Intl P&G Flashcards

Question

The arguments for **centralization**

Answer 1

● 'democracy', efficiency, equality, protection of minorities, national identity, prevents "disintegration of the state"

Answer 2

● efficiency, adaption to local circumstances, local minorities, 'training ground for democracy', recruiting for national politics,

Answer 3

local self-government is important because political decisions should not be imposed from above, but developed and accepted from below

Answer 4

○ **Pluralist theory**: many centers of power, vertical and horizontal division *Economic Theories* = ○ **Rational Choice**: political behaviour is driven by calculations of self-interest **Federalism** is a rational solution to the problem of how to maintain balance between interests of central power and of geographical regions so that each maintains control of their own affairs but can cooperate to deal with a common, external threat, and thereby increase their own power (Riker) ○ **Rational Choice theory of local government**: substitutes an economic logic for a political one: consumer-voters can move from one municipality to another to maximize their preferences, instead of using their vote to influence civic leaders and local public services

Answer 5

**1: consumer-voters are not free to move at will from one municipality to another.** They are constrained by the needs of work, family, schools and house prices. **2: survey data shows that few people see local public services as very important when they are deciding where to live.** Being near work, family and shops is much more important. **3: there is only a weak link between local taxes and services in many countries** because financial transfers from higher levels of government pay a large proportion of the local service bill. **4: in most countries other than the USA, local government is not fragmented into many competing jurisdictions.** It is consolidated and coordinated by higher levels of government which redistribute national tax resources and regulate local services in the interests of service quality and equality between municipalities.

Answer 6

Relations between the centre and the periphery are often relations between dominant and subordinate political groups. One variant of centre–periphery theory argues that the institutions of the central state were originally created by powerful interests (a class or ethnic group) that exploited the periphery for its resources

Answer 7

(a) the conflict that often arises between different levels of democratically elected government; (b) the problem of how to reconcile the conflicting claims of democracy and effectiveness.

Answer 8

the way that people label themselves as belonging to a particular group (e.g. nation-state, class or caste, ethnic group, religious group) usually defined by Material interests – money, promotion, taxes, security Idealogical interests – political values and ideals, such as a sense of justice and freedom, religious beliefs, or a left/right political position.

Answer 9

* **can produce important empirical findings about political attitudes and behaviour** – e.g. the role of education and the family, and the importance and origins of competence, social trust and national pride. * is claimed to be a **‘bedrock’ factor – it changes slowly compared with the more changeable political attitudes** discussed by newspapers and opinion polls. * links (1) the micro-politics of individuals with the macro-politics of institutions and states; (2) subjective (values and attitudes) with the objective (e.g. voting behaviour); and (3) history and traditions with current circumstances and events. * **helps to explain quite a wide range of phenomena,** from economic development and political stability to democratic development and political behaviour. * **often based on hard/extensive quantitative data** drawn from surveys.

Answer 10

- is said to be a ‘soft’, ‘residual’, ‘dustbin’, or ‘fuzzy’ concept that you **can be used to explain everything and therefore nothing**. Culture can be used as a **post hoc (after the event) explanation** that is not put to an empirical test. * Political culture **explanations risk circularity**: we infer what people believe from how they behave and explain their behaviour by what they believe. Eg: people behave democratically because they hold democratic values, and we know that they hold democratic values because they behave democratically. * Cultures and structures are mutually interdependent and tend to go together. It is not surprising, therefore that cultures and structures are associated, but *which is cause and effect?* * **Political culture deals with the last link in a long chain of causes of political behaviour**. The basic causes of behaviour may be historical, or economic (Marxist or class theory), or personality.

Answer 11

Classical democracy Protective democracy Developmental democracy People’s democracy Liberal democracy

Answer 12

**1. Reinforcement theory** → the theory that the mass media can only reflect and reinforce public opinion, not create or mold it -> minimal effects of media → media gives audience what they want, audience self-select, are influenced by projection, suppression, distortion and rejection **2. Agenda setting** → The process by which a multiplicity of political problems and issues are continuously sorted according to the changing priority attached to them -> can influence what we think about **3. Priming and framing** → Priming: The theory that mass media can prime us to focus on certain things and in certain ways by highlighting some issues rather than others → Framing: The theory that the news stories are set up influences how audiences interpret them **4. Direct effect** → mass media has a direct effect on politics and on attitudes and behaviors of citizens, but there is disagreement about whether this effect is positive or negative → negative: *media malaise* – the attitudes of political cynicism, despair, apathy, distrust and disillusionment (among others) that some social scientists claim are caused by the mass media (especially TV, market competition) → negative: cultural imperialism – the use of cultural products, particularly films, books, music and TV, to spread the values and ideologies of foreign cultures (e.g. US in Third World) - soft power

Answer 13

**The public service model** Þ The system of granting broadcasting licenses to public bodies, usually supported by public funds, for use in the public interest rather than for the profit Þ 1920s-1970s: spectrum scarcity(the shortage of terrestrial broadcasting frequencies for radio and TV, which meant that there could only be a few public channels → regulated in public interest Þ Main characteristics:market regulation(competition is impossible);content regulation(full, fair and impartial news, shared time for parties); self-regulation of regulation by QUANGOs (not controlled by the government); public funding; education, information and entertainment; national broadcasting **The market model** Þ No public relation, open and competitive in an unregulated market àprinciple of free speech (freedom of press) → some need for market regulation to guarantee competition but no need for content regulation Þ Since 1980s: end of spectrum scarcity, electronic media increasingly competitive and pluralist, news as commodity → media increasingly driven by commercial pressures of profit Þ Only a fair amount of regulation left → regulation to ensure market competition (no monopolies/oligopolies) → content regulation

Intl P&G Flashcards

(37 cards)