Week 13 Quiz

Doranth and Kesslin are made-up neighbors (illustrative). They match on region, income band, main export, and population size, and they differ on one trait: Doranth has an independent election commission. Doranth has held peaceful handovers of power and Kesslin has not. Which comparison design is this?

Select one.

• A most-different systems design, because the two countries are separate states
• A most-similar systems design: alike in most respects, different outcomes
• An experiment, because one trait was changed and everything else was held fixed
• A governance index, because the two countries are scored on the same traits

Which explanation of democratization holds that political and economic rules which spread power widely and protect rights explain both wealth and democracy?

Select one.

• Modernization theory, the account Lipset (1959) stated
• The resource curse, the account Ross (2001) stated
• The institutional account of Acemoglu and Robinson (2012)
• The political-culture account, which starts from trust and tolerance

A researcher studies two made-up countries and lists many possible explanations for their different outcomes. She then watches each country at 3 elections, for 6 observations. What does this partial fix do?

Select one.

• It turns the comparison into a proof, because six observations are enough to isolate one cause
• It solves the many-variables, small-N problem, because the observations now count as six countries
• It replaces the need for a plan, because any two countries can now be compared
• It shows change within each country, but every observation comes from the same two countries

Ytrel is a made-up country (illustrative). It holds competitive elections that incumbents can lose, but its government cannot run schools outside its capital. Where does Ytrel sit on the two dimensions of state capacity and regime type?

Select one.

• A weak democracy, because regime type and state capacity are separate questions
• A capable autocracy, because a weak state cannot hold real elections
• A capable democracy, because competitive elections show that the state is strong
• A weak autocracy, because a state that cannot run schools cannot be a democracy

True or false: Lipset (1959), "Some Social Requisites of Democracy", proved that wealth causes democracy.

True or false.

• True
• False

A critic says, "If you measure a democratic culture by democratic behavior and then use that culture to explain democracy, you have gone in a circle." Which explanation is this critic attacking?

Select one.

• Modernization theory, which starts from rising wealth and schooling
• The resource curse, which starts from oil and mineral income
• The institutional account, which starts from inclusive and extractive rules
• The political-culture explanation, which starts from shared values

In Freedom in the World 2026, covering 2025, Mexico scored 58 and was rated Partly Free. Which reading of that score is correct?

Select one.

• It is a raw physical fact about Mexico, measured the way a thermometer measures temperature
• It shows why Mexico's conditions are what they are, so the cause can be read off the number
• It reports conditions for the year covered, as scored by expert coders
• It is a verdict on the Mexican people and how much they value freedom

Which statements describe how Freedom House builds a Freedom in the World score? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• Trained expert coders score each indicator against a published method
• Political rights and civil liberties are scored separately and then added into one total
• The total is a direct physical measurement of a country, like a census count
• The total shows which cause produced a country's conditions

A news story reads, "Freedom House rated 88 countries Free and V-Dem counted 87 democracies, so the two indices agree on about 88 free democracies." What is the best correction?

Select one.

• The story is right, because the two counts differ by only one country
• The two indices use different categories and count different sets of countries, so their figures are never merged
• The story should average the two counts and report 87.5 free democracies
• The story should replace V-Dem's count with Freedom House's, because Freedom House rates more countries

What kind of claim is this: "The index ought to weight civil liberties more heavily than political rights"?

Select one.

• An empirical claim, because it can be checked against the index's country pages
• A correlation, because civil liberties and political rights tend to move together
• A normative claim, because it says how the measure should be built and must be argued from values
• A causal claim, because it explains why some countries score higher than others