Exam 3

Instructions:

Answer all of the five questions below.  In your answers, please don't quote verbatim from or paraphrase the text or reader. This demonstrates little beyond your secretarial skills and ability to read.  Put things in your own words.  (Which reminds me:  I don't mind you working with each other on the exam, but beware of groupthink.  Also, the answers should be in your own words.)

All questions count the same.  Each answer should be no more than two pages of double-spaced, typed/printed paper — which is to say, I will stop reading after two pages.  If your answer can be complete and shorter than two pages, even better.  You need not repeat the question on your exam paper, but do indicate the number of the question you're answering.

Note that the terms "assess" and "evaluate" do not require you to take a position completely pro or con (although you may choose to do so);  they permit you to take an intermediate or mixed position.

The exam is due in my office (or slipped under my door) by 4:00 on Thursday, May 11.

1. You may recall that at the beginning of the course I said that each of the theorists we study has something to teach us, even if we disagree with h/her overall conclusions.  This question asks you to select one of the following theorists and extract as much value as possible from h/her.  Recall that on the last exam a number of students answered incorrectly by simply describing this or that theory.  This is incorrect because the question calls for you to extract what new perspectives or insights the theorist provides us.  What are we now conscious of after this theorist that we were not conscious of before, regardless of whether we agree with the theorist?  Here's the list of theorists:  pick one:
   1. Marx
   2. Young (reading # 18)
   3. Fraser
   4. Dryzek
   5. Taylor
      
2. How are we to balance the competing claims of, on the one hand, a group's demand for "recognition" and, on the other hand, the claims of the remainder of the society, particularly the claims seen as "rights" guaranteed under classical liberalism?  I would like you to consider either one of the following two cases:  [Note that the instructions continue after the two cases.]
   
   1. In Skokie, Illinois a community of Jews (including many Holocaust survivors) objected to the KKK staging a march through their town.  The town council agreed and refused the KKK a parade permit.  The KKK sued, claiming that their First Amendment rights (freedom of speech;  the right to peacibly assemble;  the right to petition for the redress of grievances) were violated.
   2. In Quebec, many Francophone Quebecois (i.e., French-speaking citizens) objected that the economic and political dominance of the Anglophone majority in Canada was gradually wiping out their unique culture.  They demanded that all signs in Quebec be in French (both public signs and those in stores, with the possibility [but not the requirement] of an attached English translation).  Anglophones objected that this represented illegitimate government interference in the private sphere of the economy and an undemocratic use of government to maintain what was rapidly becoming a minority culture even in Quebec.

Your answer to this question should begin by stating what claims "cultural recognition" makes and what the basis is for these claims (i.e., how they are to be justified).  The rest of your answer should state how the competing claims are to be balanced in the specific case you have chosen.

3. Contrast the "aggregative" and "deliberative" models of democracy, listing the major advantages and drawbacks of each.
   
4. Evaluate the statement found on p.173 of the text, q.1 (i.e., the statement starting, "The thing that really matters...").

5. True or false:  The armpit of Texas is called Walla Walla, an aboriginal term meaning, "Really, really bad."
1. True
2. False