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WorksheetsState and Social Contract
Total questions: 65
Worksheet time: 33mins
Many political philosophers met and discussed their ideas on government during the 1600's and 1700's. The was also known as the _______________ Period.
Enlightenment
Lighted
Victorian
Revolutionary
He established "inalienable rights".
Locke
Hobbes
Rousseau
Montesquieu
He believed that people created government and chose to be governed, by contract, between the ruler and the ruled.
Locke
Hobbes
Rousseau
Montesquieu
Justice is achieved when we act in _________ faith.
Good
Bad
Are there many theories of justice?
Yes
No
Who were the two main social justice theorists?
John Rawls
Jeremy Bentham
J.S. Mill
Robert Nozick
John Rawls presented a hypothetical society where each member would distribute resources in a disinterested manner.
True
False
In John Rawls' theory we would operate behind the...
Veil of ignorance
Wall of suspense
Shower curtain
Cloak of darkness
In John Rawls' theory we would not know what position we would end up with in life.
True
False
Rawls wanted to create a rights-based system.
True
False
Nozick wrote: Anarchy, State and Utopia.
True
False
Nozick believed that when a person obtains property lawfully...
...they must give it to Andrew.
...they must give it back to the state.
...they must give it to charity.
...they are entitled to keep it.
Nozick places severe limits on private ownership.
True
False
Rawls' theory is a free-market, libertarian form of justice.
True
False
Nozick's theory is a free-market, libertarian form of justice.
True
Free
Which rights are most important according to Nozick?
Property
Social
Reducing the dependence of the individual on the state is an application of Nozick's theory.
True
False
Making the individual more responsible for their own welfare is an application of Nozick's theory.
True
False
Rawls would be considered a very right-wing theory of justice.
True
False
Who is the author of Political Liberalism?
Robert Nozick
Richard Dworkin
John Rawls
Cecile Laborde
How does the international approach to the state differ from that adopted by political philosophers and sociologists?
It rejects the idea that the state is a territorial association
It holds that states operate in post-sovereign conditions
It distinguishes clearly between the state and civil society
It treats civil society as part of the state
Who declared that in the state of nature, life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short'?
John Locke
G. W. F. Hegel
Thomas Hobbes
Antonio Gramsci
What state function do supporters of the minimal state not regard as legitimate?
Upholding contracts
Pursuing strategies to ensure competitiveness in a globalized economy
Maintaining domestic order
Providing protection against external attack
Which theorists argue that in conditions of accelerated globalization the state has effectively become redundant?
Hyperglobalists
Anti-globalization theorists
Feminists
Green theorists
Which development in recent decades has helped to strengthen the state?
The emergence of global terrorism
The onset of climate change
The growth of warlordism in the developing world
The growth of international organisations
Who argued that 'War made the state, and the state made war'?
Friedrich Engels
Michael Mann
Charles Tilly
Hannah Arendt
Which of the following is an example of an institution of the state?
A government department
A criminal court
A nationalised company
All of the above are examples of state institutions
When and where did the state first emerge as a system of centralized rule that succeeded in subordinating all other institutions and groups?
Europe, in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
North America, in the fifteenth-century
Sub-Saharan Africa, in the first and second centuries AD
Australasia, in the fifteenth century
What defines a functionalist approach to the state?
Conceiving of the state primarily in normative, ethical terms.
A focus on the role and purpose of state institutions, particularly in terms of the maintenance of order.
An analysis of the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest sense - the state as identified with the entire 'body politic'.
Seeing the stare primarily as an actor on the world stage.
Which of the following theorists might be described as having had an idealistic view of the state?
Niccolò Machiavelli
G. W. F. Hegel
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Henry David Thoreau
Who suggested that the state is defined by its monopoly of the means of 'legitimate violence'?
Max Weber
Karl Polanyi
Emma Goldman
Adam Smith
Which of the following is not an essential feature of the state listed in Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State (1933)?
A defined territory
A permanent population
An effective government
An independent trade policy
Which of the following is not generally accepted as a key feature of the state?
The state claims exclusive sovereignty to exercise absolute power, standing above all other organisations in society.
The state is an exercise in legitimation, and it claims to reflect and represent the permanent interests of society.
The state's claim of sovereignty legitimately extends beyond its own borders: it is not geographically defined or territorially bounded.
The state is an instrument of domination, and state authority is ultimately backed up by a capacity for coercion or enforcement.
In social-contract theories, what is the 'state of nature'?
A theoretical society which exists before the state, and which is devoid of political authority and legal checks on the individual.
The last stage of communist social transformation, by which time the state has 'withered away'.
A state stratified by caste, and ruled over by 'philosopher kings'.
A state in which many individual freedoms are sublimated to rule by a single individual or 'Leviathan'.
What defines a pluralist theory of the state?
It treats the state as reflective of the class system, and as representative of the interests of the ruling class.
It treats the state as a more-or-less neutral arbiter or 'referee' between competing groups and individuals in society.
It sees the state as a self-aggrandizing and expansionist entity which aims, above all, to maintain and enhance its own power.
It sees the state as an expression of the gender relationships which define and shape society.
With which ideological sub-tradition is the idea of the state as a 'leviathan' associated?
The 'third way'
Neo-Marxism
The New Right
Neopluralism
Who described the ideal state as being akin to a 'night watchman', having only minimal powers to intervene in order to maintain domestic order, enforce contracts and protect against external threats?
John Locke
Mikhail Bakunin
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Plato
With which ideological tradition is a 'patriarchal' theory of the state associated?
Marxism
Liberalism
Feminism
Environmentalism
What defines a 'developmental state'?
A minimalist interpretation of the state's role, and constraints on the state's power to interfere in the lives of citizens.
Extensive state intervention in order to bring about broad social restructuring in accordance with principles such as fairness or equality.
An all-embracing state which aims to control and monitor all aspects of human existence.
Intervention in economic life with the specific purpose of promoting industrial development and economic growth.
Which of the following is an argument against the idea that the state is a force for good?
The state is a vital guarantee of stability and social order, and is therefore key to the prevention of chaos and the protection of civility.
The state is the only body or institution which is capable of representing common interests, rather than selfish or particular ones.
The state breeds conflict and unrest because it is coercive and violent, and robs people of their moral autonomy.
The state is an agent of modernisation, delivering a range of economic and social benefits.
Which of the following might be argued to provide a contemporary example of a totalitarian state?
India
Germany
North Korea
South Africa
Approximately how many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) currently enjoy consultative status at the UN?
10
100
1000
10000
What is a 'failed state'?
A state that is unable to perform its key role of ensuring domestic order by monopolizing the use of violence within its territory.
A state with a GDP that is lower than that of several major global corporations.
A religious state in which fundamentalists have seized control of it and sought to use it as a tool for spiritual or moral regeneration.
A state with a low tax base and a high trade deficit.
Which of the following has been portrayed as a 'quasi-' or 'failed' state?
India
South Korea
Taiwan
Yemen
Which of the following does not help to explain the 'failure' of some states in the Global South?
States were often bequeathed by withdrawing colonial powers to societies which lacked an appropriate level of economic development to function as independent political entities.
The borders of these states are artificial, reflecting the relative extent of colonial territorial settlements rather than the existence of culturally cohesive societies within their borders.
Several NGOs have come to exhibit levels of expertise and moral authority which enable them to exert influence in the international system which at times surpasses that of national governments.
Globalization has played a role in re-orienting developing economies around the dictates of global markets rather than domestic needs, widening inequality in postcolonial states.
