Comparative Rules of the Road

The AP exam for Comparative Government and Politics

Monday afternoon, 4 May 2009

The exam begins with a 45-minute session for reading and answering 55 multiple-choice questions. (Remember, choose the best answer from among the 5 choices offered.) This is same format (just 5 less Qs) as the US Test .

The second session is 100 minutes long. During that time, you will write answers to 8 "Free Response Questions." (As oppossed to 4 FRQs in US)

• Five definitions and descriptions in the "Short-Answer Concepts" section


• One "Conceptual Analysis" question (which will ask about one of the course's "big ideas")


• Two "Country Context" questions, which are most likely to require comparisons

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Follow these test mechanics to avoid the rough road that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Labour Party suffered this week in the local (devolved) elections that took place on Thursday.



The Economist reports:

LOCAL elections in England and Wales, such as those that took place on May 1st (2008), are generally such complicated affairs, with contradictory trends visible in different parts of the country, that they manage to offer both solace and chagrin to all the main political parties. Not this time. The Labour Party, and its leader, Gordon Brown, have been comprehensibly humbled. The prime minister's day grew even worse when it became clear that Labour had lost its biggest prize: the mayoralty of London.


Results from the 159 local authorities that held elections (local polls are staggered so that not everyone votes at the same time) show that Labour scored its worst performance in local elections for 40 years. Labour polled just 24% of the total, a full 20 points behind the opposition Conservatives and a point behind the Liberal Democrats. It did badly even in some regions where it has traditionally been invulnerable, such as industrial bits of Wales, losing more council seats than even the most pessimistic predictions envisaged. The Conservatives, meanwhile, made some symbolic gains in hitherto hostile territory in the north of England. David Cameron, the Tory leader, described the result as “a big moment”. A “bad” and “disappointing” night, said Mr Brown.

http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11294983
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Last July, when he had more uplifting words, Brown gave a speech on civil liberties in the UK which helps to answer Ken Wedding's Q #45:

Since Madison, Americans have attributed the preservation of their liberties in large part to the separation of powers in the U.S. regime. What has preserved the liberties of British citizens in a system that lacks separation of powers?

Take your own shots at answering the sample FRQs, but for this one, I'll take a shot:

Mr. Wolak said:

With a system of government based on Common Law, British gradualism has grown to expand civil liberties of its citizens through laws like the UK's National Human Rights Act and its membership in the EU's Convention on Human Rights. All British law must be read against these instruments which preserve the liberties of citizens.

British PM Gordon Brown spoke (in a happier moment) about the British history of protecting citizen rights.

"From the starting point at the time of the Magna Carta, to the Civil Wars and the revolutions of the 17th Century, through the liberalism of Victorian Britain and the widening and deepening of democracy and fundamental rights throughout the last century, there has been a British tradition if liberty -- what one writer has called Britain's 'Gift to the World'."

Common Law tradition, national acts, modern EU membership and a history as the world's longest-lasting democracy have preserved civil liberties in the UK, despite the lack of a written constitution with a separation of powers.