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Students Zone - Self test questions
Use these questions both to test your detailed knowledge of each chapter. Make a note of your answers and then consult the answers page on this website. If you score less than 12 correct answers for any chapter, you probably need to spend more time re-reading and revising its contents.
CHAPTER 13: How Citizens Participate
1. Theories of British democracy:
a) Stress the primacy of direct participation
b) Give almost no place to direct participation
c) Provide a balanced mixture of direct participation and indirect representation
2. Voting in general elections is:
a) The most widespread form of participation
b) The least widespread form of participation
c) About as common as other forms of participation
3. Participation through voting in general elections in the last three decades has:
a) Been rising
b) Has remained unchanged
c) Has fallen
4. Occupational class is:
a) Positively correlated to participation - rising as class level rises
b) Unrelated to participation
c) Negatively correlated to participation - falling as class level rises
5. Social networks:
a) Increase the likelihood of participation
b) Make no difference to participation
c) Decrease the likelihood of participation
6. Exclusion from political participation is:
a) Mostly the result of laws prohibiting certain groups from participation
b) Mostly the result of informal social pressures that exclude certain groups from participation
c) Mostly the result of inequalities in the distribution of various kinds of resources
7. Violence is:
a) Entirely alien to the British tradition of participation
b) The dominant form in the British tradition of participation
c) One of the many long established British forms of participation
8. Participation through membership of political parties has:
a) Grown greatly in recent decades
b) Remained more or less unchanged in recent decades
c) Declined in recent decades
9. The opportunity to vote in referendums has:
a) Declined in the last couple of decades
b) Remained unchanged in the last couple of decades
c) Grown in the last couple of decades
10. Participation through groups has :
a) Declined across the board in recent decades
b) Remained mostly unchanged in recent decades
c) Has declined in some cases, and grown in other cases
11. Support for social movements has:
a) Grown in recent decades
b) Remained unchanged in recent decades
c) Declined in recent decades
12. The largest mass demonstration in recent political history was organised by:
a) The Countryside Alliance to campaign against the ban on fox hunting
b) The campaign against fuel taxes
c) The campaign against the Iraq War in 2002/2003.
13. Collective political participation in the form of long-term group membership has:
a) Grown in recent decades
b) Remained constant in recent decades
c) Declined in recent decades
14. Technological change has:
a) Stimulated political participation
b) Made no difference to political participation
c) Hindered political participation
15. Which of the following statements best summarises our understanding of how participation has changed in Britain over the last couple of decades?
a) It has probably grown
b) It has probably declined
c) It has changed its nature with some types growing and some declining
