Exam 13: Legislatures

Often lawmakers are so busy with __________ casework that they pay little attention to making laws.

Due to its near-feudal dispersion of power with weaker party discipline and its tendency to deadlock, the U.S.legislature is considered highly __________.

Members of Parliament with no executive responsibilities sit behind the cabinets and are called __________.

Assess Vladimir Putin's handling of the deadlock between the Russian Duma and the executive branch under Boris Yeltsin.

The European parliaments really are more rational and efficient than the U.S.Congress, but they are also less powerful and less interesting.Efficiency has led to atrophy.

Compare and contrast presidential and parliamentary systems.How are they similar? In what ways are they disparate? Evaluate each system using specific examples.

In Europe, a cabinet is equivalent to a U.S.__________.

Differentiate between presidential and parliamentary systems.

Examine the origins of parliaments by comparing feudalism and absolutism.How did one develop into the other and what effect has that system had on today's separation of powers?

One good way to study something is to see how it changes over time, or a __________ study.

The U.S.pork barrel takes second place to the __________, whose legislators are famous for delivering massive (and often unneeded) public-works projects to their districts and shielding farmers from competition.

According to theorists, what happens to political institutions as they become more modern?

Explain the development of feudalism and the "balance of powers."

In Democratic parliaments, once a bill reports favorably out of committee it goes to __________, where it needs a majority vote to pass.

In Britain, the __________ allows members of Parliament to grill ministers, sometimes with devastating results.

Investigate the decline of legislatures from the late nineteenth century to the present.How has legislative power declined and where is that power currently centralized? What changes, social or otherwise, influenced that shift? Does this shift enforce or disrupt the balance of powers?

The U.S.Senate rules allow a member to declare a __________ to block legislation, which can be ended only with a vote of "cloture" (closure) by three-fifths of the Senate.

Changes in the 1970s weakened the nearly tyrannical powers of American committee chairpersons by __________.

English philosopher John Locke extolled the power of which governing branch as the most basic and important?

Which of the following is an effect of Congress's fragmentation into committees and subcommittees?