2019/2020 CEU Political Science Final Exam Questions PDF

Final Exam Questions Department of Political Science, CEU 2019/2020 Academic Year Field 1: Political Theory 1. Describe the idea of moral equality and explain its significance in the context of different problems in political p...

Final Exam Questions Department of Political Science, CEU 2019/2020 Academic Year Field 1: Political Theory 1. Describe the idea of moral equality and explain its significance in the context of different problems in political philosophy. 2. Explain the basic idea of political obligation and its main components. 3. What is the consent theory of political obligation? Describe the main problems with it. 4. What are some of the main objections to utilitarianism? 5. What role does the idea of the Original Position play in Rawls’ theory of justice? 6. Describe Rawls’ second principle of justice and mention some criticisms of it. 7. Explain the idea of the “circumstances of justice”. 8. Assess Nozick’s principle of acquisition. 9. What is the difference between instrumental and intrinsic justifications of democracy? Field 2: Political Economy and Public Policy 1. How do institutions, ideas, and interests interact in political economy analysis? In what ways might we argue for the analytical centrality of any of these three factors, if at all? 2. What are the major attributes of “homo economicus”? How can this concept be challenged? 3. Discuss the problem of the so-called equity-efficiency trade-off. 4. What are the main collective action problems in the political arena, and which are the remedies to these problems? Please provide two concrete examples.  5. What is information asymmetry, what are its main types and how can they be mitigated? 6. Explain the concept of market failure, its origins, and various types. 7. What kind of states is considered in the literature as “developmental state”? What are their main attributes? 8. Explain the concept of “embeddedness” of economic sociology! 9. Is rules-based economic policy-making by independent agencies compatible with democratic political systems? If so, in what ways? 10.How have political economists explained the emergence of democracy? Provide a summary of one such theoretical model. Field 3: Comparative Politics 1. What are the major critical arguments against democratic rule? Discuss the pros and cons of these arguments (with particular attention to elitism, populism, fascism, and classic liberalism). 2. Discuss the majoritarian and the consensual configuration of institutions and evaluate their impact on the quality of democracy. 3. Explain the difference between federalism and decentralization and argue whether one or both are either the cause or a solution to sub-national conflicts such as Scotland, Catalonia, or Flanders 4. Discuss the structuralist and agency-based explanations of revolution. 5. Explain why concept formation and measurement are a crucial part of comparative political research. In your answer, address the tools that make concepts and their measurement travel across cases. 6. Discuss the differences between the authoritarian regimes, hybrid regimes and liberal democracies. 7. Discuss the role of political parties in modern democracies. Contrast the recent developments in postindustrial societies with the patterns characterizing the mass- party era. 8. What characterizes the modern nation-state compared to previous models of political organization?  9. Discuss the main types of electoral systems and their alleged effects on party systems 10. What are the main theories of ethnic conflict? Illustrate with non-Western cases. Field 4: Research Methods 1. What types of research questions are best tackled using an interpretivist qualitative research project? Work out a specific examples and explain the strength and weaknesses of this approach! 2. Discuss the key challenges that emerge regarding concept formation and measurement? Use a specific example from political science to illustrate the steps of concept formation and discuss how a particular measurement strategy can be assessed! 3. What are the different strategies for selecting cases in comparative political research and what are their pros and cons? 4. Discuss the different forms and roles of process tracing in theory-based case studies. 5. Discuss the various statistical models that can be used to model categorical data! 6. Explain why longitudinal – as compared to cross-sectional – data allows for more reliable causal inferences! 7. Explain what the Conditional Independence Assumption states! Given an example in political science where it would be likely to hold or fail. 8. Explain the main differences between experimental and observational research! What are the advantages and drawbacks of each? 9. Explain the differences between causal inference and prediction. Given an example when a model is suitable for one but not the other! 10. Explain Type I and Type II errors in a test of a statistical hypothesis. How are they related and how can they be reduced? Field 5: Political Communication 1. Discuss the role attributed to mass media in normative theories of liberal democracy and what economic, social and political challenges arise to mass media actually living up to those expectations. 2. Review the arguments in favor and against the idea that media content has only minimal effects on the political views of the audience. 3. Discuss the merits and demerits of public vs. commercial funding for public affairs coverage in broadcast media. 4. Discuss the ways in which competition on the news media market can lead to better or worse reporting standards! 5. Discuss the possible impact of election campaigns on citizens’ political information level and voting behavior. 6. Present the main arguments for and against the notion that the internet is making news media better. 7. Discuss possible ways of measuring selective exposure to information! 8. Discuss the main normative justifications for and against the regulation of news sharing on social media! 9. Present possible ways of measuring media freedom! 10. Compare the effectiveness of censorship and propaganda as tools for autocratic survival!