CHAPTER 13: Politics and Economic Life
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. In the modern political world, the United States has to consider which of the following
before engaging in the Iraq war?
a. the United Nations protocol
b. how entering war will affect the volunteer draft
c. the challenges of implementing a communist government in the modern world
d. how to transport troops to Iraq
Answer: A
2. ________ is the term for the regular enactment of policies, decisions, and matters of state
on the part of officials within a political apparatus.
a. State
b. Government
c. Politics
d. Power
Answer: B
3. ________ is the means whereby power is used to effect the scope and content of
governmental activities.
a. State
b. Government
c. Politics
d. Sovereignty
Answer: C
4. Which term refers to the legitimate use of power?
a. state
b. government
c. politics
d. authority
Answer: D
5. Where there is a political apparatus ruling over a given territory, whose authority is backed
by a legal system and by the capacity to use military force to implement its policies, a
________ exists.
a. state
b. government
c. politics
d. power
Answer: A
6. Which of the following is a characteristic of a traditional state?
a. It has poorly defined territories.
b. It has a high degree of sovereignty.
c. People who live within its borders are citizens.
d. It has a strong central government.
Answer: A
7. Which of the following is a characteristic of a nation-state?
a. It has a government apparatus with sovereign rights that extend beyond the borders of a
territory.
b. The government is able to back its sovereignty by control of military power.
c. Many of its citizens feel disengaged from a distinct sovereign community.
d. Most were built from communities with similar, if not homogeneous, backgrounds.
Answer: B
8. According to Freedom House, which continent has the most countries where the people are
NOT free?
a. Africa
b. Asia
c. Europe
d. North America
Answer: A
9. Of the types of rights associated with the growth of citizenship, ________ refer to the
rights of individuals in law.
a. social rights
b. political rights
c. civil rights
d. left rights
Answer: C
10. Of the types of rights associated with the growth of citizenship, ________ refer to the
right to take part in such things as elections and running for office.
a. social rights
b. political rights
c. civil rights
d. left rights
Answer: B
11. Of the types of rights associated with the growth of citizenship, ________ refer to the
right of every individual to enjoy a certain minimum standard of economic welfare and
security.
a. social rights
b. political rights
c. civil rights
d. left rights
Answer: A
12. In most countries, ________ were the last to develop, based in large part on the exercise
of the other two.
a. social rights
b. political rights
c. civil rights
d. left rights
Answer: A
13. When social rights become broadly established and government agencies provide material
benefits for those who are unable to support themselves, a ________ is said to exist.
a. nation-state
b. welfare state
c. state of anarchy
d. social state
Answer: B
14. What is the basic meaning of democracy?
a. free enterprise
b. “the people” rule
c. whoever is in charge rules
d. monarchs rule
Answer: B
15. In a ________, decisions are made directly and communally by those affected by them.
a. participatory democracy
b. constitutional monarchy
c. liberal democracy
d. one-party communistic system
Answer: A
16. A ________ exists when a king or queen continues to exercise some governmental
authority, if only symbolic, but is limited by a constitution that vests authority in the elected
representatives of the citizens.
a. participatory democracy
b. constitutional monarchy
c. liberal democracy
d. one-party communistic system
Answer: B
17. In what way is the United States a liberal democracy?
a. The Democratic party, as the liberal party, has more members than the Republican party.
b. Americans can choose between two or more political parties in an election.
c. Liberal social reforms have dominated the U.S. political agenda since President Johnson.
d. Liberal Americans are more likely to endorse democratic causes, whereas conservative
Americans are more likely to endorse authoritarian causes.
Answer: B
18. Why have liberal democratic systems spread so rapidly since 1989?
a. People care less about wealth and capitalism nowadays and more about politics.
b. Globalization tends to influence people’s lives more now, leading them to push for more
information about how they are governed, and thus for more democracy.
c. Communication systems are still restricted in most parts of the world, so people are more
interested in their own local affairs and less concerned about what is happening elsewhere.
d. Most people want to move to the United States, but because they cannot, they have tried to
emulate American government in their own countries.
Answer: B
19. Which of the following contributed to the wave of democracy from the late 1980s until
the mid-2000s?
a. globalization
b. nuclear proliferation
c. the cold war
d. functionalism
Answer: A
20. Why do corporations prefer to do business in democratic states?
a. Corporations have an inherent philosophical preference for democracy.
b. Democracies tend to be more stable than other states, enhancing the possibility for profit.
c. Corporations are not allowed to do business with dictatorships.
d. Corporations want the opportunity to position their CEOs in political office.
Answer: B
21. Which of the following would most likely receive extensive support from moveon.org?
a. fundraising for George W. Bush’s presidential library
b. promotion of a school bond issue in rural Wyoming
c. the election of liberal presidential candidates
d. a fundraising campaign for the American Cancer Society
Answer: C
22. What do we call an organization of individuals with broadly similar political aims
oriented toward achieving legitimate control of government through an electoral process?
a. liberal democracy
b. participatory democracy
c. communism
d. political party
Answer: D
23. Where is one likely to find a two-party liberal democracy, rather than one in which five,
six, or more parties are represented?
a. where elections are based on the principle of “winner takes all”
b. where elections result in proportional representation
c. in a communist society
d. in a socialist society
Answer: A
24. Which system is more likely to result in political parties that converge on the “middle
ground” and often come to resemble each other so closely that there is little distinctive
difference in their key policies?
a. two-party system
b. constitutional monarchy
c. participatory democracy
d. one-party communism
Answer: A
25. Which system allows diverse interests and points of view to be expressed more directly
and provides room for representation of more radical alternatives?
a. multiparty system
b. constitutional monarchy
c. participatory democracy
d. one-party communism
Answer: A
26. Which is an example of a country with a two-party system?
a. Sweden
b. the United States
c. Russia
d. China
Answer: B
27. Who among the following is least likely to vote in a national election?
a. a professor who has taught at a university for 20 years
b. a retired lawyer
c. a college student
d. a white suburban housewife
Answer: C
28. What is an interest group?
a. a political party
b. an alliance of banks to establish common fees
c. an organization that attempts to influence elected officials to consider their aims when
deciding on legislation
d. individuals and groups who make their own interests count, even when others resist
Answer: C
29. What do lobbyists do?
a. try to get officials to support a vote in favor of their cause
b. discourage individuals from participating in the voting process
c. work with less influential officials to help increase their popularity among voters
d. point out dishonest governmental practices with the aim of reform
Answer: A
30. Which of the following is a political action committee?
a. the White House Committee on Equal Rights
b. the Democratic party
c. the National Rifle Association
d. the Chicago Board of Education
Answer: C
31. What theory of the nature and limits of modern democracy was developed by Max Weber
and Joseph Schumpeter?
a. pluralism
b. democratic elitism
c. the power elite
d. authoritarianism
Answer: B
32. According to C. Wright Mills, what is a unified group of people in the highest positions of
government, business, and the military that runs the United States and exercises tremendous
influence in the world called?
a. pluralist theorists
b. the democratic elite
c. the constitutional monarchy
d. the power elite
Answer: D
33. Who among the following has the best probability of being elected to the U.S. Senate?
a. a sociology professor
b. Bill Gates
c. a fast-food restaurant manager
d. Rosa Parks
Answer: B
34. Who warned the United States to beware of the expanding military and the industries that
cater to it?
a. Democratic president Bill Clinton
b. Industrialist Ross Perot
c. Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower
d. Senator Ted Kennedy
Answer: C
35. When the Irish Republican Army bombs union halls in Ulster to liberate Northern Ireland
from England’s control, this is an example of:
a. revolution
b. old-style terrorism
c. social movement
d. new-style terrorism
Answer: B
36. A member of an extremist political group who gets on her regularly scheduled bus and
sets off an explosive device is an example of:
a. revolution
b. social movement
c. old-style terrorism
d. new-style terrorism
Answer: D
37. Carrying out tasks requiring the expenditure of mental and physical effort to produce
goods and services that cater to human needs is termed:
a. work
b. occupation
c. income
d. wealth
Answer: A
38. Work done in exchange for a regular wage or salary is:
a. work
b. an occupation
c. a wager
d. wealth
Answer: B
39. Institutions that provide for the production and distribution of goods and services make
up the:
a. family
b. economy
c. political system
d. religion
Answer: B
40. The harnessing of science to machinery to achieve greater productive efficiency is known
as:
a. family
b. economy
c. political system
d. technology
Answer: D
41. Transactions outside the sphere of regular employment, sometimes involving the
exchange of cash for services but often involving direct exchange of goods or services, are
said to make up the:
a. family
b. economy
c. political system
d. informal economy
Answer: D
42. From a sociological perspective, women who are housewives:
a. do not have a job
b. want a job
c. do work, although they are not part of the paid labor force
d. go shopping all day
Answer: C
43. Sociologists call work that has become divided into a number of different occupations in
which people specialize:
a. the division of labor
b. self-provisioning
c. occupational division
d. occupational segregation
Answer: A
44. In the larger traditional societies there were 20 to 30 major craft trades, and most people
were:
a. metal workers
b. economically self-sufficient
c. economically interdependent
d. politically oriented
Answer: B
45. In modern societies there are thousands of occupations, and therefore a great deal of:
a. Taylorism
b. self-sufficiency
c. economic interdependence
d. functionalism
Answer: C
46. An American management consultant named ________ invented a system of ________ in
which industrial processes were studied in order to break them down into precisely timed and
organized simple operations.
a. Henry Ford; Taylorism
b. Henry Ford; Fordism
c. Frederick Winslow Taylor; Fordism
d. Frederick Winslow Taylor; scientific management
Answer: D
47. What term did Karl Marx use to refer to the way in which capitalism reduces people’s
work to dull, uninteresting tasks, over which they have no influence or control?
a. self-provisioning
b. informal economy
c. alienation
d. the division of labor
Answer: C
48. A temporary work stoppage by a group of employees who want to express a grievance or
enforce a demand is called:
a. self-provisioning
b. a lockout
c. absenteeism
d. a strike
Answer: D
49. Which of the following provides the best explanation for the decline in membership in
labor unions in the United States?
a. the increased political power of the Republican party
b. the high cost of union dues relative to lower wages
c. the increase in the number of women employed in the manufacturing sector
d. the increase in service jobs coupled with higher unemployment
Answer: D
50. Which of the following characterizes capitalism as a way of organizing economic life?
a. government ownership of the means of production
b. profit as incentive
c. restricted competition in markets
d. operational downsize to eliminate risk for profit-making purposes
Answer: B
51. Which economic system involves restless expansion and investment to accumulate
capital?
a. capitalism
b. socialism
c. social democracy
d. communism
Answer: A
52. Capitalism is characterized by:
a. private ownership and open competition
b. worker participation in decision making and profit distribution
c. a caring and enlightened leadership
d. returning of profits for community and civic development
Answer: A
53. Since the turn of the twentieth century, capitalist economies have been increasingly
dominated by:
a. communists
b. labor unions
c. corporations
d. entrepreneurs
Answer: C
54. In which part of the American economy is the entrepreneur still common?
a. government agencies
b. smaller firms
c. big corporations
d. grocery stores
Answer: B
55. Which of the following statements about the U.S. economy is true?
a. The 200 largest manufacturing corporations control less than half of all manufacturing
assets.
b. The 200 largest financial organizations control over half of all financial activity.
c. Financial institutions hold less than 10 percent of the shares of the 200 largest
manufacturing companies.
d. The CEOs of the 200 largest manufacturing corporations are also the CEOs of the 200
largest financial institutions.
Answer: B
56. Which stage of corporate capitalism is dominated by large firms run by individual
entrepreneurs or their family members and passed on to their descendants?
a. family capitalism
b. managerial capitalism
c. institutional capitalism
d. socialism
Answer: A
57. In which stage of corporate capitalism is the company itself a more defined economic
entity, separate from the entrepreneurial family and controlled by managers?
a. family capitalism
b. managerial capitalism
c. institutional capitalism
d. communism
Answer: B
58. Which stage of corporate capitalism is based on the practice of corporations owning
shares in other firms, with interlocking directorates controlling much of the corporate
landscape?
a. family capitalism
b. managerial capitalism
c. institutional capitalism
d. communism
Answer: C
59. Which type of corporate capitalism is dominant today?
a. family capitalism
b. managerial capitalism
c. institutional capitalism
d. socialism
Answer: C
60. What has made possible the tremendous increase in transnational corporations over the
past 30 years?
a. the dominance of family capitalism
b. advances in transportation and communications
c. the elimination of poverty in the Third World
d. reliance on telegraph systems for international communications
Answer: B
61. Large corporations that have branches in two or more countries are referred to as:
a. family capitalism
b. managerial capitalism
c. transnational corporations
d. multinational corporations
Answer: C
62. ________ is the process of replacing human labor power with programmable machines,
or ________.
a. Automation; robots
b. Robota; automats
c. Globalization; high-trust systems
d. Alienation; robots
Answer: A
63. Which sociologist sees the implementation of automation in the workplace as a way to
reduce the alienation experienced by workers?
a. Robert Blauner
b. Harry Braverman
c. Shoshana Zuboff
d. Richard Sennet
Answer: A
64. Which of the following illustrates why the occupational structure has changed over the
past 100 years?
a. When the board of directors of Intel wants to meet with the managers in their Israeli office,
the two groups can communicate by sending international mail and telegraph messages.
b. Manufacturers of university logo sports apparel found that it was far less expensive to
manufacture their products in Asian sweatshops than in American cities.
c. Companies prefer to hire full-time employees rather than part-time workers.
d. The changes in the economy mean that more American workers will remain with the same
company throughout their working life to ensure job retention.
Answer: B
65. The proportion of workers in industrialized countries who work in blue-collar
occupations has ________ in the past 50 years.
a. steadily risen
b. progressively fallen
c. stayed about the same
d. totally disappeared
Answer: B
66. The new economy in which ideas, information, and forms of knowledge support and
sustain innovation and growth is most commonly called the:
a. idea economy
b. knowledge economy
c. informative stage
d. flimflam order
Answer: B
67. What do the automobile, birth control pills, and Blackberry phones have in common?
a. They represent technological change.
b. They illustrate the negative consequences of unchecked technological change.
c. They were developed prior to World War II but did not enter the consumer market until the
1990s.
d. They are gender-specific technologies.
Answer: A
68. Which of the following is an explanation for why unemployment is increasingly a
standard condition in the American economy?
a. The success of Keynesian economics mandated a continuous cycle of unemployment.
b. More women in the labor force, coupled with a decline in the number of jobs available,
leads to higher unemployment among men.
c. The economic prosperity during President Clinton’s time in office was followed by the
corporate-friendly policies of George W. Bush.
d. American workers have become increasingly lazy.
Answer: B
69. Who among the following is least likely to have a job?
a. an 18-year-old high school graduate
b. a resident of Hartford, Connecticut
c. a middle-age African American
d. a recent graduate of law school
Answer: A
TRUE/FALSE
1. The Iraq war is an example of a revolution.
Answer: True
2. Power is a factor in almost all social relationships.
Answer: True
3. Dictatorships are based on authority if their citizens see them as legitimate.
Answer: True
4. The political system in ancient Greece was a liberal democracy.
Answer: False
5. Both of the two major political parties in the United States have been in decline since the
1950s in level of membership and voting support.
Answer: True
6. C. Wright Mills argued that a power elite controls political power in the United States.
Answer: True
7. According to the textbook, the term “terrorism” is not useful unless the definition includes
a moral judgment.
Answer: False
8. Work possesses little social significance.
Answer: False
9. Job conditions, such as the opportunity to work in jobs that are challenging and not subject
to close supervision, are known to affect a person’s sense of self-worth.
Answer: True
10. Frederick Winslow Taylor invented the moving assembly line.
Answer: False
11. Labor unions originated as a way of redressing the imbalance of power between workers
and their employers.
Answer: True
12. Young workers who get paid relatively low wages in foreign sweatshops make much of
the clothing that we buy today.
Answer: True
13. The occupational structure remained basically the same throughout the twentieth century.
Answer: False
14. Researchers estimate that contingency workers make up between 25 and 33 percent of the
American workforce.
Answer: True
Test Bank for Essentials of Sociology
Anthony Giddens, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P Appelbaum, Deborah Carr
9780393932379, 9780393674088, 9780393937459, 9780393918830
