Intl P&G

Question 1

Name 3 plurality-majority voting systems

Answer 1

1. First-Past-The-Post/Simple plurality
2. Second Ballot
3. Alternative vote

Question 2

Outline FPTP voting systems

Answer 2

Uses single member districts and candidate-centred voting.

The candidate with most votes (a simple plurality) wins the seat no matter how many candidates and how small the winning margin.

eg: Canada, India, UK, USA

Question 3

Outline second ballot voting systems

Answer 3

Tries to avoid the disproportionality problem of FPTP systems by requiring the winning candidate to get an absolute majority of the votes (i.e. 50 per cent + 1) in the first round – or if not, a second run-off ballot is held between the two strongest candidates

Eg: France

Question 4

Define alternative voting

Answer 4

Voters mark their first and subsequent preferences among the candidates for their own constituency. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of first- preference votes on the first count, the candidate with the smallest number of first-choice votes is eliminated, but their second-choice votes are redistributed among the remaining candidates.

Eg: Australia

Question 5

List 3 proportional voting systems

Answer 5

1. List PR system
2. Single transferable vote (STV)
3. Mixed-member proportional (MMP)

Question 6

Define List PR system voting

Answer 6

Parties rank their candidates in order of preference, and they are elected in proportion to the number of votes for that party, starting from the top of the list

Eg: Netherlands (lower house), Brazil (lower house)

Question 7

What is the STV system?

Answer 7

Voters rank candidates according to their order of preference, and elected candidates must either get a specified number of first preferences or else the second preferences are taken into account.

Eg: Australia, Ireland

Question 8

What is mixed-member proportional voting?

Answer 8

Runs two voting systems at the same time. Plurality-majority districts are used to keep the link between representatives and constituencies, but a list PR system is added for a certain number of additional seats (usually 50%) in order to compensate for any disproportionality that arises from the plurality-majority system.

In Germany, half the additional seats are allotted at district and half at national level, and citizens have two votes, one for their district and one for the national list

Question 9

Define parallel systems

Answer 9

Like the MMP systems these use the plurality-majority system with a PR system but, unlike MMP, the PR system does not compensate for disproportionality resulting from the plurality-majority system

Eg: Korea, Japan

Question 10

What is single non-transferable vote?

Answer 10

The SNTV system combines multi-member constituencies with simple majority vote counting, and one vote for each elector.

Eg: Taiwan

Question 11

What are single-member districts?

Answer 11

One elected representative for each constituency

Question 12

What are multi-member districts?

Answer 12

Constituencies with two or more elected representatives for each area.

Question 13

What is an electoral threshhold?

Answer 13

A minimum percentage of the poll required to be elected (to discourage small parties).

Question 14

What system factors play into voter turnout?

Answer 14

1. Importance of election (National election turnout higher than local/presidential and parliamentary elections)
2. Democratic systems (Democratic countries have higher turnout)
3. Kinds of electoral systems (PR have higher turnout)
4. Close, competitive elections
5. Frequency election (lower frequency - higher turnout)
6. Founding elections (the first democratic elections after authoritarian rule)

Question 15

What are the main theories of voting?

Answer 15

• sociological/political approaches
• psychological/social approaches
• rational-choice/economic approaches.

Question 16

What are some of the sociological voting approaches?

Answer 16

The Columbia school:

people vote according to their membership of social groups, and that social groups vote for the party that best serves their interests. Eg: class, religion, race, language, urban–rural differences and sometimes gender, generation and occupation

Question 17

What are some of the psychological voting approaches?

Answer 17

The Michigan school:

concentrates on individual characteristics, particularly the role of party identification (party ID). This is a relatively stable and enduring feature that individuals acquire as a result of childhood and adult socialization.

‘the funnel of causality’: all the variables affecting voting behaviour are organised according to the theoretical order of their influence.

At the ‘wide end’: most general constraints on voting, such as social background and socialisation.

At the narrowest point: circumstances of particular elections, including attitudes towards party policies, candidates and election issues.

Question 18

Presidential Systems

Answer 18

Definition: A directly elected executive, with a limited term of office and a general responsibility for the affairs of state e.g. US, Latin America, Africa

the execution of policy: prez appoints cabinet, not allowed to be a member of the legislative

legislative branch: prez initiates legislation but depend on legislature to pass it into law, thus a need for cooperation

fixed tenure:presidents are elected for a fixed term

Question 19

Parliamentary Systems

Answer 19

definition: have
1. a directly elected legislative body
2. fused executive and legislative institutions
3. a collective executive that emerges from the legislature and is responsible to it (prime minister/chancellor/premier = cabinet/council)
4. a separation of head of state and head of government

prime minister is only the first among equals, all cabinet members share responsibility

party with most support in parliament becomes the prime minister

cabinet chosen by prime minister from members of parliament

executive has collective responsibility for the government (decisions and policies of the cabinet or council are binding on all members who must support them in public)

Question 20

Semi-Prez System

Answer 20

definition: government consists of a directly elected president, who is accountable to the electorate, and a prime minister, who is appointed by the president from the elected legislature. The president and prime minister share executive power. E.g. France

● the president can appoint the prime minister, dissolve parliament and referendum and call an emergency

● the prime minister appoints a cabinet from the assembly

● attraction for ex-communist democracies: strong public figure and his help to overcome extreme party fragmentation

Question 21

Juan Linz Pros&Cons of Presidential Systems

Answer 21

Pros:

are strong because they are directly elected and have popular support

can rise above the petty in-fighting of parties and factions and speak for their country and its people.

is a single person who takes all the power of the presidential office.

Cons:

presidents are normally bound by all sorts of constitutional provisions that limit their power:
- must have legislative support for actions, decisions and appointments;
- have to deal with the independence of the courts; and they sometimes face a highly fragmented, undisciplined and ineffective party system that makes it difficult to shape and implement a policy
- do not always have the support of the majority in the assembly, may be unable to implement their policies.

immobilism

presidents have a fixed term of office, which means it can be difficult to remove an unpopular president, but also means a sharp break in policies when a new one is elected

Question 22

The European Union: federation or confederation?

Answer 22

○ Hybrid of federal and confederal features
○ Federal features: Commission, ECJ, pooled sovereignty on some matters

○ Confederal features: MS want to keep sovereignty

Question 23

Federal states

Answer 23

middle-level territorial units of government that have a guaranteed status in the constitution → some
independence and autonomy

Cooperative federalism: federal states and state share power and cooperate closely. Eg: GER, SWI

Dual federalism: clear separation of function, powers, and spheres of influence. Eg: AUS, USA

Question 24

Unitary states

Answer 24

the central government is the only sovereign body. It does not share constitutional authority with any sub-central units of government.

Central government has the formal power to reform or abolish units of sub-central government at will, and can add or take away from its powers and duties as it sees fit.

Eg: most of the old and new democracies of west, central and east Europe as well as Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Mali, Namibia, New Zealand, South Korea and Uruguay.

Question 25

The arguments for centralization

Answer 25

● ‘democracy’, efficiency, equality, protection of minorities, national identity, prevents “disintegration of the state”

Question 26

The arguments against centralization (arguments for decentralization)

Answer 26

● efficiency, adaption to local circumstances, local minorities, ‘training ground for democracy’, recruiting for national politics,

Question 27

What did Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) and John Stuart Mill (1806–73) claim?

Answer 27

local self-government is important because political decisions should not be imposed from above, but developed and accepted from below

Question 28

Theories of Multi-Level Government

Answer 28

○ Pluralist theory: many centers of power, vertical and horizontal division

Economic Theories =

○ Rational Choice: political behaviour is driven by calculations of self-interest

Federalism is a rational solution to the problem of how to maintain balance between interests of central power and of geographical regions so that each maintains control of their own affairs but can cooperate to deal with a common, external threat, and thereby increase their own power (Riker)

○ Rational Choice theory of local government: substitutes an economic logic for a political one: consumer-voters can move from one municipality to another to maximize their preferences, instead of using their vote to influence civic leaders and local public services

Question 29

Criticism to the Rational Choice theory of local goverment

Answer 29

1: consumer-voters are not free to move at will from one municipality to another. They are constrained by the needs of work, family, schools and house prices.

2: survey data shows that few people see local public services as very important when they are deciding where to live. Being near work, family and shops is much more important.

3: there is only a weak link between local taxes and services in many countries because financial transfers from higher levels of government pay a large proportion of the local service bill.

4: in most countries other than the USA, local government is not fragmented into many competing jurisdictions. It is consolidated and coordinated by higher levels of government which redistribute national tax resources and regulate local services in the interests of service quality and equality between municipalities.

Question 30

Center-Periphery Relations of Multi-Level Government

Answer 30

Relations between the centre and the periphery are often relations between dominant and subordinate political groups.

One variant of centre–periphery theory argues that the institutions of the central state were originally created by powerful interests (a class or ethnic group) that exploited the periphery for its resources

Question 31

What kind of problems do local governments typically face?

Answer 31

(a) the conflict that often arises between different levels of democratically
elected government;

(b) the problem of how to reconcile the conflicting claims of democracy
and effectiveness.

Question 32

Define political attitude

Answer 32

the way that people label themselves as belonging to a particular group (e.g. nation-state, class or caste, ethnic group, religious group)

usually defined by

Material interests – money, promotion, taxes, security

Idealogical interests – political values and ideals, such as a sense of justice and
freedom, religious beliefs, or a left/right political position.

Question 33

The advantages of using political culture as an assessment tool

Answer 33

• can produce important empirical findings about political attitudes and behaviour – e.g. the role of education and the family, and the importance and origins of competence, social trust and national pride.
• is claimed to be a ‘bedrock’ factor – it changes slowly compared with the more changeable political attitudes discussed by newspapers and opinion polls.
• links (1) the micro-politics of individuals with the macro-politics of institutions and states; (2) subjective (values and attitudes) with the objective (e.g. voting behaviour); and (3) history and traditions with current circumstances and events.
• helps to explain quite a wide range of phenomena, from economic development and political stability to democratic development and political behaviour.
• often based on hard/extensive quantitative data drawn from surveys.

Question 34

The disadvantages of using political culture as an assessment tool

Answer 34

• is said to be a ‘soft’, ‘residual’, ‘dustbin’, or ‘fuzzy’ concept that you can be used to explain everything and therefore nothing. Culture can be used as a post hoc (after the event) explanation that is not put to an empirical test.
• Political culture explanations risk circularity: we infer what people believe from how they behave and explain their behaviour by what they believe. Eg: people behave democratically because they hold democratic values, and we know that they hold democratic values because they behave democratically.
• Cultures and structures are mutually interdependent and tend to go together. It is not surprising, therefore that cultures and structures are associated, but which is cause and effect?
• Political culture deals with the last link in a long chain of causes of political behaviour. The basic causes of behaviour may be historical, or economic (Marxist or class theory), or personality.

Question 35

Name the models of democracy

Answer 35

Classical democracy
Protective democracy
Developmental democracy
People’s democracy
Liberal democracy

Question 36

Media Effect Theories

Answer 36

1. Reinforcement theory
→ the theory that the mass media can only reflect and reinforce public opinion, not create or mold it -> minimal effects of media
→ media gives audience what they want, audience self-select, are influenced by projection, suppression, distortion and rejection

2. Agenda setting
→ The process by which a multiplicity of political problems and issues are continuously sorted according to the changing priority attached to them ->
can influence what we think about

3. Priming and framing
→ Priming: The theory that mass media can prime us to focus on certain things and in certain ways by highlighting some issues rather than others
→ Framing: The theory that the news stories are set up influences how audiences interpret them

4. Direct effect
→ mass media has a direct effect on politics and on attitudes and behaviors of citizens, but there is disagreement about whether this effect is positive or negative

→ negative: media malaise – the attitudes of political cynicism, despair, apathy, distrust and disillusionment (among others) that some social scientists claim are caused by the mass media (especially TV, market competition)
→ negative: cultural imperialism – the use of cultural products, particularly films, books, music and TV, to spread the values and ideologies of foreign cultures (e.g. US in Third World) - soft power

Question 37

2 types of mass media organization

Answer 37

The public service model
Þ The system of granting broadcasting licenses to public bodies, usually supported by public funds, for use in the public interest rather than for the profit

Þ 1920s-1970s: spectrum scarcity(the shortage of terrestrial broadcasting frequencies for radio and TV, which meant that there could only be a few public channels → regulated in public interest

Þ Main characteristics:market regulation(competition is impossible);content regulation(full, fair and impartial news, shared time for parties); self-regulation of regulation by QUANGOs (not controlled by the government); public funding; education, information and entertainment; national broadcasting

The market model
Þ No public relation, open and competitive in an unregulated market àprinciple of free speech
(freedom of press) → some need for market regulation to guarantee competition but no need for content regulation

Þ Since 1980s: end of spectrum scarcity, electronic media increasingly competitive and pluralist,
news as commodity
→ media increasingly driven by commercial pressures of profit

Þ Only a fair amount of regulation left
→ regulation to ensure market competition (no monopolies/oligopolies) → content regulation