Chapter 5 Multiple Choice Questions

. Which of the following parties are present in Northern Ireland?

Sinn Fein: nationalist party

Social Democratic and Labour (SDLP): leftist party

The Ulster Unionist party: radical party

Alliance party: centre party

. Which electoral system is used to elect the mayor of London, other mayors in England, police and crime commissioners?

Alternative vote

Single transferable vote

Additional members system

Supplementary vote

. What electoral system is being described here? 'This system is used for the Northern Ireland Assembly elections and local elections in Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is also used for election for deputy speaker in the House of Commons.'

Single Transferable vote

Additional members system

Supplementary vote

Alternative vote

. What does Duverger's law state?

Parliamentary democracies tend to create party systems with two parties.

Majoritarian systems tend to create party systems with two parties.

A fused legislature and executive tend to create party systems with two parties.

. A critical argument about two party dominance is about the experience of one of the two parties holding national office, which has been the pattern since 1945 as one of the two parties is always the majority. What is this called?

Alternating-predominant party system

Two party system

Alternating party system

Iterative party system

. Which model is an important tool that political scientists use to understand how parties compete with each other and respond to the electorate? This model is a good example of an application of rational choice theory.

Downs model

Downs-Hotelling model

Hotelling-Downs model

Hotelling model

. What is valence?

Valence captures the idea that voters reward governments for its performance over economic issues such as the interest rate and inflation rate.

Valence captures the idea that voters reward government for its performance over generic issues such as the economy and running public service.

Valence captures the idea that voters punish government for its performance over international issues such as entering war/overseas conflict.

Valence captures the idea that voters punish governments for its performance over party specific issues such as the economy for the conservatives and the NHS for labour.

. Which of the measures below measure for volatility in elections?

Peddritch Index

Peterson Index

Pedersen Index

Pederoni Index

. What is the cube law?

An expected relationship between the swing of votes between the two leading parties and the number of Westminster seats they get at a general election, where the vote swing is cubed to turn into the seat swing
Incorrect

An expected relationship between the swing of votes between the various leading parties and the number of Westminster seats they get at a general election, where the vote swing is cubed, minus 1 ( to correct for any error) – to turn into the seat swing

An expected correlation between swing votes away from the main party at the time and the number of Westminster seats they get at a general election

An expected correlation between marginal seat votes and the number of Westminster seats won at a general election, where the vote swing is cubed

. For electoral punishment to occur, it helps if there is what?

Coalition government

Shared power between legislature and executive

One-party control

Unified government

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