Order Banking and the Management of Financial Institutions 1. Why might a bank be willing to borrow funds from other banks at a higher rate than it can borrow from the Fed? *2. Rank the following bank assets from most to least liquid: a. Commercial loans b. Securities c. Reserves d. Physical capital 3. Using the T-accounts of the First National Bank and the Second […]

Order Structure and Competition Assignment 1. Why was the United States one of the last of the major industrialized countries to have a central bank? *2. Which regulatory agency has the primary responsibility for supervising the following categories of commercial banks? a. National banks b. Bank holding companies c. Non–Federal Reserve state banks d. Federal Reserve member state banks 3. “The commercial banking industry in […]

The state authority and legitimacy Assignment • What is the purpose of government? • What is politics? Where does it begin and end? • Who bas power, who docs not, and bow do we know·? • Does it necessarily follow that to be a democracy is to be legitimate, and to be legitimate is to be a democracy? • Are the ideological distinctions in modern […]

Order Nations and nationalism Assignment • How does the state make itself felt in our lives, and how do we know? • Where does sovereignty begin and end? • How docs the life of a citizen differ from that of a legal resident of a state? • What is the relationship between war and the state? • How do the interests of the state differ […]

Order Authoritarian rule Assignment • Which is preferable: a stable dictatorship or the instability that often arises in poor and deeply divided societies with no experience of democracy? • How does· patronage differ in its democratic and authoritarian forms? • Where does Western criticism of non-Western authoritarianism cease to be helpful and evolve into cultural or political imperialism? • Mao Zedong once suggested that political […]

Order Theoretical approaches Assignment • Why is there so much disagreement among political scientists (or comparativists) about the best theoretical approach, and why are grand theories so elusive? • How far can we understand politics and government by focusing only – or mainly – on institutions? • Which matter more to an understanding of government and politics: institutions or people? • What docs ‘rational’ mean […]

Discus Comparing government and politics • What docs it take for the study of politics to be scientific, and where is it most likely to fail? • In what way (or ways) could your country serve as a representative or deviant case study? • What are the advantages and disadvantages of quantitative and qualitative approaches to comparative political research? • How can comparative political research […]

Order Constitutions and courts in authoritarian states • Which is best: a constitution that is short and ambiguous, leaving room for interpretation, or one that is long and detailed, leaving less room for misunderstanding? • What are the advantages and disadvantages of codified and uncodified constitutions? • What are the advantages and disadvantages of supreme courts a~inst constitutional courts? • Judicial restraint or judicial activism […]

Order Legislatures in authoritarian states • We have suggested that ‘effective control over legislation in most liberal democracies rests with the government’. Is this state of affairs satisfactory? • Could a legislature made up entirely of h eterosexual white middle-class men effectively represent a country? If not, why not? • Should members of an upper chamber be appointed for their experience and wisdom, or elected […]

Order Bureaucratic Authoritarianism Assignment • What images most immediately come to mind when you think of bureaucrats, and to what extent do you think those images reflect reality? • Outsourcing: good idea or bad? Are there some services that cannot or should not be carried out by private contractors? If so, which ones and why? • What is the best strategy for reducing the under-representation […]