AP* COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

[Pages:299]AP* COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND

POLITICS:

AN ESSENTIAL COURSEBOOK SEVENTH EDITION

by Ethel Wood

WoodYard Publications

*AP and Advanced Placement are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board which was not involved in the production of and does not endorse this book.

AP Comparative Government and Politics: An Essential Coursebook, Seventh Edition Published by WoodYard Publications 285 Main Street Germantown, NY 12526 Ph. 610-207-1366 Fax 610-372-8401 ejw@

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Copyright 2015 by Ethel Wood ISBN 978-0-9895395-5-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE..........................................................................................7 PART ONE: CONCEPTS...............................................................11 Chapter One: Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics: A Conceptual Approach.......................................................12 Questions for Concepts for Comparison..........................................82 PART TWO: COUNTRY CASES..................................................93 Advanced Democracies..................................................................94 Chapter Two: Government and Politics in Britain.............................99 Questions for Britain.......................................................................157 Chapter Three: The European Union..............................................167 Questions for the European Union..................................................187 Communist and Post-Communist Regimes.................................191 Chapter Four: Government and Politics in Russia..........................198 Questions for Russia........................................................................259 Chapter Five: Government and Politics in China..............................270 Questions for China.........................................................................329 Newly Industrializing and Less Developed Countries................340 Chapter Six: Government and Politics in Mexico...........................350 Questions for Mexico......................................................................406

Chapter Seven: Government and Politics in Iran...........................416 Questions for Iran............................................................................472 Chapter Eight: Government and Politics in Nigeria........................482 Questions for Nigeria......................................................................534

PART THREE: SAMPLE EXAMINATIONS............................545

Sample Examination One................................................................546 Sample Examination Two................................................................566

MASTER CHARTS.......................................................................584 INDEX............................................................................................588

Why Comparative Government and Politics?

I taught social studies classes for many years, mostly at Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey. Like most social studies teachers, my experience included classes in United States history and government. I have also published review books, textbooks, readers, and web materials that have required me to do extensive research in various types of American studies. Needless to say, I believe that an education in these areas is incredibly important for high school students, and every secondary curriculum should include them. So why is comparative government and politics particularly significant?

The 21st century has taught us that we cannot ignore the world around us. Happenings around the globe now directly impact our lives, and social studies teachers and students around the country face the challenge of interpreting complex, puzzling events. The AP comparative course focuses on government and politics in other countries and provides a theoretical framework to compare political systems around the world. It is my hope that this book will help students to grasp something of the political complexities of our global environment, and gain some understanding of both commonalities and differences among modern political systems. In today's world, we cannot afford not to know.

Ethel Wood

Germantown, NY October 2015

Other Books by Ethel Wood

American Government: A Complete Coursebook AP European History: An Essential Coursebook, 1st and 2nd editions AP Human Geography: A Study Guide, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions AP United States History: An Essential Coursebook, 1st and 2nd editions AP World History: An Essential Coursebook, 1st and 2nd editions The Immigrants: An Historical Reader Introduction to Sociology Multiple Choice and Free-Response Questions in Preparation for the AP United States Government and Politics Examination, editions 1-7

Multiple Choice and Free-Response Questions in Preparation for the AP World History Examination, editions 1 and 2 Teacher's Guide - AP Comparative Government and Politics The Best Test Preparation for the Graduate Record Examination in Political Science The Presidency: An Historical Reader

PREFACE: THE COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND

POLITICS EXAMINATION

The AP Comparative Government and Politics Examination administered by the College Board in May lasts for two hours and 25 minutes and consists of the following parts:

? 55 multiple-choice questions (45 minutes allowed; 50% of AP grade)

? a 100-minute free response section consisting of 8 questions (50% of AP grade)

The multiple-choice questions cover all the topics listed below, and test knowledge of comparative theory, methods, and government and politics in Britain, Russia, China, Mexico, Iran, and Nigeria. On the exam, the College Board no longer subtracts one-fourth of the number of questions answered incorrectly from the number of questions answered correctly to come up with your score. Since there is no penalty for guessing, it is advisable to answer all questions the best that you can.

The free-response questions are of three types:

? Definition and description (25% of free-response grade) ? Students provide brief definitions or descriptions of five concepts or terms, briefly explaining their significance. Students may have to provide an example of the definition or description in one or more of the six core countries.

? Conceptual analysis (one question; 25% of free-response grade) ? Students must use major concepts from comparative politics, explain important relationships, or discuss the causes and implications of politics and policy.

? Country context (two questions; 50% of free-response grade; each question 25%) ? These questions focus on specific countries, and require students to use core concepts to analyze one country or compare two countries.

The recommended total time for definition and description terms is 30 minutes; for the conceptual analysis question, 30 minutes; and for each of the two country context questions, 20 minutes. However, there are no time divisions among the free-response questions. Instead, a total of 100 minutes is allotted to answer all of them.

Generally, multiple-choice questions are distributed fairly evenly among the six countries. In addition, many questions are not countryspecific, but instead test knowledge of the major concepts. According to the College Board, the topics of the multiple choice questions are distributed as follows:

Introduction (methods, purpose of comparisons).............................5%

Sovereignty, Authority, and Power.................................................20%

Political Institutions.......................................................................35%

Citizens, Society, and State............................................................15%

Political and Economic Change.....................................................15%

Public Policy...................................................................................10%

This newly revised 7th Edition of AP Comparative Government and Politics: An Essential Coursebook is designed to help you prepare for the exam by giving you a sound footing in comparative concepts as well as country-specific information about the six core countries. The book is divided into three parts:

? Part One ? Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics: A Conceptual Approach

? Part Two ? Country Cases: Advanced Democracies (Great Britain), Communist and Post-Communist Regimes (Russia and China), and Less-Developed and Newly-Developing Countries (Mexico, Iran, and Nigeria)

? Part Three ? Practice Examinations: Two complete practice exams, each with 55 multiple-choice questions and 8 free-response questions

Your best preparation for the exam is to know your stuff. The questions do require reading and writing skills, but the surer you are of the material, the more likely you are to answer the questions correctly. This book provides the concepts and information, as well as plenty of practice questions that will prepare you for the exam. The most important things are that you learn something about comparative government and politics, and that you learn to love it, too!

10 CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON

CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON 11

PART ONE: CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISONS

12 CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON

Comparative government and politics provides an introduction to the wide, diverse world of governments and political practices that exist in modern times. Although the course focuses on specific countries, it also emphasizes an understanding of conceptual tools and methods that form a framework for comparing almost any governments that exist today. Additionally, it requires students to go beyond individual political systems to consider international forces that affect all people in the world, often in very different ways. Six countries form the core of the course: Great Britain, Russia, China, Mexico, Iran, and Nigeria. The countries are chosen to reflect regional variations, but more importantly, to illustrate how important concepts operate both similarly and differently in different types of political systems: "advanced" democracies, communist and post-communist countries, and newly-industrialized and less-developed nations. This book includes review materials for all six countries. Goals for the course include:

? Gaining an understanding of major comparative political concepts, themes, and trends

? Knowing important facts about government and politics in Great Britain, Russia, China, Mexico, Iran, and Nigeria

? Identifying patterns of political processes and behavior and analyzing their political and economic consequences

? Comparing and contrasting political institutions and processes across countries

CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON 13

? Analyzing and interpreting basic data for comparing political systems

WHAT IS COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS?

Most people understand that the term government is a reference to the leadership and institutions that make policy decisions for a country. However, what exactly is politics? Politics is basically all about power. Who has the power to make the decisions? How did powerholders get power? What challenges do leaders face from others ? both inside and outside the country's borders ? in keeping power? So, as we look at different countries, we are not only concerned about the ins and outs of how the government works; we will also look at how power is gained, managed, challenged, and maintained.

College-level courses in comparative government and politics vary in style and organization, but they all cover topics that enable meaningful comparisons across countries. These topics are introduced in the pages that follow, and will be addressed in greater depth when each of the countries is covered separately.

The topics are:

? The Comparative Method

? Sovereignty, Authority, and Power

? Political and Economic Change

? Citizens, Society, and the State

? Political Institutions

? Public Policy

TOPIC ONE: THE COMPARATIVE METHOD

Political scientists sometimes argue about exactly what countries should be studied and how they should be compared. One approach is to emphasize empirical data based on factual statements and statistics, and another is to focus on normative issues that require value judgments. For example, the first approach might compare statistics

14 CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON

that reflect economic development of a group of countries, including information about Gross National Product, per capita income, and amounts of imports and exports. The second approach builds on those facts to focus instead on whether or not the statistics bode well or ill for the countries. Empiricists might claim that it is not the role of political scientists to make such judgments, and their critics would reply that the empirical approach alone leads to meaningless data collection. The approaches give us different but equally important tools for analyzing and comparing political systems.

As with research in any social science, comparative government and politics relies on scientific methods to objectively and logically evaluate data. After reviewing earlier research, researchers formulate a hypothesis, a speculative statement about the relationship between two or more factors known as variables. Variables are measurable traits or characteristics that change under different conditions. For example, the poverty level in a country may change over time. One question that a comparative researcher might ask is, "Why are poverty rates higher in one country than in others?" In seeking to answer this question, the researcher want to identify which variable or variables may contribute to high levels of poverty. In other words, the researcher is trying to discover causation ? the idea that one (or more) variable causes or influences another. So a credible hypothesis might be that higher poverty levels are caused by lower levels of formal education. In this hypothesis, one variable (the poverty level) is called the dependent variable because it is caused or influenced by another variable (the level of formal education), which is called the independent variable. A correlation exists when a change in one variable coincides with a change in the other. Correlations are an indication that causality may be present; they do not necessarily indicate causation. Comparative researchers seek to identify the causal link between variables by collecting and analyzing data.

How do we go about comparing countries? The model most frequently used until the early 1990s was the three-world approach, largely based on cold war politics. The three worlds were 1) the United States and its allies; 2) the Soviet Union and its allies; and 3) "third world" nations that did not fit into the first two categories and were economically underdeveloped and deprived. Even though the

CONCEPTS FOR COMPARISON 15

Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, this approach is still taken today by many comparative textbooks, whose comparisons are based on democracy vs. authoritarianism and communism vs. capitalism. Even though this method is still valid, newer types of comparisons between countries are reflected in the following three trends:

? The impact of informal politics ? Governments have formal positions and structures that may be seen on an organizational chart, but these formal elements are not all that there is to political systems. For example, in formal terms Great Britain is led by a prime minister and has a House of Lords and a House of Commons. In comparison, the United States has a president, a Senate, and a House of Representatives. You may directly compare the responsibilities and typical activities of each position or structure in Britain to its counterpart in the United States. However, you gain a deeper understanding of both political systems if you connect civil society ? the way that citizens organize and define themselves and their interests ? to the ways that the formal government operates. Informal politics takes into consideration not only the ways that politi-

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