Deck 1: Introduction: The Nature of Politics and Political Analysis

Question 1

How did the American political scientist Harold Lasswell summarize political activity?

A) 'The organized power of one class for oppressing another'.
B) 'Governing mankind by deceiving them'.
C) 'Who gets what, when and how'.
D) 'Politics is at the heart of all collective social activity'.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

How did Karl Marx understand politics?

A) As the means by which one class oppresses another.
B) As a way of reaching mutually beneficial compromises.
C) As the natural product of human competitiveness.
D) As an arena for competition between a capitalist and a proletarian party.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

A key thesis of the 'end of history' argument is that….

A) No-one believes in ideology any longer.
B) Liberal democratic values are dominant.
C) Karl Marx was right after all.
D) The end of the world is coming.

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Andrew Gamble in his book 'Politics and Fate' argues which of the following?

A) Our fate is out of our control.
B) Human will can easily prevail.
C) Whilst humans face severe constraints, they can still have some impact on politics.
D) Politics is about fate.

Question 5

Which of the following types of regime did Aristotle regard as ruling in the interests of all?

A) Monarchy
B) Tyranny
C) Polity
D) Democracy

Question 6

Which of the following authors argue that politics is the art of finding peaceful resolutions to conflict through compromise and the building of consensus? Please select all that apply.

A) Bernard Crick
B) Gerry Stoker
C) Karl Marx
D) Thomas Hobbes

Question 7

The statement 'we ought to obey the state' is a form of which type of political analysis?

A) Empirical analysis
B) Semantic analysis
C) Normative analysis
D) Behaviouralism

Question 8

The logical positivists argued that…

A) Meaningful enquiry should contain a mixture of normative and empirical analysis
B) Empirical statements are meaningless
C) Tautologies are meaningless
D) Normative statements are meaningless

Question 9

'Game Theory' suggests that political actors follow societal mores instead of self-interests.

Question 10

Deductive approaches tend to be rich in empirical terms but poor in theoretical sense.

Question 11

Behaviouralism was most influential…

A) In Britain in the 1950s
B) In the United States in the 1970s
C) In Italy in the 1930s
D) In the United States in the 1960s

Question 12

Which of the following ideas is most associated with Karl Popper?

A) Positivism
B) Falsification
C) Postmodernism
D) Historicism

Question 13

Correlation and causality can be used interchangeably in political research.

Question 14

In stating that the natural scientist, just like the social scientist, is 'socially and politically embedded within a complex
and densely structured institutional and cultural landscape, which they cannot simply escape by climbing the ivory tower of academe to look down with scientific dispassion and disinterest on all they survey', Hay highlights the limitations of value-free research in both natural and social science.

Question 15

An ontology…

A) Asks what there is to know.
B) Acquires knowledge of that which exists.
C) Claims that reality is socially constructed.
D) Is what we ought to want.