Final Exam 2011

LSE 2011/LSE100 Page 1 of 5

Lent Term 2011 examination

LSE100 The LSE Course

Suitable for all candidates

Instructions to candidates

Time allowed: 2 hours

The paper is divided into TWO sections. Candidates should answer FOUR short questions from Section A and ONE long question from Section B. Section A has a weight of 60% (each question is worth 15 marks). Section B has a weight of 40% (40 marks). Candidates are advised not to spend a disproportionate amount of time on any one question.

Calculators are not allowed in this examination.


Section A (Short questions): Answer four questions (15 marks each).

1. Is there an ideal measure of poverty? Discuss.

2. Discuss, using examples, how economic theory including, in particular, the theory of public goods and political theory (including geopolitics) provide different perspectives on the challenges of collective international action for climate change.

3. How might an ethnographic approach be useful to a researcher seeking to understand market trading in Madagascar? What might its limitations be?

4. Read the text below and answer (i) and (ii):

(i) What type of explanation for the end of the Cold War could this document be evidence for? Briefly outline the strengths and limitations of this type of explanation for the end of the Cold War.

(ii) What are the strengths and limitations of this document as evidence for this type of explanation?

October 17, 1989 () It has been necessary to take a fresh look at the practice of military build-up as it established itself during the decades of the Cold War. As we only touched on this subject, we saw a "big overkill." The tempo and scale of growth of the military-industrial complex added little to security of the country from the purely military viewpoint. And they badly affected the state of the economy, weighed heavily on all our social structures.

[Source: Anatoly Chernyaev, Excerpts from Chernyaev's Theses Prepared for Gorbachev's Report to the Defense Council, Archive of the Gorbachev Foundation, Documents and Papers, Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Princeton University.]

5. But for the problem of weaknesses in the structure of financial regulators, the financial crisis would not have occurred. Discuss.


6. Consider the data below and answer the following questions:

(i) What demographic challenges would you predict will face Ghana? Briefly note up to three policy recommendations that could address those challenges.

(ii) What additional data would be useful in answering (i)?

Ghana

Period Total population (end of period) Total fertility (children per

woman) Net migration

per year (thousands)

19501955 5,792 6.43 30 19551960

6.64 28 19601965

6.84 0 19651970

6.95 -72 19701975

6.9 -33 19751980

6.69 -113 19801985 13,006 6.35 41 19851990

5.88 -6 19901995

5.34 8 19952000

4.87 -10 20002005 21,915 4.54 2 20052010

4.31 -10 20102015

4 -4 20152020

3.65 -4 20202025 32,233 3.36 -4 20252030

3.1 -4 20302035

2.9 -4 20352040

2.73 -4 20402045

2.6 -4 20452050 45,213 2.48 -4

[Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision. http://esa.un.org/unpp. September 2010]

[Source: US Census Bureau. www.census.gov]


7. Read the text below and answer (i) and (ii):

(i) What arguments are advanced in the text for imposing indirect liability (on the [file-sharing] devices distributor) in this case?

(ii) What counterargument might be made?

The tension between the competing values of supporting creativity through copyright protection and promoting technological innovation by limiting infringement liability is the subject of this case. Despite offsetting considerations, the argument for imposing indirect liability here is powerful, given the number of infringing downloads that occur daily using respondents software. When a widely shared product is used to commit infringement, it may be impossible to enforce rights in the protected work effectively against all direct infringers, so that the only practical alternative is to go against the devices distributor for secondary liability on a theory of contributory or vicarious infringement (as in the case of Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417). One infringes contributorily by intentionally inducing or encouraging direct infringement, and infringes vicariously by profiting from direct infringement while declining to exercise the right to stop or limit it. Although [t]he Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone liable for [anothers] infringement, these secondary liability doctrines emerged from common law principles and are well established in the law. [Excerpt from MGM Studios v Grokster Ltd 545 U.S. 913 (2005)]

8. Read the two texts below and answer (i) and (ii):

(i) Critically evaluate the quality of the sources of these two documents. (ii) Critically assess how the two documents use evidence to support their argument

and briefly assess any differences between the documents in the use of specific language to support their argument.

Text 1

A ... major feature of Reagans strategy was a sustained ideological offensive against the Kremlin. From the outset, the Reagan administration attacked the USSR with the same rhetorical fervour that Moscow had always reserved for its own attacks on the West. In his first press conference as President, Reagan accused the Soviet leadership of reserving the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat in order to attain a one-world Socialist or Communist state. That alarmist and strident treatment of Moscow continued throughout much of Reagans first term. Such strong language signalled that the administration rejected in principle the perpetuation of the possible co-existence of a free world and a communist world. Reagan made it clear that, unlike most previous presidents, his opposition was not confined to aspects of Moscows external behaviour but centred on the Soviet system itself. While Reagan tempered his evil empire rhetoric in the election year of 1984, he made no apologies for this anti-Soviet message. It was linked to the imperative of negotiating from strength. This candour made clear to the Soviets the resilience and strength of the West: it made them understand the lack of illusions on our part about them or their system. We learned long ago that the Soviets get down to serious negotiations only after they are convinced that their counterparts are determined to stand firm.

[Source: Patman, Robert G. (1999). Reagan, Gorbachev and the Emergence of New Political Thinking. Review of International Studies, 25 (4) 577-601: p.582.]


Text 2

Reagan had virtually nothing to do with the fall of Communism, and he did not single handedly free 400 million people. This is history, not a Super Man comic. He gave a great speech. The Germans tore down the Berlin Wall, not Reagan. Gorbachev might have had more to do with accelerating the fall than anything because of his progressive policies of Perestroika and Glasnost created a degree of free press and industry in Russia that could not be stopped. When a military coup was attempted, the Russian people stopped it - not Ronald Reagan, not NATO, not the U.S. military. The Soviet Union was doomed from the start because it was communism in a pre-industrial nation - and communism was meant as a form of government for industrialized nations. The Soviet Union didn't qualify, and add in the lack of recovery aid after World War II, the lack of healthy males due to war casualties, the lack of infrastructure and a world wide embargo, they were finished from the start. The Pope's visit to Poland causing hundreds of thousands of closet Catholics to come out in Poland around the fall of the Berlin Wall had far more of a direct effect than Reagan...

[Source: Jerry G2, in response to comments made to his blog post Who was the best American president?, original blog by Jerry G2 and responses available at: http://hubpages.com/hub/Who-Was-the-Best-American-President]

SECTION B (Long question): Answer one question (40 marks)

1. Great events rarely have a single cause, but that does not mean that all causes are equally important. Discuss with examples from Module 3 on the end of the Cold War and Module 4 on the financial crisis.

2. How does the nature and use of evidence differ across the social sciences? Answer with examples from Module 2 on culture and Module 5 on population growth.

3. In deciding how to allocate property rights, the key factor to bear in mind is the impact on incentives. Critically assess this statement with examples from Module 1 on climate change and Module 6 on intellectual property.

4. Which are more useful in social science research: narrow questions or broad questions? Answer with examples from two (or more) modules.