AP Comparative Review

Which of the following best explains the increase in GDP in 2016 ?

• Foreign direct investment in northern Iran in 2014 boosted the economy.

• The Iranian government privatized the oil and natural gas industries in 2015.

• Tariffs added by the Iranian government in 2015 have improved the domestic economy.

• Most UN sanctions and sanctions by the United States and Europe were lifted in early 2016

Which of the following best explains an implication of the data in the line graph?

• The GDP growth rate changes in Iran had minimal domestic impact because they were caused mostly by international forces.

• The GDP growth rate changes in Iran had minimal domestic impact because they were caused mostly by international forces.

• The negative GDP growth rates caused the government to seek foreign direct investment because it could not pay its workers.

• Large negative changes in the GDP growth rate negatively affected the Iranian government because they undermined its legitimacy.

Which of the following accurately explains an outcome of differing judicial systems among the Comparative Government course countries?

• The British judiciary uses common law to enforce rule of law, whereas the Russian judiciary uses the judiciary to target opposition.

• The Chinese judiciary uses rule of law, whereas the Russian judiciary gets its power from judicial review.

• The Nigerian judiciary is dominated by Sharia law, whereas the Mexican judiciary practices rule of law.

• The Russian judiciary supports rule of law, whereas the Iranian judiciary is governed by Sharia law.

Which of the following best describes how members of Iran’s Guardian Council are selected?

• The supreme leader directly appoints all twelve members with approval from the Assembly of Experts.

• The supreme leader selects six members and the judiciary selects the other six members with Majles approval.

• All twelve Guardian Council members are directly elected every four years by the electorate.

• The Expediency Council appoints all twelve members of the Guardian Council every ten years.

Which of the following best explains the role of the judiciary in China?

• The Chinese judiciary, informed by Confucian traditions, focuses on individualism, emphasizing protection of individual liberties.

• The Chinese judiciary is largely free and independent, resulting in judicial decisions that are impartial and seen as fair by all.

• The Chinese judiciary promotes rule by law instead of rule of law, resulting in a judicial system that is subservient to the Communist Party.

• The Chinese political system does not have a judiciary, making the legislative branch fully responsible for interpreting the laws it passes.

The role of the executive in Nigeria is similar to that of the executive in Mexico in which of the following ways?

• The executive is limited to a single term in office.

• The legislature can remove the executive with a vote of no confidence.

• The executive presides over a unitary system of government.

• The legislature has a constitutional check on the executive.

Which of the following accurately compares civil liberties in authoritarian and democratic regimes?

• Democratic regimes provide citizens access to state-controlled media, while authoritarian regimes restrict citizen access to state-controlled media.

• Authoritarian regimes limit citizen control of the media, while in democratic regimes media is largely in the hands of private citizens.

• Authoritarian regimes encourage privatization of the media to increase legitimacy, while democratic regimes support some privatization along with state control.

• While democratic and authoritarian regimes restrict access to free media, authoritarian regimes have increasingly allowed access to the Internet to increase legitimacy.

Which is the best explanation for why the Mexican Chamber of Deputies has a higher proportion of women legislators than the United Kingdom Parliament?

• Male voters in Mexico hold significantly more progressive views on the role of women in politics than male voters in the United Kingdom.

• Mexico has gender quota legislation requiring parties to place a minimum percentage of women on their party lists, while the United Kingdom does not.

• Mexico’s long-dominant political party voluntarily ensures that two-thirds of its candidates are women, while the United Kingdom’s two largest parties do not.

• Mexico employs single-member plurality districts for the election of deputies, while the United Kingdom employs multimember districts and proportional representa

Which of the following is the reason for Nigeria’s electoral rule that presidential candidates must secure at least 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of all states?

• The president must have support among a broad cross section of Nigeria’s diverse population.

• This rule increases run-off elections, thereby increasing electoral competition.

• This rule ensures that the president will be a Christian, since Christians are the majority of the population.

• The president will most likely be a policy centrist from Nigeria’s diverse Middle Belt.

Two things about presidential government stand out. The first is the president’s strong claim to democratic, even plebiscitarian, legitimacy; the second is his fixed term in office. . . . In a presidential system, the legislators, especially when they represent cohesive, disciplined parties that offer clear ideological and political alternatives, can also claim democratic legitimacy. This claim is thrown into high relief when a majority of the legislature represents a political option opposed to the one the president represents. . . . Who has the stronger claim to speak on behalf of the people: the president or the legislative majority that opposes his policies? Since both derive their power from the votes of the people in a free competition among well-defined alternatives, a conflict is always possible and at times may erupt dramatically. . . . The second outstanding feature of presidential systems—the president’s relatively fixed term in office—is also not without drawbacks. It breaks the political process into discontinuous, rigidly demarcated periods, leaving no room for the continuous readjustments that events may demand. The duration of the president’s mandate becomes a crucial factor in the calculations of all political actors, a fact which . . . is fraught with important consequences.

• Both the president and legislature have democratic legitimacy, but conflicts may arise between the two institutions over policy disputes.

• Parliamentary government is prone to divided government because legislators belong to disciplined parties with clear ideological perspectives.

• Presidential government is better able than parliamentary government to respond to disagreement between the executive and legislature

• Fixed terms in both presidential and parliamentary governments are problematic because they leave no room for readjustments that events may demand.