Deck 31: A Fragile Capitalist-Democratic World Order, 1991-2014

Question 1

Former KGB officer _____________________ was president of Russia 2000-2008 and became president again after 2012.

A) Vladimir Putin
B) Mikhail Gorbachev
C) Dmitry Medvedev
D) Boris Yeltsin

Answer 1

A

Question 2

In the 1990s, _________________ became an entirely new branch of industry.

A) commercial airline travel
B) locally produced commodities
C) information technology
D) computers

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Which Middle Eastern country has largely escaped Islamist militancy?

A) Lebanon
B) Turkey
C) India
D) Iran

Answer 3

B

Question 4

As a result of overproduction on the world market, commodity prices were depressed through most of the 1990s. The price depression imposed severe budget cutbacks on many poor countries, with consequent unemployment, middle-class shrinkage, reduction in education, and a rise in __________.

A) Suicide statistics
B) Murder statistics
C) HIV infections
D) Women's liberation movements

Question 5

With UN backing, President George H. W. Bush ordered US troops to evict the Iraqis from ___________ in Operation Desert Storm.

A) Lebanon
B) Afghanistan
C) Turkey
D) Kuwait

Question 6

The 2008 presidential campaign led to the election of _____________________, a law professor and the first African American president of the United States.

A) Colin Powell
B) Barack Obama
C) William Jefferson Clinton
D) John McCain

Question 7

In the attempt to boost East Asian economies and thwart the advance of communism, the United States became an import _______________.

A) a sinkhole
B) opponent
C) antagonist
D) rival

Question 8

In March 2003, President George W. Bush espoused the unilateralist cause and ordered a preemptive invasion without UN Security Council backing against ______________, declaring that it had become a regional threat.

A) Iraq
B) Afghanistan
C) Iran
D) Somalia

Question 9

______ has refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol benchmarks for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

A) China
B) The United States
C) Russia
D) Denmark

Question 10

As in many other places in the past decade, young people in ________ demonstrated a faith in democracy in 2009.

A) Pyongyang
B) Karachi
C) Tehran
D) Manila

Question 11

Which of the following was NOT a component of the criticism related to globalization?

A) The loss of the traditional manufacturing.
B) Sacrificing American sovereignty to foreign investors and markets.
C) Exclusion of poorer countries in the global capitalist system.
D) The opening of foreign markets to U.S. investors.

Question 12

In the United States anger grew out of financial panic in the economic crisis of 2008. Resentment of corporate greed and federal economic stimulus packages created the new political party, ___________ made up mostly of white, middle-class, older, and evangelical Christian voters.

A) Green Party
B) Socialist Party
C) Federalist Party
D) Tea Party

Question 13

Slobodan Milosevic was an ethnic ______.

A) Croat
B) Albanian
C) Bosnian
D) Serb

Question 14

Until his death in 2013, _______'s President Hugo Chávez was alone in mainland Latin America in his adherence to state socialism, encountering periodic middle-class resistance

A) Argentina
B) Bolivia
C) Peru
D) Venezuela

Question 15

Two recessions in the first decade of the 2000s in the U.S. were centered upon what industries?

A) Farming and automobile production
B) Currency speculation and imports
C) Dot-com industry and housing
D) Housing and imports

Question 16

In 2010, India's middle class included anyone with:

A) a cell phone, motorized transportation, and a color TV.
B) a salary of between $30,000 and $50,000 per year
C) IT experience
D) none of these

Question 17

In 2000, about _______ of the world's population of 6 billion lived in fully industrialized countries, two-thirds in middle-income countries, and 15 percent in poor countries.

A) one tenth
B) one fifth
C) one third
D) one half

Question 18

During the 1990s, there were some 190 sovereign countries in the world, forming a(n) _________________.

A) Four-tier hierarchy
B) Three-tier hierarchy
C) Organized trade union
D) Coalition of democratic nations

Question 19

After a Turkish military coup attempt in July 2016

A) Erdoğan was arrested
B) Opposition leader Fethullah Gülen was executed
C) Mass citizen rallies prompted the coup to collapse and ushered in waves of retaliatory purges
D) Erdoğan transformed the office of the presidency from a ceremonial one to an executive one

Question 20

Up until the early 1990s, although all 54 African countries were officially "nations" with seats in the United Nations, none was either a functionally constitutional or ethnically uniform nation except:

A) South Africa
B) Ghana
C) Morocco
D) Kenya

Question 21

Since the early 2000s, the so-called BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, and China, as well as Turkey and _______, have been added to the first tier of global economic powers.

A) Kenya
B) Bangladesh
C) Mexico
D) Paraguay

Question 22

Only two centuries after its beginnings, the pattern of capitalist modernity characterized by market exchange and consumerism encompassed roughly _______% of the world's population.

A) 90
B) 30
C) 50
D) 70

Question 23

By the 1990s, the United States' economy had become an even deeper "sinkhole", this time for textiles, toys, and simple electrical and electronic devices made in _____.

A) Cuba
B) Chile
C) India
D) China

Question 24

During the 1990s, the United States economy experienced all of the following except:

A) A reduction in the unemployment rate.
B) Dominance in multiple "high-tech" industries.
C) A sharp rise in the rate of inflation.
D) A balanced national budget.

Question 25

In recent decades, speculative instruments called "derivatives":

A) Aided the US government's goals of protecting domestic markets.
B) Derived substantial benefits for those who could not enter the stock market by normal means.
C) Were considered too risky as investments for those who controlled Wall Street.
D) Were complex bets on the future prices of stocks, bonds, or anything else traded on the world market.

Question 26

In March 2003, President George W. Bush ordered a preemptive invasion of Iraq:

A) Without the backing of the UN Security Council.
B) After seeking an authorizing vote of support from the UN General Assembly.
C) At the behest of his NATO allies, but over his reasonable objections.
D) Because Saddam Hussein had murdered UN weapons inspectors who had come to investigate his stockpile.

Question 27

Although US troops invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, searching for Osama bin Laden, he was assassinated in May _______.

A) 2003
B) 2011
C) 2008
D) 2006

Question 28

Two years after its independence, South Sudan:

A) Petitioned to dissolve itself and rejoin Sudan.
B) Became a base for Islamist Muslim insurgents in eastern Africa.
C) Degenerated into a civil war between its president and former vice president.
D) Moved its capital from Juba to Abyei.

Question 29

In the past decade, Vladimir Putin has done all of the following except:

A) Petitioned to dissolve itself and rejoin Sudan.
B) De-nationalized state enterprises and created a comprehensive market economy.
C) Sharply curtailed basic civil rights and restricted press freedoms.
D) Provoked former Soviet republics into conflicts with Russia.

Question 30

Into the early 2000s, the Chinese government touted itself as a "harmonious society", _____.

A) And universal respect for it has rendered it capable of surviving a sustained economic downturn.
B) Since urban real estate and rental apartments are increasingly affordable.
C) But it does not tolerate "disruptive elements" advocating independence for ethnic and religious minorities.
D) Because it follows the path laid out by Mao in his "little red book" so closely.

Question 31

The global recession began in 2008 with a(n):

A) "Toxic" mortgage crisis that snowballed into a general credit crisis.
B) Contested US presidential election in which the Electoral College results differed from the popular electoral tally.
C) Immigration crisis, as refugees fleeing the Arab Spring crowded into southern Europe.
D) Precipitous increase in the global inflation rate.

Question 32

The two main perpetrators of the Bosnian "ethnic cleansing" lived more or less openly in _______ until their arrest in 2008 and 2011.

A) The United States
B) Russia
C) Serbia
D) Bosnia-Herzegovina

Question 33

Israel began building a border fence in 2002 along ________, supplemented in places by a wall of concrete slabs, and it was completed in 2013.

A) The Golan Heights
B) The Egyptian border
C) Its border with Lebanon
D) The entire length of the occupied West Bank

Question 34

The election of Hasan Rouhani as president of Iran in 2013 led to:

A) Subsidies for food and gas to the populace, together with cash distributions to government supporters.
B) Charges that the regime was threatening to launch a "dirty" nuclear bomb against targets in Iraq.
C) Limitations Iran's nuclear program.
D) Electoral violence and plausible challenges to the election's validity.

Question 35

The rise of ISIS in the summer of 2014 resulted in all of the following except:

A) A call for a renewed American occupation of the region, with "boots on the ground".
B) The de facto division of Iraq into a triad of Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite polities.
C) The utter evaporation of even the minimal achievements of the costly US war in Iraq during 2003-2011.
D) Its occupation of Falluja, Ramadi, and Mosul within Iraq.

Question 36

The Nigerian government has, in recent years, proved incompetent against the rapidly expanding Islamist movement Boko Haram, which means "________".

A) Nigeria for the Nigerians
B) Western education is sin
C) Islamic democracy now
D) Nothing to lose

Question 37

If projections of the effects of climate change hold true, the globe will experience all of the following conditions except:

A) Tropical forests will be wiped out, removing the most important agents for cleansing the atmosphere of greenhouse gases.
B) Widespread droughts and violent storms will regularly hit various parts of the earth.
C) Biodiversity will be dramatically increased, with rising sea levels leading to the generation of new animal and plant species.
D) Ocean levels, rising from the melted ice, will make inroads on the coasts of all continents.

Question 38

The most extreme example of a nation going against the grain of the twenty-first century, North Korea forces adults to subsist on ____ calories daily, as compared to 2000-2500 among Europeans.

A) 700
B) 1000
C) 1250
D) 1500

Question 39

Among signs of a major retreat from post-Cold War internationalist political, economic, and diplomatic trends is ________.

A) the nomination of Hillary Clinton by the Democratic Party in the U.S.
B) Brexit
C) the loss of Marine Le Pen in France
D) Hillary Clinton's popular vote win in the American election

Question 40

In the summer of 2015, roughly 890,000 refugees from _________ entered Germany.

A) Greece
B) Turkey
C) Lebanon
D) Syria

Question 41

One of the recipients of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was Tawakkol Karman, leader of the Women Journalists Without Chains protest movement in ______.

A) Syria
B) Yemen
C) Morocco
D) Bahrain

Question 42

In support of Egypt and Syria against Israel in the _____ war, OPEC quadrupled oil prices.

A) 1967
B) 1956
C) 1982
D) 1973

Question 43

The policies of "globalization" were shaped and directed, in great measure, by the advisors of US President ______ in the 1990s.

A) Bill Clinton
B) George H.W. Bush
C) George W. Bush
D) Ronald Reagan

Question 44

At the head of a coalition force and with United Nations backing, the US evicted the Iraqis from _____ in Operation Desert Storm (1991).

A) Saudi Arabia
B) Iran
C) Turkey
D) Kuwait

Question 45

Despite the stated aims of the invasion of ________ in March 2003, no weapons of mass destruction were discovered in that country.

A) Afghanistan
B) Libya
C) Iraq
D) Syria

Question 46

By 1992, al-Qaeda (Arabic for "__________") had emerged as the principal terrorist organization operating on a global scale.

A) The Base
B) The Way
C) The People
D) The Future

Question 47

During the civil war in _______ in 1994, the ethnic majority Hutus massacred the Tutsi ethnic minority by the hundreds of thousands.

A) Namibia
B) Somalia
C) Zaire
D) Rwanda

Question 48

Russian president Vladimir Putin took advantage of protests against Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych to annex ________ in March 2014.

A) Donetsk
B) Lvov
C) Crimea
D) Moldova

Question 49

Republicans in the US Congress shut down the government for 16 days in 2013 in a failed effort to defund the ________ Health Care Act, passed into law in 2010.

A) Affordable
B) Single-Payer
C) Expanded Medicaid
D) Great Society

Question 50

After the death of Josip Tito, the politician Slobodan Milošević advocated the "cleansing" of minority groups in the interest of creating a "greater ______".

A) Croatia
B) Bosnia
C) Macedonia
D) Serbia

Question 51

Under the impact of the Arab Spring, in 2011 the kingdom of ______ adopted constitutional reforms allowing for greater democracy.

A) Qatar
B) Morocco
C) Jordan
D) Saudi Arabia

Question 52

Recep Erdoğan's party, AKP, garnered slightly more than half of the vote, on which basis they

A) changeed the president's ceremonial office into an executive one
B) ignored a court injunction to stop constructing his government palace 30 times bigger than the US White House
C) enacted constitutional reforms which rescinded the military's power in politics
D) suppressed popular demonstrations in Istanbul

Question 53

In Syria, hopes for an Arab Spring were dashed almost immediately by the horrific violence inflicted by its leader, ________ al-Assad.

A) Bashar
B) Hafez
C) Qusay
D) Mahmud

Question 54

The terrorist organization known as ISIS is led by a former al-Qaeda operative from _______.

A) Saudi Arabia
B) Iran
C) Afghanistan
D) Iraq

Question 55

Despite the success of the middle class in _________, almost three quarters of the population still lived in villages with poor or no water, electricity, and roads at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

A) China
B) Vietnam
C) India
D) Brazil

Question 56

The revolution against Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was launched by the April 6 Youth Movement, a ________ group composed of social and political activists.

A) Twitter
B) Facebook
C) Taliban
D) Google

Question 57

Until his death in 2013, _______'s President Hugo Chávez was alone in mainland Latin America in his adherence to state socialism, encountering periodic middle-class resistance.

A) Argentina
B) Peru
C) Bolivia
D) Venezuela

Question 58

______ has refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol benchmarks for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

A) China
B) The United States
C) Russia
D) Denmark

Question 59

In August 2008, Putin provoked the former Soviet republic of ________, which was on track for admission into NATO, into a conflict that resulted in Russian control over one-fifth of its territory.

A) Georgia
B) Ukraine
C) Belarus
D) Lithuania

Question 60

The recession of 2008-2011 began with

A) uncontrolled speculation about the expansion of the Internet
B) a general credit, credit card, and auto loan crisis
C) insolvency in the auto industry
D) the collapse of the housing market