Test Bank

Chapter 8: Democratic Transitions

1. German reunification took place in October 1990. This refers to the reunification of:

A. Germany and Poland.

B. Germany and Austria.

C. West Germany and Slovakia.

D. East Germany and West Germany.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

2. Portugal, Spain, and Greece experienced transitions to democracy in which decade?

A. 1950s

B. 1960s

C. 1970s

D. 1980s

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. South Korea experienced a transition to democracy in which decade?

A. 1950s

B. 1970s

C. 1980s

D. None of these; South Korea is currently an isolated and repressive dictatorship.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. Chile, Brazil, and Uruguay experienced transitions to democracy in which decade?

A. 1970s

B. 1980s

C. 1990s

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. The noninterventionist policy of which Soviet leader was instrumental in the democratic transitions of 1989 across much of Eastern Europe?

A. Joseph Stalin

B. Mikhail Gorbachev

C. Nikita Khrushchev

D. Boris Yeltsin

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. The “velvet revolution” is a reference to the peaceful democratic transition in:

A. Czechoslovakia.

B. Romania.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

7. The violent repression of citizens protesting in favor of democracy in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 occurred in which country?

A. East Germany

B. Poland

C. Brazil

D. China

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

8. Which country invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to prop up a Communist government against Islamic rebels (who were funded at the time by the United States)?

A. Russia

B. The Soviet Union

C. Chernobyl

D. Iran

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

9. According to recent studies of attempts to externally impose democracy on a country by using military force, there is very little evidence, if any, to support the claim that such intervention increases the level of democracy in the target countries.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

10. Some politicians like to refer to cases in which the United States intervened successfully in order to establish democracy; Japan and West Germany after WWII are the favorite examples. However, according to the recent empirical research discussed in Chapter 8 (on democratic transitions), evidence shows that although attempts at the external imposition of democracy may promote some democratic-seeming reforms in the short run, they ultimately produce political instability in the target countries and are unlikely to lead to a stable democracy.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. The introduction of elections, legislatures, and parties in many dictatorships around the world is a sign that these countries are definitely moving toward democracy.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

12. A “public good” is:

A. excludable and rivalrous.

B. nonexcludable and rivalrous.

C. excludable and nonrivalrous.

D. nonexcludable and nonrivalrous.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Difficulty Level: Easy

13. Public goods are, by their nature, desirable. Thus, anyone who would benefit from such a good can be expected to contribute to its provision.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

14. Collective action theory indicates that individuals will automatically act collectively to achieve their goals whenever they share common interests (such as wanting to listen to NPR, protect environmental resources, or promote democracy).

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

The following Collective Action scenario applies to the next three questions.

Say you belong to a group that has fifty members (N), and in order to get a particular benefit (B. you need fifteen members (K) to contribute. Those who contribute to the provision of the benefit pay a cost (C). Of course, B > C.

15. If you know that 10 members of the group (aside from yourself) are willing to contribute, what should you do?

A. Contribute

B. Not contribute

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

16. If you know that 45 members of the group (aside from yourself) are willing to contribute, what should you do?

A. Contribute

B. Not contribute

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

17. If you know that 14 members of the group (aside from yourself) are willing to contribute, what should you do?

A. Contribute

B. Not contribute

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

18. When groups are small enough that members can monitor each other’s behavior, solving the free-rider problem becomes:

A. more difficult.

B. easier.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

19. Collective action theory suggests that minority groups may actually be more powerful than majority groups in some circumstances. This might explain why business lobbies are usually considered to be more effective at influencing political elites than trade unions are.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. Collective action theory helps explain why:

A. protests in Eastern Europe were rare throughout most of the cold war.

B. there were massive protests across Eastern Europe in 1989.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

21. Imagine the following 10-person society featuring the threshold sequence

α = {0, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10}.

What would happen in this society?

A. Only the first member would go out and publicly protest.

B. Only the first three members would go out and publicly protest.

C. There would be a revolutionary cascade, and all members of the society except for person 10 (revolutionary threshold = 10) would publicly protest the opposition.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. If person 6 (revolutionary threshold = 5) from α has an unpleasant encounter with a government official and her revolutionary threshold is lowered to 4, what would happen now in the society α′ = {0, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10}?

A. There would be no change.

B. There would be a revolutionary cascade, and all members of the society except for person 10 (revolutionary threshold = 10) would publicly protest the opposition.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

23. If instead of Person 6 undergoing a threshold shift, it was Person 4 (threshold = 4) from α who had an unpleasant encounter with a government official and whose threshold was lowered (to 3), what would happen in the society α′′ = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10}?

A. There would be no change.

B. There would be a revolutionary cascade, and all members of the society except for person 10 (revolutionary threshold = 10) would publicly protest the opposition.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

24. “Preference falsification” makes revolutions unpredictable and makes revolutions seem inevitable after they have occurred.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

25. The tipping, or threshold, models presented in Chapter 8 are used to explain why the public protests in Eastern Europe in 1989 were a surprise to most political observers, both inside and outside of Eastern Europe. According to the reading and lectures, why are revolutions always going to be a surprise?

A. revolutions tend to be irrational

B. preference falsification

C. revolutionary cascades

D. none of these

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Easy

26. In which of the following societies would there be a revolutionary cascade (revolution), given the distribution of revolutionary thresholds shown in the examples below?

A. {0, 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10}

B. {0, 1, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10}

C. {0, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10}

D. revolutions would occur in all of the above societies

E. revolutions would occur only in (A) and (B)

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

27. In which of the two societies below is a revolution more likely to occur?

γ = {0, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 10} δ = {0, 1, 1, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10}

A. γ

B. δ

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

28. Collective action theory, which highlights the incentives for free riding, is better at explaining why:

A. protests in Eastern Europe were rare throughout most of the cold war

B. there were massive protests across Eastern Europe in 1989

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Difficulty Level: Medium

Democratic Transition Game

Consider the case that you are a soft-liner in an authoritarian regime who would like to introduce a policy of liberalization. Your goal is to co-opt the opposition into a broadened dictatorship, not to transition to democracy. You are a dictator, not a democrat!

1. If you open and civil society enters, then you achieve your objective of a Broadened Dictatorship.
2. If you open and civil society organizes, then you need to decide whether to democratize and become a full democracy or to repress.
3. A successful repression will lead to a narrow dictatorship, whereas an unsuccessful repression will lead to insurgency.
4. Repression is successful only if civil society is weak.

29. The game tree in Figure 1, below, is associated with the game in which you are sure that civil society is WEAK. Solve the game by backward induction. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium? (Note: write the equilibrium in the form [Soft-liner’s 1st move, Soft-liner’s 2nd move; Civil Society’s move]).

A. Do nothing

B. Do nothing, Democratize; Enter

C. Do nothing, Democratize; Organize

D. Open, Repress; Enter

E. Open, Democratize; Organize

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Figure 1

30. What is the outcome of the game shown in Figure 1?

A. status quo

B. broadened dictatorship

C. narrow dictatorship

D. full democracy

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. The game tree in Figure 2, below, is associated with the game in which you are sure that civil society is STRONG. Solve the game by backward induction. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium?

A. Do nothing

B. Do nothing, Democratize; Enter

C. Do nothing, Democratize; Organize

D. Open, Repress; Enter

E. Open, Democratize; Organize

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Figure 2

32. What is the outcome of the game shown in Figure 2?

A. status quo

B. broadened dictatorship

C. narrow dictatorship

D. full democracy

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. Based on your answers to questions about the outcomes of the games shown in Figures 1 and 2 (questions 30 and 32 above), is it possible to get a transition to democracy in a situation with complete information?

A. Yes

B. No

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Medium

34. When dictators liberalize in an attempt to co-opt opposition groups, they are trying to strengthen their hold on power. If they miscalculate and assume that the opposition is weak when in fact it is strong, their liberalizing attempts might embolden the opposition groups and eventually lead to a democratic transition. But if the opposition group is actually weak, and the dictator mistakenly thinks it is strong, then the dictator will not dare to liberalize in the first place, which is unfortunate for civil society whose members could have benefited from the liberalization. If you were a member of the opposition (civil society) and you were interested in a transition to democracy, or at least a liberalization of the regime, would you be better off in the situation in which the dictator (liberalizers) knew for sure the exact strength of civil society, or in the situation in which the dictator was uncertain whether civil society was strong or not?

A. The opposition is always better off under conditions of certainty.

B. The opposition is always better off under conditions of uncertainty.

C. It would depend on whether the opposition was strong or weak. A weak opposition would prefer certainty, but a strong opposition would probably prefer uncertainty.

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Hard

35. If leaders try to “broaden” their dictatorship by institutionalizing it (with a legislature, elections, political parties, and so on), does it follow that their regime will be more stable?

A. Yes; institutionalization always helps the stability and survival of dictatorships.

B. No, not necessarily; it will depend on the strength of the opposition (institutionalization will help stabilize a regime when the opposition is weak, but will destabilize it if the opposition is strong).

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Commitment Problems and Democratization

In a paper entitled, “Commitment Problems in Emerging Democracies: The Case of Religious Parties,” Stathis Kalyvas (2000) examines whether religious parties are compatible with secular and liberal democratic institutions. He concludes that religious parties may be compatible with democracy so long as they can credibly commit not to impose a theocratic dictatorship if they come to power. He goes on to argue that some religions are better able to provide these credible commitments than others. We now provide a Religious Party Game that throws light on the credible commitment problem facing religious parties that Kalyvas describes.

The two players in our game are a dictatorial regime (Regime: that has recently introduced a process of democratization and a religious party [Religious Party] that seeks to gain power through the newly proposed democratic elections). The Religious Party is expected to win the elections and many fear that it will turn the country into a theocracy rather than continuing the process of democratic consolidation. The Regime has to decide whether to hold the elections as scheduled or to cancel them and retain power as a dictatorship. If elections are held and the Religious Party wins (which we are assuming will happen), then the Religious Party has to decide whether to pursue a moderate political agenda and support democratic consolidation or to subvert the democratization process and create a religious regime. The Religious Party comes in two types–moderate and radical. One way to think about these types is that religious parties have both moderate and radical factions; whichever faction is dominant determines the Religious Party’s type. Moderate religious parties prefer democratic consolidation to establishing a theocracy, whereas radical religious parties prefer the opposite.

There are three possible outcomes in this game: Continued Dictatorship, Religious Dictatorship, and Democratic Consolidation. Figure 3 illustrates an incomplete information version of this game with cardinal payoffs in which the Regime does not know whether they are interacting with a moderate Religious Party or a radical Religious Party. Now answer the following questions.

Figure 3: Radical Religious Party Game

36. Solve the subgame on the left, where the Religious Party is moderate, as if there were no uncertainty. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium? Note: write the equilibrium in the form (Regime’s move; Moderate party’s move).

A. Cancel elections; Pursue radical policy

B. Hold elections; Pursue moderate policy

C. Hold elections; Pursue radical policy

D. Cancel elections; Pursue moderate policy

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

37. Now that you have solved the subgame on the left, what is the outcome of this subgame?

A. democratic consolidation

B. new religious dictatorship

D. continued dictatorship

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

38. Solve the subgame on the right, where the Religious Party is radical, as if there were no uncertainty. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium? Note: write the equilibrium in the form (Regime’s move; Radical Party’s move).

A. Cancel elections; Pursue radical policy

B. Hold elections; Pursue moderate policy

C. Hold elections; Pursue radical policy

D. Cancel elections; Pursue moderate policy

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

39. Now that you have solved the subgame on the right, what is the outcome of this subgame?

A. democratic consolidation

B. new religious dictatorship

C. continued dictatorship

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

40. What is the expected payoff to the Regime from choosing to cancel elections?

A. 5

B. 20

C. 25

D. 30

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

41. What is the expected payoff to the Regime from choosing to hold elections?

A. 25p

B. 5 + 20p

C. 5 + 25p

D. 5 + 30p

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Easy

42. Use the expected payoffs from the two previous questions to calculate the critical probability at which the Regime will choose to hold elections rather than cancel them. (i.e., find the value of p such that the Regime’s payoff from canceling elections is exactly the same as its payoff from holding elections.)

A. p = 0.5

B. p = 0.66

C. p = 0.75

D. p = 0.8

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

43. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of 0.75, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?

A. hold elections

B. cancel elections

C. be indifferent between holding and canceling

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

44. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of .8, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?

A. hold elections

B. cancel elections

C. be indifferent between holding and canceling

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

45. If the Regime believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a probability of .5, will it choose to hold elections, cancel elections, or will it be indifferent between these two actions?

A. hold elections

B. cancel elections

C. be indifferent between holding and canceling

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

46. If you were a moderate religious party poised to win the elections, would you want the Regime to believe that you were moderate or radical?

A. moderate

B. radical

C. it wouldn’t matter

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

47. If you were a radical religious party poised to win the elections, would you want the Regime to believe that you were moderate or radical?

A. moderate

B. radical

C. it wouldn’t matter

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

48. If you solved the game correctly, you will find that the Regime will hold elections so long as it believes that the Religious Party is moderate with a high enough probability. If there is some uncertainty on the part of the Regime and the Religious Party is moderate and wants the elections to go ahead, why might it not be enough for the party to simply announce to the Regime that it is a moderate religious party and not a radical one? Choose the most appropriate answer from the options below.

A. because the regime does not want a new religious dictatorship

B. because the announcement that it is moderate is not credible

C. because the regime will repress the party

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Hard

Figure 1 presents a game theoretic model of the strategic interaction between a “Soft-liner” elite and “Civil Society” during a potential transition to democracy. Answer the following questions related to this game.

Figure 1 Soft-liner Elite Confronts a Weak Civil Society

49. What is the subgame perfect Nash equilibrium of the game? Write the equilibrium in the form (soft-liner’s move at its top node, soft-liner’s move at its bottom node; Civil Society’s move).

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

50. What is the expected outcome of the game?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

Now, consider what would happen if the civil society was sufficiently strong that it would respond to repression by the soft-liners with an armed insurgency. Also consider what would happen if both actors considered facing an armed insurgency to be the worst possible outcome. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2: Soft-liner Elite Confronts a Strong Civil Society

(2; 5)

(1; 1)

(5; 4)

Armed Insurgency

Democratic Transition

Status quo

Broadened dictatorship

(4; 3)

Repress

Open

Democratize

Organize

Enter

Do nothing

51. What is the subgame perfect equilibrium to this game?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

52. What is the expected outcome of this game?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

53. What are the pareto optimal outcomes in this game?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Difficulty Level: Medium

54. If you were a member of Civil Society would you rather play the game in Figure 1 or Figure 2?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Medium

55. If you were a member of the soft-liner elite, would you rather play the game in Figure 1 or the game in Figure 2?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Medium

56. What, if anything, do you find ironic about the answers to Questions 7 and 8?

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Difficulty Level: Medium