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Practice Midterm - Political Thinking -Fall 2014

The primary emphasis of the test will be on cooperation, collective

action, public goods, coordination, and commitment problems.Material from each of the lectures and readings is also fair game:

We will go over this during class on Tuesday, September 0th.

The midterm is Thursday, October 2nd(during your regularlyscheduled class.

The format will entail ! to " true or false (and e#plain you choice$uestions, ! to " short essay $uestions, 2 to % multiple choice, andat least & analytical $uestion.

'elow are e#amples of the types of $uestions to e#pect (but notnecessarily inclusive of all of the material that could be covered.OT): This practice tests includes $uestions from previous tests,which means that the upcoming test W*++ have dierent $uestions.

True ! False)#plain why the statement is either true or false. -our answersshould not e#ceed " sentences (and can be less.

2 +ast wee, the *ntergovernmental /anel on 0limate0hange(*/00 reported that there is increasing evidencefrom the scienti1c community that increased 0O2production contributes to the earths warming. )achindividuals production of greenhouse gases is ane#ample of the 3tragedy of the commons, as the earthsatmosphere is both non4e#cludable and non4rivalrous.


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! )vidence from the 35ictator 6ame shows thatindividuals with highly other-regardingpreferencesare most liely to change their behavior towards co4ethnics when they change from being anonymous tonon4anonymous to the receiver.

% 'ueno 5e Mes$uita and 5owns, in their paper onregime types and public goods, argued that non4democratic regimes were becoming increasinglyeective at suppressing the provision of public goodsfor society.


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" Mancur Olsons 7+ogic of 0ollective 8ction9 was sopowerful because it showed how the 7free4riderproblem9 could e#plain why a group of individualswith the same preference(s could fail to coordinate.

& 8ccording to theory introduced in this class, regimes thatsuppress or punish freedom of e#pression hinder ability ofgroups to achieve collective action. 8nd, the reason isthat the punishment of sincere e#pression induces peopleto want to free ride o of the contributions of others (inorder to avoid punishment.

2The e#tent to which we observe so much collective actionin world is puling to political scientists because ourmain models of collective action show that that it is neverinstrumentallyrational to contribute to collective actionbecause a rational individual will always free ride.


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Short "ns#er(5o ot )#ceed ; What ind of good is scienti1c nowledge= What aresome of the reasons that the production of scienti1c

nowledge should be either subsidied or regulated=


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? 'rie@y describe some of the evidence that ourrational framewor for understanding cooperation,collective action, and public goods provisioning is, atbest, contingent on social conte#t, and, at worse,incredibly @awed.


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"nalytical $uestion8nswer each $uestion, and do so succinctly. 2A /oints.

&A

The military regime of a nearby country has banned a politicalorganiationBparty from not only participating in the countryspolitical process but from e#isting at all. The members of thenow banned party fall into two factions on the best strategy of

how to respond to the militarys repression. Caction & wants toescalate in response to the regime with a strategy to useviolence to damage the regime. Caction 2 wants to renameand rebrand the old party as a milder version of its old self (butone that clearly remains opposed to the regime in itsmessage. The payos of the two factions are representedbelow.

2Diolent

*nsurgency

Eename/arty

&

Diolent*nsurgency

%, 2 &, &

Eename/arty

A, A 2, %

a What isBare the ash )$uilibria=b 5oes either Caction have a dominant strategy=d *f Caction & is &AAF certain that Caction 2 will choose toEename /arty, what should Caction & do=e *f Caction 2 is "AF certain that Caction & will choose Diolent*nsurgency, what should Caction 2 do=f Gow certain must Caction 2 be that Caction & will chooseDiolent *nsurgency in order for Caction 2 to also choose Diolent*nsurgency=g Gow certain must Caction & be that Caction 2 will choose

Eename /arty in order for Caction & to also choose Eename/arty=


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g *s this a prisoners dilemma= Why or why not=

"dditional Practice $uestions

True ! False)#plain why the statement is either true or false. -our answersshould not e#ceed ; sentences (and can be less. ; /oints)ach.

& Gobbes and other 0ontractarians argued that aHusti1cation for the e#istence of the state ispredicated on the ero4sum nature of socialdilemmas, and that inducing cooperation is importantas this outcome ma#imies each individuals utility.


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2 8 primary Husti1cation for government involvement inthe funding andBor provisioning of education is thateducation is (or at least closely resembles a purepublic good, and, as such, will be under4provisionedby the maret.

! The )gyptian 'read Eiots of &I>> provided a cleare#ample of the principle of common nowledge. Thetransparent nature of a rise in the price of breadmade it easier for potential protestors to overcome

coordination problems.


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% Mancur Olson argued that public goods were moreliely to be provisioned by new dictators withuncertain futures, as they would do so to increasetheir popular support and their lielihood ofremaining in power.

" The 7Murder in the Middle9 hypothesis tries toe#plain why societies in which many people want to

Hoin protests fail to generate large and eectiveprotests. This hypothesis argues, and for whichevidence was provided in the )gypt protest article,that dictators target these 3middle people in society(i.e., the relatively educated middle class who Hoinprotest only if many others already have done so byincreasing the costs of protestingJ and, this strategyeeps protests from becoming too large (andthreatening.


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Short "ns#er(5o ot )#ceed > sentences to answer each $uestion

4 &2 /oints )ach

; We read a paper in which two scholars designed ane#periment in which Kgandan farmers played thepublic goods game under three dierent scenarios: &baseline, 2 randomly selected monitor, and !elected monitor.& /lease describe why the 1ndingsfrom eachscenario added to our understanding of

cooperation, collective action, and public goodsprovisioning.

&ote that this public goods game is very similar to the 1rste#periment we had in this class.


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> Gow are commitment problems in internationalrelations between nation4states related to Gobbesargument for the importance of the 3Leviathan (i.e.,a monarch=

? /lease identify the two main (classes of theories wecovered that hinder collective action for groups.'rie@y describe why these two theories are distinctand dierent.


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