Political Theory Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The statement is Andrew Hacker's.

In Political Theory: Philosophy, Ideology, Science (1961) Hacker wrote that political theory, in ideal terms, is dispassionate and disinterested: as theory, it seeks to describe and explain political reality without serving any interest, while in practice it is often coloured by ideology.

The other thinkers are associated with different positions. John Rawls built a normative theory of justice, which is deliberately committed to values. George Sabine wrote the classic A History of Political Theory, and David Held writes on democracy and globalisation. None of them gave this definition.

Answer: A

The idea is Hannah Arendt's.

In On Violence (1970) Arendt wrote that power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power belongs to a group and exists only as long as the group stays together. She contrasted it with violence, which is instrumental and can destroy power but never create it.

Max Weber, by contrast, defined power as the chance of an individual to carry out his own will even against resistance, an individual and coercive view. Jurgen Habermas, who built on Arendt, is known for communicative action, and Max Horkheimer for the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, not for this definition.

Answer: C

The thinker is G. W. F. Hegel.

In the Philosophy of Right (1821) Hegel distinguished three moments of ethical life: the family, civil society (the sphere of individual needs, the market, corporations and the administration of justice) and the State, which he saw as the highest ethical community that reconciles them.

Earlier thinkers used the terms almost as synonyms. For Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, 'civil society' or 'political society' meant the society formed by the social contract, set against the state of nature, and was not separated from the state.

Answer: B

The statement is Mosca's.

Gaetano Mosca, in The Ruling Class (Elementi di scienza politica, 1896), argued that in every society a minority rules, and that it never rules by force alone. It justifies its power by resting it on a universal moral or legal principle accepted by the governed, such as divine right or popular sovereignty, which he called the political formula.

The others are later American political scientists with different concerns. Gabriel Almond worked on political culture and structural-functionalism, David Truman (printed 'Trueman') on interest groups, and David Easton on systems analysis.

Answer: D

The declaration was made by John Stuart Mill.

In Utilitarianism (1861) Mill wrote that it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, and better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. The line marks his break with Bentham: pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity, and the higher pleasures of the intellect outrank the lower ones.

L.T. Hobhouse and J.A. Hobson were later new liberals who argued for social reform, and T.H. Green was the idealist who developed positive liberty. None of them wrote this sentence.

Answer: B

Early liberalism was characterised as 'possessive individualism' by C.B. Macpherson.

In The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (1962), Macpherson argued that seventeenth-century liberal theory saw the individual as the proprietor of his own person and capacities, owing nothing to society for them, and saw society as a set of market relations between such owners.

Jeremy Bentham founded utilitarianism, Milton Friedman was a twentieth-century free-market economist, and T.H. Green was an idealist critic of that older liberalism. None of them coined the phrase.

Answer: C

The statement is from John Stuart Mill.

It closes the statement of the harm principle in the first chapter of On Liberty (1859): the only purpose for which power may rightly be exercised over anyone against his will is to prevent harm to others, and in what concerns only himself, 'over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign'.

Thomas Hobbes placed sovereignty in an absolute ruler, not in the individual. Michael Oakeshott (spelt 'Machel' in the paper) was a conservative philosopher, and Benjamin Disraeli a Conservative prime minister of Britain.

Answer: C

Classical liberalism is usually associated with John Locke.

Locke's Two Treatises of Government (1689) set out its core: natural rights to life, liberty and property, government by consent, limited government that holds power on trust, and a right to resist a ruler who breaks that trust. Later classical liberals such as Adam Smith built on this base.

J.S. Mill stands at the turn from classical to modern liberalism, while Jeremy Waldron and John Rawls are twentieth-century theorists; Rawls in particular is the leading voice of egalitarian, welfare liberalism.

Answer: A

The state was called a 'necessary evil' by Thomas Paine.

In Common Sense (1776) Paine wrote that society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil. Society arises from our wants, government from our wickedness, so government should be kept small.

John Locke saw government as a trust set up by consent, not as an evil. Georgi Plekhanov was the father of Russian Marxism, and William Morris an English socialist writer; neither is the source of the phrase.

Answer: A

The Feminine Mystique (spelt 'Mistique' in the paper) was written by Betty Friedan.

Published in 1963, it described 'the problem that has no name', the frustration of educated American women confined to the home, and helped launch second-wave liberal feminism. Friedan went on to found the National Organization for Women in 1966.

Kate Millett wrote Sexual Politics (1970), a radical feminist text. Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist, and Emma Goldman an anarchist writer and activist.