American Politics Comprehensive Exam

May 24, 2005

Department of Politics, University of Virginia

 

DAY ONE

 

General instructions: You have six hours to answer these three questions. You should spend about half of your time on Part 1 (answer one question) and half on part 2 (answer two questions). Your answers on the Day One and Day Two exams will be evaluated together, so be sure to avoid substantial overlap between the two days in the materials and ideas you discuss. For both parts, you should cite a wide variety of specific authors and works. All of your discussion of specifics should also illuminate broader points about the field of American Politics, using what you know from the literatures you’ve read on American Political Development, American Political Behavior and American Institutions.

 

Part 1.   Please answer ONE of the following three questions.

 

Question 1a.    The Bush Administration claims that September 11th "changed everything", but political science research on American politics gives us plenty of reasons to doubt this claim. Consider these facts about American politics since 9/11:

 

  • Presidents remain far more powerful actors in the foreign policy arena than in the domestic sphere, as evidenced by Bush's struggle to win support for Social Security reform despite the improving situation in Iraq;
  • Members of Congress remain loyal to their parties only to the extent it doesn't hurt them back in their districts;
  • The economy remains the most important determinant of presidential election outcomes;
  • Bureaucracies remain hidebound and slow to change, as evidenced by the unwillingness of both the CIA and FBI to reinvent themselves to cope with the emerging terrorist threat; 
  • Tensions between national security and individual liberty, precedent and interpretation animate the courts as much as ever.

 

In sum, 9/11 has not given us any reason to question our discipline’s outline of the basic contours of American politics. 

 

Do you agree or disagree that the electoral, institutional, and policy dynamics previously identified by scholars, have not been reconfigured in any important way? Is there any feature of the American political world since 9/11 that cannot be squared with what political scientists said before it? How can we explain how much things have changed or stayed the same?

 

For this question, be sure to use contemporary events only as a way to get into the most important part of your answer, which is a discussion of the literature.

 

 

 

Question 1b.    In his recent book Electoral Realignments: A Critique of an American Genre, David Mayhew recommends abandoning the use of the concept, concluding that the “realignment perspective” is “too slippery, too binary, too apocalyptic, and it has come to be too much of a dead end.”

 

Which theories or models in the APD, political behavior or other literatures help explain the power of the realignment concept or its feebleness? If the concept needs to be replaced, what do these literatures suggest might be put in its place to describe important electoral shifts?

 

 

Question 1c.    Empirical political science borrows heavily from sister disciplines - most heavily, in recent years, from economics, history, and psychology. For each of these three sister disciplines, identify one theoretical construct - narrow or broad - that has been imported into political science and has made significant contributions to our understanding of American politics. Explain how each construct has been employed and why its contributions have been significant.

 

 

 

Part 2.   Please answer TWO of the following questions.

 

 

Question 2a.    Some rational choice scholars argue that American politics is best understood as a chain of principal-agent relationships: the citizenry empowers the Congress, which in turn delegates its collective power to its various standing committees, which in turn delegate authority to various bureaus (e.g., the EPA, IRS, etc), which are organized internally as administrative hierarchies. From this theoretical perspective, the key issue is democratic control. Good government obtains when each agent receives the proper incentives from its political superiors.

Is principal-agent theory a useful framework for understanding American national government? What insights does it offer that other frameworks downplay or ignore? What if anything does principal-agent theory mask or suppress? Justify your answer with cites to relevant works and concrete examples.

 

 

Question 2b.    The field of American Political Development has been criticized as relying too much on the development of institutional factors, and not enough on culture, religion and ideas. Do you concur with this criticism? Are there any important exceptions in the literature? Does any other field or approach in American Politics do a better job than APD does of acknowledging the role of culture, religion and ideas in American Politics?

 

 

Question 2c.    Roughly speaking, American Political Development addresses processes within institutions, while American Political Behavior addresses processes within individuals. How might these approaches be conjoined to illuminate the problem of citizenship in American Politics? What do the relevant literatures tell us about the institutional, sociological and psychological constraints or opportunities that have closed or opened paths for US citizens to exercise their civic and political capacities?

 

 

Question 2d.    In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton famously claimed that the federal judiciary would be the least dangerous branch of government. According to the literature in American Politics, which branch of the government has proven to be the most dangerous?