Federalism
True or False: Hamilton supported lifetime appointments for federal justices
True!
Describe one benefit that parties provide for democracy.
They simplify choices for voters between parties rather than endless lists of policies; they enable policy-making and decision-making by resolving coordination problems for politicians; etc.
Is the following electoral system proportional or plurality representation? A country has one national district where voters select their preferred party. If a party gets, say, 30% of the vote, they get around 30% of the seats.
Proportional representation
What concept is supposed to "trump" policy considerations, according to Dworkin?
Rights!
What is gerrymandering?
Drawing electoral districts/boundaries to advantage your political party. For instance, Republicans might "pack" Democrats into one district so that they can barely win the rest of the districts and get a disproportionate number of the seats.
Which of the authors we've read defended the idea that there should be a separate house of the legislature for the nobility?
Montesquieu
What is the difference between pluralism and elitism?
Pluralism holds that power is disaggregated between various groups, whereas elitism holds that there is one central authority that makes decisions.
Under Duverger's Law, why do plurality systems often lead to two (or few) party systems?
Plurality systems reward larger parties by giving them more seats than is proportionate to the number of votes they receive; voters are afraid of wasting votes, so they opt for which of the bigger parties is better for them.
Qualified immunity weakens the ability of people to sue the police for violations of civil liberties carried out as a part of police business. The justification for qualified immunity, in which cops are given more leeway in order to protect the public's safety, is an example of the WHAT principle?
The harm principle.
What is the definition of executive aggrandizement?
When an executive makes incremental changes to democratic institutions to build up their own power and limit the power of the opposition, thus weakening checks and balances.
Montesquieu's three branches of government do not cover all aspects of democratic governance. List one example of a government agency that is not covered by his three branches.
Electoral commissions, central banks
Provide an example of a cleavage that has shaped party competition in one country.
The urban-rural cleavage in Britain; the federal-state cleavage in the United States; the owner-worker cleavage in most countries; etc.
Both the United States and the United Kingdom have plurality electoral systems. But one of them has two major parties whereas the other has several smaller parties elected to national government. Why?
In the United Kingdom, there are regionally-concentrated parties that get votes in particular areas, such as the Scottish National Party in Scotland, leading to more parties at the national level.
What is the tyranny of the majority?
What is political sectarianism in the US context?
A moralized identification with one party against another; involves "othering" the opposing party, treating them with aversion/distaste, and treating them as morally bad. For instance, a Democrat might think of Republicans as fundamentally different from them and worse ethically.
What is an abstract right vs a derivative right? Provide an example of each.
An abstract right would be something you generally have a right to, like privacy. A derivative right comes from an abstract right as a specific manifestation of that right, like your right not to quarter soldiers.
Explain the difference between a cadre/caucus party and a mass party.
A cadre party is a small group of elites tightly tied to both the state and civil society; a mass party resulted from increases in mass suffrage and involved high levels of membership among voters to hold parties accountable.
What is the difference between the delegative model and the trustee model of government?
Under the delegative model, the representative directly represents the interests of voters in their district; under the trustee model, the representative decides what's best for their constituents.
The three essential components of the rule of law are generality and equality, an independent judiciary, and...
Clarity and publicity (laws must be clear and public so we can understand them and people in power can't arbitrarily enforce them)
Give an example of an informal institution being violated as a part of democratic backsliding.
Refusing to confirm justices, refusing to recognize the opposition as legitimate, refusing to let the largest party form a government, etc. Not formally illegal, but violating norms that help democracy function.
According to Madison, how is the United States a "compound republic"? Specifically, how does it act as a "double security" on the people's freedoms?
Because people vote for state and federal governments, and the federal government is itself divided into branches, it is unlikely that one branch will be able to overpower the others and oppress the people.
What are the two faces of power?
The visible face of representation and the invisible face of discretion; one face is supposed to represent people's interests, while the other decides which policies are worth pursuing.
On the first day of section, we held a mock election on how sections should be run this semester. What type of electoral system did we use?
Plurality (Winner-Take-All)
Provide an example of a positive liberty and a negative liberty. Defend your classification of each liberty.
The positive liberty should be your freedom to do something, whereas the negative liberty is your freedom to do something without government repression. So you can have a positive right to go to school but a negative freedom from the government taking your money to fund those schools through taxation.
Which case of democratic backsliding is being described: claiming to represent the authentic nation during a rule of sixteen years, the Prime Minister used a parliamentary supermajority to pack the courts, consolidate the media, and rewrite the constitution.
Hungary (2010 - 2026)