Problem
Part I
i. What is an interest group, and how does it differ from a political party?
ii. What is the problem of free riders in organizing an interest, and how may interest group leaders deal with it?
iii. Why is it that concentrated interests are easier to organize than diffuse interests?
iv. What are some factors that give some interests greater and/or more effective voice than others?
v. What are sectoral interest groups, and why do they dominate the politics of most states?
vi. What are institutional interest groups?
vii. What are promotional interest groups?
viii. How do the tactics used by interest groups vary? What leads groups to use differing mixes of these tactics?
ix. What is pluralism? Do you think it adequately explains political power in the United States? What is the critique of pluralism?
x. Compare pluralism and neocorporatism.
xi. Why are French interest groups for the most part relatively weak? In what circumstances do they appear to be stronger?
xii. What are some results of the dearth of organized interest groups in Bangladesh?
xiii. What is clientelism?
Part II
i. What is a social movement?
ii. Why is electronic communication especially important to social movements?
iii. How do political opportunity structures affect social movements?
iv. What are framing processes, and how can they affect the growth of a social movement?
v. What are some advantages and disadvantages of social movements' lack of formal structure?
vi. What happened to the two major uprisings in Iran in the 2010s? Did they have special weaknesses?
vii. What were some factors that led to the success of the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine?
viii. What factors led to why George Floyd's death became a call to reform or defund the police?
Part III
i. How does parliamentary government work?
ii. What is the role of the cabinet in a parliamentary system?
iii. How does a vote of confidence work?
iv. What is the role of head of state, and how does it relate to head of government?
v. What is a parliamentary coalition?
vi. How do cabinets control what happens in the parliament?
vii. How do parliaments conduct oversight of the executive?
viii. What is "question time"?
ix. What are the most important functions served by the parliament in a parliamentary system? 10. Why are committees typically rather weak in parliamentary systems?
x. How do upper houses function in parliamentary systems?
xi. What are some advantages and disadvantages of parliamentary systems?
xii. What is "consensus" parliamentarism?
xiii. How do parliaments function in authoritarian systems?
xiv. How does the Lok Sabha influence policy in India?
xv. How does parliamentary government in Germany compare with parliamentary government in general?
xvi. What is the role of the Bundesrat in Germany?
Part IV
i. What is presidential government? What distinguishes it from parliamentary government?
ii. How does the role of parties differ in presidential government from their role in parliamentary government?
iii. Compare the leadership role of a president with that of a prime minister.
iv. Compare presidential and parliamentary systems with regard to responsibility for policy.
v. Compare presidential and parliamentary systems with regard to comprehensive policy.
vi. Compare presidential and parliamentary systems with regard to recruitment of executive leaders.
vii. Compare presidential and parliamentary systems with regard to review and control of the executive.
viii. Why are there so few women as heads of government or heads of state?
ix. What is "court" politics? How does it relate to presidential government?
x. Compare presidential and parliamentary systems with regard to flexibility.
xi. What are advantages and disadvantages of the split executive found in parliamentary systems?
xii. What is the principal-agent problem?
xiii. How can transparency and active reporting help to mitigate the principal-agent problem?
xiv. How can focusing on parties as teams help to mitigate the principal-agent problem?
xv. How can retrospective voting help to mitigate the principal-agent problem?
xvi. How may formal power and the actual resources for power interact to produce unintended outcomes?
xvii. How does the French constitution enable the executive to control the parliament?
xviii. How did the dominant-party system of Mexico produce a strong form of presidential government?
xix. Is the U.S. system of presidential selection through the electoral college undemocratic?
Part V
i. What is the public administration?
ii. Why does the existence of the public administration pose a political problem for the leaders of the state?
iii. What is neutral competence? What does the politics-administration dichotomy refer to?
iv. What are several desirable characteristics of public administration? Can all these be maximized simultaneously?
v. What is the bureaucracy model of public administration?
vi. What are problems with the bureaucratic model?
vii. How may problems with the bureaucratic model be mitigated?
viii. What is contracting out? What is privatization? How are they tools of reform?
ix. How does the higher civil service operate in France?
x. How do bureaucratic cultures differ between Europe and Africa?
Part VI
i. What is a legal system?
ii. What are the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon case law? How did this legal system develop?
iii. What are the characteristics of continental European code law? How did this legal system develop?
iv. In Emile Durkheim's theory, what are organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity? How do they determine the nature of laws?
v. What are the characteristics of the Sharia? How does it coexist with Western legal systems? 6. What are courts, and how do they function in the state? How do courts shape governmental authority?
vi. What is judicial review? What sorts of states have systems of judicial review? Why?
vii. How and why is an independent judiciary important to creating democracies?
viii. How has law developed in China since the Communist revolution after World War II?
ix. How does the European Court of Justice operate? Why does it use a system of case law?
Part VII
i. What is international politics?
ii. What is the role of the United Nations in international politics?
iii. What is international law and what role does in play in international politics?
iv. What is the difference between monist and dualist legal systems?
v. What does the International Court of Justice do? The International Criminal Court?
vi. What is a fiduciary role, and how does it relate to states' actions in international politics?
vii. What is methodological individualism and wholism and why are they important in international relations theory?
viii. What is realism and realpolitik?
ix. What is liberal humanitarianism?
x. What are some sources of power in international politics?
xi. How is diplomacy conducted by ambassadors and consuls?
xii. What determines the effectiveness of economic sanctions?
xiii. What is international political economy? How do economic factors impact political choices and power?
xiv. What is comparative advantage?
xv. What are several conditions that make war between states more likely?
xvi. Under what conditions are groups likely to turn to terrorism as a tactic?
xvii. What was the Cold War?
xviii. Distinguish between NGOs and IGOs.
xix. What is regime theory?
xx. Why has it been so hard for the world's states to control climate change?