CPS Final UPDATED Actual Exam
Questions and CORRECT Answers
Comparative Politics - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔The comparative study of domestic
political systems, the ideas, interests, and institutions that structure political systems
internally
Politics - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔O'Neill defines politics = as the struggle in any group
for power that will give give one or more persons the ability to make decisions for the larger
group
-pursuit of authority to make decisions that will affect the community as a whole.
-Politics is the competition for public power, and power is the ability to extend one's will
-Fukuyama = political order is based on legitimacy and the authority that arises from
legitimate domination.
-Legitimacy from Fukuyama = people that make up society recognize the fundamental Justice
of the system as a whole and are willing to abide by its rules
-Heart of politics is a struggle between freedom and equality
freedom = individual's ability to act independently without fear of restriction or punishment
by the state or individuals / groups in society, at basic level, connotes autonomy
Equality = a material standard of living shared by individuals within a community, society or
country.
Power - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔the ability to influence others or impose one's will on
them
-Fukuyama = political power is the product of both the resources and number of citizens that
a society can command but also the degree to which the legitimacy of leaders and institutions
is recognized
-Fukuyama = political power is based ultimately on social cohesion
1) Simple-minded Power = Intended and Observable Results - A gets B to do something that
B would not otherwise do, often by appealing to motives of fear or greed
2) Negative Power (Power of Non-Decisions)
-power to block, derail, subvert, quash (classic power of lower-level bureaucrats)
-This face of power is often invisible, therefore non-measurable, you know it's there, but can't
prove it.
,3) Manipulation of Wants and Beliefs (Invisible Power)
-socialization
-The shaping of people's wants, preferences, incentives and conceptions of what is possible
(education, media, advertising, myths, symbols, etc)
-Power at this level may or may not be deliberate
-Power is only beneficial if it's organized - greater the concentration, the more dangerous it is
(Totalitarianism)
Modernization Theory - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔O'Neill - held that as societies developed
they would become capitalist democracies, converging around a set of shared values and
characteristics, assumed all other countries would eventually catch up unless diverted by
alternative systems like communism
-set of hypotheses about how countries develop
Behavioral Revolution / Behavioralism - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔hoped to generate
theories and generalizations that could help explain and even predict political activity
-set of methods to approach politics
-promoted deductive, large-scale research over single case study common in inductive
reasoning
The State - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔Weber = an organization that maintains a monopoly
of force over a territory
-typically highly institutionalized --> set of political institutions to generate and carry out
policy
-Characterized by such institutions as army, police, taxation, legal and social welfare system
-essential that it possesses sovereignty - the ability to carry out actions and policies within a
territory dependent of external actors and internal rivals.
-needs to be primary authority over its territory, people who live there, passing and enforcing
laws, defining and protecting rights.
-state needs power, typically, not only physical power - needs to defend its territory from
outside actors / other states, runs the risk that rivals will interfere with its authority.
Institutions - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔-are organizations or patterns of activity that are self
perpetuating and valued or their own sake
,-embody norms or values that are considered central to people's lives and thus not easily
dislodged or changed
-Set the stage for political behavior by influencing how politics is conducted
-Vary from country to country
-command authority and can influence human behavior
Fukuyama = as political systems develop, recognition is transferred from individuals to
institutions - that is rules or patterns that persist over time
Regime - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔Different than the state
-defined as the fundamental rules and norms of politics
-embodies long-term goals that guide the state with regard to individual freedom and
collective equality, where power should reside and how power should be used.
-often embodied in a constitution
-defined as the norms and rules that establish the proper relation between freedom and
equality and the use of power toward that end
-Basic level - either democratic or nondemocratic AKA authoritarian
-Democratic = public has large role in governance, certain individual rights and liberties
-Nondemocratic = limits public participation and favors those in power
-don't easily or quickly change - usually by dramatic social events such as revolutions or
national crises
-Most revolutions = revolts against the regime
Government - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔the leadership that runs the state
-weakly institutionalized
-limited by the existing regime
-often composed of the elected officials such as president or prime minister
-Country = the combined political entities of state, regime, government
-generate short-term goals towards freedom and equality
O'Neill - Legitimacy - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔defined as a value whereby something or
someone is recognized and accepted as right and proper.
-makes it possible for states to carry out its basic functions
, -Legitimacy confers authority and power.
-In absence of legitimacy, states must rely on coercion to retain their power. With legitimacy,
people obey the law, even in face of slight punishment
-As states provide security and other benefits, they can engender a reciprocal responsibility to
the state.
-Legitimacy thus creates power that relies not on coercion but on consent. Without
legitimacy, states would have to rely on the constant threat of force to maintain order
According to Weber - legitimacy comes in three basic forms
One - Traditional
Two - Charismatic
Three - Rational-Legal
-Traditional legitimacy rests on idea that someone or something is valid because "it's always
been that way." Viewed as part of the historical identity of people themselves
-Traditional legitimacy embodies historical myths and legends as well as the continuity
between past and present.
-Overall, traditional legitimacy is based on history and continuity - strongly institutionalized
-Charismatic legitimacy is opposite of traditional legitimacy - based on the power of ideas or
beliefs. Typically embodied by individuals that can move and persuade the public through
ideas and how they articulate them.
-Charismatic legitimacy is not institutionalized and therefore is fairly tenuous - but can be
transformed into traditional legitimacy through creation of rituals or values\
-Charismatic legitimacy, power it gives individuals can corrupt
-Rational-Legal legitimacy is based on a system of laws and procedures that are presumed to
be rational. Leaders gain legitimacy by the procedures / rules that allow them to come into
office.
-Thus, its the office, not the individual that possesses the power
O'Neill - Power Distribution - CORRECT ANSWER- ✔✔State power can be centralized or
decentralized in a couple of different ways - first of which is the dispersal of power within the
state
Federalism = powers such as taxation, lawmaking and security are devolved to regional
bodies. Powers spelled out in constitution, not easily eliminated by government - argument
that federalism helps represent local interests as well as check the growth of central power
Asymmetical Federalism = power is divided unevenly between regional bodies - i.e. some
regions have greater power over taxation, language rights - more common in country with
ethnic divisions, reflects a view that overcentralization is dangerous
