because any armed group ends all sovereignty
• Internal sovereignty, because the government lacks the supreme say at home

Linz, in "The Perils of Presidentialism", raises several worries about presidential systems. Which of these is one of them?

Select one.

• A president can be removed too easily by a no-confidence vote
• A rigid fixed term makes a failing government hard to replace
• Presidential systems always produce multi-party coalition cabinets
• Voters can see too easily whom to blame for the executive's record

A news anchor says an invented country must have limited government because it adopted a long written constitution. Which idea from this course answers the anchor?

Select one.

• Constitutionalism: fundamental rules that actually bind those who rule
• Limited government needs a single document naming every office
• Limited government needs elections that rulers are able to lose
• Limited government needs a court that can strike down laws

True or false: Mill's two sentences on the harm principle in On Liberty, Chapter I, by themselves fix exactly how much risk of spreading a disease counts as harm to others.

True or false.

• True
• False

Which pairing of a theorist with an idea from that theorist's own work on justice is correct?

Select one.

• Nozick: the difference principle
• Rawls: entitlement theory
• Nozick: the original position
• Rawls: the veil of ignorance

Which wording of Mill's statement of the harm principle in On Liberty, Chapter I, matches the Project Gutenberg text as this course quotes it?

Select one.

• the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to promote his own good
• 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
• the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm or offense
• the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to protect his own safety

Classical and modern liberals disagree about how much the state should do. On what basis do both wings agree that a government earns its legitimacy?

Select one.

• By keeping inherited customs and institutions intact
• By abolishing private ownership of productive property
• By giving a people that shares a language its own state
• By protecting the rights of each individual person

In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke describes society as "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born". Which reading of this fragment is accurate?

Select one.

• Society links generations, so the living may not remake it as theirs alone
• Each generation should rebuild its institutions from scratch on reason alone
• The fragment is an empirical count of how many people a society contains
• Conservatives hold that the dead should have a veto over every new law

Under an invented constitution, one body writes the laws, a separately chosen executive carries them out, and independent courts apply them in disputes. Which concept names this arrangement?

Select one.

• Separation of powers, a horizontal division among branches
• Federalism, a vertical division between levels of government
• Entrenchment, rules made harder to change than ordinary law
• Rule by law, law used as a tool the rulers wield on others

A legislature removes a sitting president after charging the president with taking bribes. Which description fits what happened?

Select one.

• A vote of no confidence, a judgment on the government's support
• The end of the president's fixed term on its scheduled date
• A dismissal ordered by a separate ceremonial head of state
• Impeachment, removal for serious wrongdoing such as bribery

An illustrative campus club's manifesto says: "Keep taxes and regulation light, let open markets allocate goods, and confine government to defending each person's liberty and property." In the political-theory sense, which ideology does it express?

Select one.

• Conservatism, since everyday American speech labels this view conservative
• Classical liberalism, since it joins rights to a limited state
• Modern liberalism, since it begins from the liberty of each person
• Social democracy, since it gives the state a role in protecting property

Rousseau opens The Social Contract with "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." A student splits the sentence at the semicolon. Which labelling of the two halves follows the course's method?

Select one.

• Both halves are empirical, because freedom and chains can be observed
• Both halves are normative, because the line protests against injustice
• The first half is normative, and the second half is empirical-leaning
• Neither half is a claim, because the whole sentence is a figure of speech

Before a civil-service test, an illustrative city offers every applicant the same free preparation course, then hires the top scorers. Which of the three questions of equality does the free course address?

Select one.

• Equality of outcome, results close together for all
• Moral equality, the premise that each person counts
• Equality of opportunity, a fair start for each person
• Positive liberty, the real capacity to act on choices

True or false: whether a state is a republic, meaning it has no hereditary monarch, and whether it is a democracy, meaning the people rule, are two separate questions.

True or false.

• True
• False

In an invented country, new criminal rules are kept secret, so people learn a rule exists only when they are charged with breaking it. Which element of the rule of law does this fail?

Select one.

• Stability
• Equal application
• Publicity
• Independent enforcement

A reading guide makes five claims about the essay published as The Federalist No. 51. Which claims are accurate as this course teaches it? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• It contains the sentence "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
• It tells the reader to first enable the governed to control the government
• Its authorship is an open question, with no scholarly view favoring either man
• Its Avalon Project header reads "HAMILTON OR MADISON", a dispute now called settled for Madison
• Jay is the essay's settled author, so the header records a printing error

A commenter writes, "Whether a town should fund a new library is only a matter of taste, so there is no point in giving reasons." Which failure mode does this sentence show?

Select one.

• Smuggling, because it hides an ought inside a report of what the data show
• Sorting by topic, because the question is about a public building
• Shrugging, because it treats an ought question as taste beyond reasons
• None, because a survey of residents could settle what a town ought to do

Marx and Engels's Manifesto of the Communist Party pairs a claim about history with a conclusion about what should be done. Which of these is the empirical claim in that pair?

Select one.

• That private ownership of the means of production should be abolished
• That a classless society is the goal workers ought to pursue
• "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."
• That communism is the best of the ideologies on offer

Which statements about coalition government and semi-presidential design match this course? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• A coalition is a normal way to govern when no single party wins a majority
• A coalition shows that a parliamentary system has broken down
• A semi-presidential president is elected separately and holds real powers
• A semi-presidential president can be ousted by a no-confidence vote

A blog post states, "The House of Representatives has 500 members." Which description of this statement is most accurate?

Select one.

• It is a normative claim, since it gets the facts wrong.
• It is a matter of opinion, so no record could settle it.
• It is not a claim at all, because it is inaccurate.
• It is empirical, and the record shows it to be false.

An adult plans to swim alone in a remote lake, and a proposed rule would ban it solely to protect the swimmer from drowning. What does Mill's harm principle say about compelling the swimmer?

Select one.

• Ruled out, since the swimmer's own good is not a sufficient warrant
• Permitted, since the swimmer could drown in the lake
• A hard case, since a risk of death always counts as harm
• Permitted, since a drowning would upset people on shore