Comparative Political Analysis Questions and Answers

Answer: D

Structural functionalism as a method was developed to study the politics of developing countries, so (D) is the keyed answer. Gabriel Almond and others of the comparative politics school wanted a framework that could be applied to the new states of Asia and Africa, where formal institutions were weak, by asking what functions the political system performs and which structures perform them. The other options name types of system that the older institutional studies had covered: advanced capitalism in option (A), developed socialism in option (B) and modern totalitarianism in option (C).

Answer: B

C. Wright Mills's The Power Elite (1956) is a study of the contemporary politics of the United States of America, so (B) is correct. He argued that power in America is held by a small group drawn from the corporate, military and political leadership, which makes the key decisions behind the formal democratic institutions. China in option (A), the Soviet Union in option (C) and Great Britain in option (D) are not the subject of the book, although the elite theory has been applied to them elsewhere.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is (B), Lucian W. Pye, who is linked with the crises approach to political development, the list of identity, legitimacy, penetration, participation, integration and distribution crises that a political system must meet. Following the key, the identification of the crises through a study of England is credited to him. A.F.K. Organski in option (A) described stages of political development in his book of that name. Edward Shils in option (C) wrote on political development in new states and on the role of intellectuals. David Apter in option (D) wrote on the politics of modernisation and on Ghana.

Answer: C

The pair not correctly matched is Pareto and The Ruling Class, so (C) is the answer. The Ruling Class (1896) was written by Gaetano Mosca; Vilfredo Pareto's major work is The Mind and Society (the Treatise on General Sociology), in which he developed the circulation of elites. The other three pairs are correct: The Power Elite is by C. Wright Mills (option A), Elites and Society by T.B. Bottomore (option B) and The Revolt of the Masses by Ortega y Gasset (option D).

Answer: C

The pair that is not correct is Australia with a unitary form of government, so (C) is the answer. Australia is a federation of six states and a Commonwealth with a division of powers under its constitution of 1901. The other pairs hold. The United States has double citizenship, federal and state (option A). India's Constitution speaks of procedure established by law in Article 21 (option B). Switzerland has a plural executive in the Federal Council of seven members (option D).

Answer: A

Robert Michels formulated the iron law of oligarchy on the basis of his study of the German Social Democratic Party, which he set out in Political Parties (1911), so (A) is correct. He observed that even a party committed to democracy and equality came to be run by a small leadership as it grew, because organisation needs specialisation and leaders. The British Labour Party in option (B), the Democratic Party of the USA in option (C) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in option (D) were not the basis of the study; the law was later applied to them.

Answer: A

Samuel Huntington is the one who made the criticism that the structural-functional approach was weak in change, the social process approach weak in politics and the comparative history approach weak in theory, in his essay on the change to change and modernisation, so option A is the keyed answer. Paul Kress, Jean Blondel and Samir Amin wrote on other aspects of comparative politics and development, and the three-way criticism is not found in their work.

Answer: C

The keyed answer is W. G. Runciman, the British sociologist, who in his work on social science and political theory discussed functionalism as an alternative to the Marxist approach to society. Paul Kress wrote on the political thought and theory of political systems, Nicholson and Reynolds are known for work on international relations theory, and Morton Kaplan for systems theory in international politics, so options A, B and D are not the keyed choices.

Answer: C

Communications theory, associated with Karl Deutsch's The Nerves of Government, gives an essentially engineering orientation to the study of human behaviour: it treats political systems as networks of information flow, with channels, load, feedback and control, borrowed from cybernetics and engineering. Input-output analysis (Easton's systems model) uses the language of systems, the structural-functional approach comes from sociology and anthropology, and the behavioural approach is about observed conduct. So option C is correct.

Answer: A

The keyed answer is the United States of America. Almond's framework of political systems, with its structures and functions, was worked out chiefly from the experience of the more developed systems and found its model in the American political system, so its characteristics mostly resemble those of the United States, option A. Scandinavian countries, developing countries and Latin American countries are not the model that the framework mostly resembles in the key.