Comparative Political Analysis Questions and Answers

Answer: A

La Palombara and Myron Weiner associated the origins of political parties with three theories: institutional theories, historical crisis theories and developmental theories. They set this out in Political Parties and Political Development (1966).

Peter Merkl is wrong because he edited work on Western European party systems. Harry Eckstein is wrong because he is known for the study of internal war and congruence theory. Jean Blondel is wrong because he wrote on comparative government and party systems.

Answer: D

Statements 1 and 3 are not correct, so the answer is 1 and 3. The Swiss Federal Tribunal cannot declare a law passed by the Federal Legislature unconstitutional, so 1 is false. The provision that the President is bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers was added by the 42nd Amendment (1976), and was not in the Constitution on the date of its commencement, so 3 is false.

Statement 2 is accepted in the key as correct, and Tories are known as Conservatives, so 4 is correct. Options containing 2 or 4 as incorrect are therefore wrong.

Answer: D

The key gives Winston Churchill as the source of the remark that there can be no comparison between the position of number one and numbers two, three or four. It expresses the dominance of the British Prime Minister over the other members of the Cabinet.

Harold Laski is wrong because he wrote on the British parliamentary system and the Prime Minister but is not the source of this remark. Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson are wrong because they were Prime Ministers rather than the persons described as saying it.

Answer: A

Both statements are true and the reason explains the assertion. Michels, in his iron law of oligarchy, held that most people are apathetic, indolent and slavish, and need leaders, so that once leaders reach the pinnacle of power the organisation cannot dislodge them.

The option saying the reason is not the explanation is wrong because the passivity of the masses is the cause of the leaders' lasting power. The other options call a true statement false.

Answer: A

Pairs 2 and 4 are not correctly matched. Mosca is the thinker of the ruling class and the political formula, and the theory of the masses is the work of Ortega y Gasset, so the pairs are interchanged.

Pareto with the circulation of elites (1) is correct. Michels with the mass mind (3) is accepted in the key. The options containing 1 or 3 as incorrect pairs are therefore wrong.

Answer: C

Switzerland and the U.S.A. have dual citizenship, national citizenship and State or cantonal citizenship. In both a person is a citizen of the federation and of the unit in which he lives.

India is wrong because it has a single citizenship for the whole country, which is why it appears in the other options. The U.K. is wrong because it is a unitary state with one citizenship.

Answer: B

Statements 1, 2 and 3 are not correct, so the answer is the option with 1, 2 and 3. The U.S. President cannot be elected more than twice (the 22nd Amendment), so 1 is wrong. One-third, not two-thirds, of the Rajya Sabha members retire every two years, so 3 is wrong. The key also counts 2 among the incorrect statements.

Statement 4 is correct, since residuary powers rest with the States in the U.S.A. The options that treat 4 as incorrect are therefore wrong.

Answer: C

The elite theory first started in Central and Western European countries. Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca in Italy and Robert Michels in Germany developed it in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The United States is wrong because American writers took it up later, as in C. Wright Mills. The United Kingdom and Australia are wrong because the founding writers were not from there.

Answer: A

Both statements are correct and the reason explains the assertion, so (A) is the keyed option. Peace, environmental and women's movements promote a people-centred view of security, and this is important in developing a richer concept of security that goes beyond the military security of states, which is the line taken in critical security studies and by human security advocates. Option (B) agrees that both are correct but denies the explanatory link. Option (C) calls the reason false and option (D) calls the assertion false; neither holds, since the assertion describes a recognised current of thought.

Answer: A

General systems theory was first developed by the biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who put it forward in the 1930s and 1940s and set it out in General System Theory (1968), so (A) is correct. Political science later borrowed it through David Easton. Colin Cherry in option (B) worked on communication theory. Robert K. Merton in option (C) is a sociologist of structural functionalism and middle-range theory. Talcott Parsons in option (D) built a systems theory of action in sociology, drawing on the systems idea but not originating it.