Deck 15: Consequences of Democratic Institutions

Question 1

According to the majoritarian vision of democracy, what role should citizens who hold minority preferences play in determining policy?

A) They should serve as a check on the power of the majority.
B) Their opinions should be a part of a consensus that determines policy.
C) Citizens with minority preferences should have no role in the policy-making process.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Government accountability gauges the extent to which it is possible to reward or punish policy makers for the policies that are chosen. Which of the following statements best characterizes accountability as a goal in both types of democracies?

A) Accountability is an important goal in both majoritarian and consensus democracies, but is only achieved in consensus democracies.
B) Accountability tends to be only an important goal for majoritarian democracies, and only majoritarian democracies achieve it.
C) Accountability is only an important goal for consensus democracies, and only consensus democracies achieve it.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The ability of voters to hold their elected officials accountable depends on:

A) Voters following retrospective voting behavior
B) A sufficiently high level of clarity of responsibility
C) Both (A) and (B)

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Mandates are not particularly important in consensus democracies.

Question 5

Government identifiability is higher when there are many parties but they form preelectoral coalitions than when there are many parties that only begin bargaining over government formation after elections.

Question 6

Which of the following institutions lead to higher levels of clarity of responsibility?

A) a federal system
B) coalition governments
C) legislative committee systems that give power to opposition parties
D) all of these
E) none of these

Question 7

Responsiveness is an important goal for both the majoritarian and the consensus visions of democracy, though each conceptualize the term quite differently.

Question 8

If a constitution writer wanted to choose institutions to disperse power and generate high levels of ideological congruence between representatives and citizens, which vision of democracy would she be trying to achieve?

A) Majoritarian
B) Consensus

Question 9

Which of the following countries most closely meets the guidelines of a majoritarian democracy?

A) New Zealand (prior to 1996)
B) Netherlands
C) Belgium
D) Japan

Question 10

Which of the following countries most closely meets the guidelines of a consensus democracy?

A) New Zealand (prior to 1996)
B) United Kingdom
C) Belgium
D) Japan

Question 11

When political economists talk about fiscal policy, what are they referring to?

A) The use of taxing and spending decisions to reach government goals.
B) The set of government policies related to the raising of revenues through taxation.
C) The set of policies accomplished through government spending.
D) The manipulation of interest rates and the money supply to reach government goals.
E) All of these.
F) Only answers (A), (B), and (C) refer to fiscal policy.

Question 12

Analysts who look at fiscal activity in advanced industrialized countries in the postwar period find that there is very little cross-national variation in the level of fiscal activity.

Question 13

According to the Meltzer-Richards model of the size of government, preferences over tax rates are a function of a voter's income. Voters with a higher-than-average level of income prefer low taxes while voters with a lower-than-average income prefer high taxes.

Question 14

Why might the demand for redistribution that analysts find in the empirical data differ from that predicted by the Meltzer-Richards model?

A) The model assumes full turnout, so the model's predictions should be more accurate in countries with higher levels of turnout than in other cases.
B) The model assumes income inequality, but the empirical data show no evidence of income inequality in the analyses of advanced industrialized countries presented in the chapter.

Question 15

Why does the partisan model of macroeconomic policy predict that changes in partisan control of the government will lead to predicable changes in fiscal policy?

A) It doesn't; the partisan model of macroeconomic policy is about whether voters are extreme or moderate. Extreme voters want redistribution and moderate voters do not.
B) Because it assumes that left wing parties represent voters who want more redistribution (and thus, higher levels of fiscal activity) and right-wing parties represent voters who want less redistribution.

Question 16

Empirical evidence indicates that fiscal activity is higher in countries that use proportional representation than in ones that adopt majoritarian electoral rules.

Question 17

The analysis presented by Fearon and Laitin (1996) suggests that conflict is likely whenever different ethnic groups coexist within a single state.

Question 18

In recent years, economists and political scientists have reached a consensus regarding the exact causal relationship between ethnic heterogeneity and economic growth.

Question 19

According to recent work on the size of ethnic groups and democratic stability, when are democracies likely to be particularly unstable?

A) when there are many ethnic groups
B) when there are few ethnic groups
C) when there is a permanent majority

Question 20

If potential conflicts exist in ethnically divided societies, which electoral rules would political scientists recommend in order to mitigate the conflict?

A) proportional representation electoral rules.
B) majoritarian electoral rules.
C) scholars don't agree on the best course of action in this case. Some recommend PR and others recommend majoritarian rules.

Question 21

Is federalism a useful tool for reducing ethnic conflict?

A) Yes. Political decentralization reduces ethnic conflict by increasing opportunities to participate in government and by giving groups discretion over their political, social, and economic affairs.
B) No. Political decentralization strengthens regionally based ethnic identities and strengthens, rather than weakens, ethnic divisions.
C) It depends. Political decentralization reduces ethnic conflict when regional parties are weak but it increases ethnic conflict when they are strong.

Question 22

Which of the following institutional mechanisms are thought to prevent regionally based identity parties from dominating subnational governments?

A) preferential voting systems
B) Presidential elections, where the presidency is an important political prize and the elections are held at the same time as subnational elections.
C) cross-regional voting requirements
D) all of these

Question 23

Having problems making policy quickly, locating responsibility for policy, and making comprehensive policy are characteristics of presidential systems. Parliamentary systems, particularly those with coalition governments, do not suffer from these problems.

Question 24

If you were asked to recommend whether a poor country with a multiparty system should adopt presidentialism or parliamentarism, which would you choose? Assume that your goal is to allow them to avoid democratic collapse. Assume also that the country is unlikely to change either its level of income or its electoral rules in the near future.

A) presidentialism
B) parliamentarism
C) It wouldn't make a difference for democratic survival in this case.

Question 25

If you were asked to recommend whether a rich country with a two-party system should adopt presidentialism or parliamentarism, which would you choose? Assume that your goal is to allow them to avoid democratic collapse. Assume also that the country is unlikely to change either its level of income or its electoral rules in the near future.

A) presidentialism
B) parliamentarism
C) It wouldn't make a much of difference for democratic survival in this case, so they should use some other criteria on which to base their decision.

Question 26

Large numbers of veto players in a country encourage policy stability on the one hand, but political instability on the other.

Question 27

If a moderately poor country with a high level of social heterogeneity had adopted a constitution that specified presidentialism, what kind of electoral rules would you suggest they employ in order to maximize their chances for survival as a democracy?

A) It wouldn't matter, because they would have a multiparty system no matter the electoral rules.
B) It wouldn't matter, because they would have a two-party system no matter the electoral rules.
C) Majoritarian (single-member district) rules so that they would have a small number of large parties.
D) Proportional representation so that they would have a small number of large parties.
E) Proportional representation so that they would have a large number of large parties.

Question 28

Brazil is a large, ethnically heterogeneous, primarily Catholic country. It has a presidential system with proportional representation electoral laws. Based on this description and the hypothetical regression results below, what factors about Brazil encourage political extremism? What factors discourage political extremism? Which have no effect?
Table 1: Testing Theories of Political Extremism
Dependent Variable: Level of Political Extremism

$\begin{array}{lc}\text { Variables } & \text { Model 1 } \\\hline \text { Small population } & -0.29^{*} \\\text { Economic development } & 0.10 \\\text { Ethnic diversity } & 0.27^{*} \\\text { Large agriculture sector } & 0.62^{*} \\\text { Catholic majority } & 0.04 \\\text { Presidential regime } & -0.14^{*} \\\text { Single-member district plurality } & -0.53^{*} \\\hline\end{array}$

Question 29

Drawing on discussions in various chapters throughout the textbook, can you think of reasons that might explain the regression results you began analyzing in the previous question?

Question 30

Venezuela is an ethnically heterogeneous country with a presidential system and a level of wealth that has been fluctuating above and below a per capita income level of $6,055 PPP USD. Although it has one of the longest records of democratic rule in Latin America, the democratic system has become increasingly fragile in recent years (indeed, many would argue that it is no longer democratic). In recent years the degree of party fractionalization in the legislature has increased and national income has fallen. In a sentence or two, what have you learned in this class that might explain the increasing fragility of democratic rule in Venezuela?

Question 31

In 2005, Iraq had a per capita gross domestic product of US$3,400 and derived 95% of its foreign exchange earnings from oil. The literacy rate was 40.4% compared with a global average of 82%. It has three main ethnic groups Shia Muslim (56% of the population), Sunni Muslim (28%) and Kurds (15%), which amounts to 3.1 effective ethnic groups.
Which of these factors might contribute to the emergence and survival of democracy, which ones might hinder the emergence and survival of democracy, and which do you think are irrelevant for the emergence and survival of democracy?
Finally, if you were compelled to design a constitution for Iraq that maximized the probability of democratic consolidation, which institutions would you choose? For example, would you recommend a presidential or a parliamentary regime? What electoral system would you suggest? Please indicate the reasoning (logic and evidence) behind your answer.

Question 32

If you were asked to give advice on the following questions, what would your answer be?
We are writing a constitution for a new democracy in a large country with many social and ethnic cleavages and a per capita income of about US$5,000 in 1985 dollars. We would like to do everything we can to try to ensure the consolidation of our democratic regime.
First, what other goals do you think we should have in mind when writing our constitution?
Second, what advice would you give us on specific institutional forms? Proportional representation or a single-member plurality system? Should we choose a parliamentary or a presidential system? Federal or unitary system? Unicameral or bicameral legislature?
In addition to answering these questions, could you give us some sense as to how you arrived at your answers? Also, can you tell us why you think the choices you've recommended are compatible with each other?