My Intro to Comparative Politics Final Exam–Fall 2007

Here is my exam:

Final Exam–PLSC240–Intro to Comparative Politics

The final exam consists of three parts. Please read the instructions carefully! Please answer all questions in your blue book only!

Part I–Identification

Please define, and explain the significance of, 9 of these 11 terms in four or five sentences each.
1. Preferences & Beliefs
2. Capacity
3. Legitimacy
4. Comparative method
5. Concrete versus abstract (judicial) review
6. Export-oriented industrialization
7. Failed State
8. Hybrid regimes
9. jus sanguinus & jus soli
10. Prisoner’s Dilemma
11. Proportional Representation

Part II–Short Answer

Please answer 8 of these 9 questions in two or three sentences each.
1. What is the difference between imperialism and colonialism?
2. What is a state?
3. What is the “Washington Consensus” and why is it important?
4. What is the major difference between political attitudes and political ideology?
5. What is a dominant strategy?
6. Are there any problems with Mill’s ‘method of agreement’ as a way to determine causality between two political phenomena?
7. What is the ‘top-down’ view of ethnic violence?
8. According to Zakaria, why did liberty first develop in the West?
9. Why, according to Herbst, does Europe have strong states, while Africa’s states are weak?

Part III–Short Essay Questions

Please answer one question in each of Parts I and II. Each essay should be about 2-3 double-spaced pages long. Feel free to write on the front and back pages of your blue book.

Short Essay–Part A

Please answer one of these two essay questions.

1. In the Lave and March book excerpt you read, the authors explain how to model social
scientific phenomena correctly. Using their model of a model-building process as a template, model the follow political phenomenon: You have observed that there is an association between corruption and state failure. What processes may have produced such a result? List at least two potential processes, one of which is based on the reasoning of rational-choice theory, and another that is based on political culture. Make sure that you go through all the steps of the model-building process as described in Lave and March.

2. This question is exactly the same as question 1 above, except that the process you are going to model begins with a different observable fact: you have noticed that UN diplomats in New York vary in the number of parking tickets they accumulate depending on their country of citizenship. Once again, what processes may have produced such a result? List at least two potential processes, one rational choice, one cultural. Make sure that you go through all the steps of the model-building process as described in Lave and March.

Short Essay–Part B

Please answer one of these two essay questions.
3. Political scientists used to divide the world up into two distinct regime types–democracies and authoritarian regimes. Over time, it has become obvious that this dichotomization of regime types was not useful enough. As a result, there have been numerous attempts by political scientists over the years to come up with more nuanced typologies of regime types. Describe two different approaches to typologizing regime types. How many different types of regimes are there? What are some of the characteristics of these regime types?

4. What is the link between political regimes and economic growth? Is there a relationship? If so, is it causal? Do rich countries become democratic more easily than poor countries? Do authoritarian regimes grow more quickly than demcoracies? Is there any difference between the economies of authoritarian versus democratic regimes? Please provide a couple of specific examples.