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PSCI 2305 UNIT 2 EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 2024
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PSCI 2305 UNIT 2 EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
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PSCI 2305 UNIT 2 EXAM QUESTIONSAND ANSWERS
what are questions for a representative democracy? - Answer -*what's the link between
the will of the people and political behavior?
*Under what conditions do politicians respond to the expressed opinions of the public?
what is public opinion? - Answer -The collective aggregation of individual opinions on
political and social issues.
Alternative definition: The collective opinion of the people of a society or state on an
issue or problem
How is public opinion a 2 step process? - Answer -1. Info from mass media and other
far-reaching sources of information influences influentials
2. Influentials then influence the general public as opposed to the mass media directly
influencing the public
why do we care about popular opinion? - Answer -Popular Sovereignty, Re-election
What should policymakers know about the public in a democracy? - Answer -what the
public wants. they should look to public opinion when weighing options on policy making
Elite based models - Answer -political elites (candidates, officeholders, media) tell
people what's right and the masses follow
Grassroots opinions - Answer -Opinion starts among the people, we tell politicians what
to do
Interaction between elites and non-elites - Answer -Elites sometimes drive opinion,
grassroots sometimes drive opinion
What are the challenges of having many opinions? - Answer -1. Elected politicians have
to be agents of multiple principles making it impossible to respond to everyone.
Sometimes there is no clear "will of the people".
2. Public opinion fluctuates
3. The people are poorly informed
What are the problems with relying on public opinion? - Answer -1. Many people lack
political knowledge
, 2. Attitudes are not "ideological"
3. Attitudes seem to shift from day to day
4. Difficult to measure reliably
What's the deal with voters? - Answer -They aren't smart. They are uninterested. The
man level of interest is low but the variance is high. The will of the people is incredibly
hard to put a finger on. People are not very ideological. Most people do not have strong
political opinions.+
What is the central concern of normative democratic theory? - Answer -Responsiveness
of government to citizens' preferences
What do economists do? - Answer -Connect citizen's preferences to outcomes with
perfect info theories of electoral competition
What does interest group theory suggest? - Answer -That the general will of the public
may be obstructed because wealthy pressure groups have undue influence.
Foreign Policy is..... - Answer -relatively autonomous from the public
When is political political responsiveness the greatest? - Answer -it's greatest
concerning highly salient issue for which the scope of conflict is broad
What is more responsive to public pressure than state officials? - Answer -The National
Government
How to measure public opinion - Answer -Polling is used as a random sampling process
polls increase.... - Answer -responsiveness or representation; they may be good for
democracy
How are polls conducted? - Answer -Through a sample (small proportion of people in a
population that represent the whole).
Random sampling- widely used by researchers. equal probability of being selected for
the sample
Random sampling in national polls - Answer -500-1,200 respondents in polls for
presidential elections
over 1,000 is preferred
the goal is to mirror the population as closely as possible
margin of error is the key to interpretation
What are samples called when they don't reflect the population? - Answer -biased
i.e. self-selection, phones and random digit dialing, non-responsive
also.....take note of question wording, priming, and framing, this can create error by
influencing answers
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