QUESTION 10

Who are the mestizos?

	a.	Mexican-born descendants of Spanish colonists; they comprise most of the current political and economic elite
	b.	Mexicans of mixed European and indigenous blood; they comprise the majority of Mexicos population
	c.	Mexicos largest indigenous group; they are concentrated in the south of the country
	d.	national military strongmen; they dominated Mexican politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

1 points

QUESTION 11

What was the result of Mexicos 2012 election?

	a.	The PRI took a sweep of the presidency and legislature, returning to political dominance.
	b.	The PRI maintained their majority in the legislature but lost the presidency.
	c.	The PRI won the presidency but failed to win the majority in the legislature, forcing the president to compromise with opposition parties.
	d.	The PAN candidate won the presidential election, while other opposition parties won a majority in the legislature, leading to political fragmentation.

1 points

QUESTION 12

The Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI) governed Mexico for more than 80 years. What was their main strategy for staying in power?

	a.	a strong personality cult around its leaders
	b.	military force and brute repression
	c.	strong financial support from the U.S. government
	d.	co-optation, inclusion, and corruption

1 points

QUESTION 13

What is the dominant political ideology of the PRI?

	a.	liberalism
	b.	populism
	c.	Their ideology is hard to define, as it tends to operate more on candidate-centric patron-client relations than traditional ideological appeal.
	d.	leftism or socialism

1 points

QUESTION 14

What factor finally ended the PRIs dominance of Mexican politics?

	a.	Personality conflicts caused the party to implode from within, effectively destroying it.
	b.	A U.S.-backed covert operation helped overthrow the PRI leader.
	c.	A military coup overthrew the PRI but ultimately ceded power to a new government elected by the Partido Accin Nacional (National Action Party, or PAN).
	d.	Two economic crises, in the 1980s and mid-1990s, undermined the governments legitimacy, forcing political reforms that would ultimately lose them an election.

1 points

QUESTION 15

Which of the following best describes how the Spanish governed their colony in Mexico?

	a.	a corporatist-run enterprise focusing on resource extraction, but one that allowed the local population to remain somewhat self-governed
	b.	a limited form of democratic self-government, dominated by Spanish migrants
	c.	a military regime that relied on local elite to handle the day-to-day running of the government
	d.	a corrupt, brutal dictatorship governed by a viceroy from Spain

1 points

QUESTION 16

Mexican legislators lack the legislative experience of their U.S. counterparts, which has led to a weakening of legislative power. Why is legislative experience so rare in the Mexican legislature?

	a.	Mexican legislators cannot be reelected for consecutive terms.
	b.	Most Mexican legislators are from one political party, the PRI, who prefers to award seats to entice new party loyalists.
	c.	Senior statesmen prefer to work in the more prestigious bureaucracy.
	d.	Members of the Mexican legislature are poorly paid, so it is difficult to recruit people from the private sector to run for office.

1 points

QUESTION 17

Which of the following is perhaps the biggest threat to a free media in modern Mexico?

	a.	business meddling: the major television companies are owned by a handful of companies with a clear preference toward PAN politics.
	b.	a lack of public interest in traditional news media, as the majority of the public would rather use the (U.S.-dominated) Internet for news
	c.	intimidation and killings of journalists by the drug cartels, leading to a return in journalistic self-censorship
	d.	increasing government censorship as the PRI has returned to power

1 points

QUESTION 18

Following independence, Mexicos first political system was

	a.	a democracy modeled after the United States.
	b.	a theocracy dominated by members of the Catholic Church.
	c.	a weak central state with politics dominated by local strongmen.
	d.	a power-sharing government that gave representation to Mexicos criollos, mestizos, and indigenous population.

1 points

QUESTION 19

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which staged an uprising in 1994, is comprised mostly of which group?

	a.	conservative radicals seeking to revoke the constitution and return to military governance
	b.	ethnic Mayans dissatisfied with the governments marginalization of their group
	c.	Mexicos peasant class, which is unhappy with land reform
	d.	neo-Marxists, who advocated a radical overthrow of the state

1 points

QUESTION 20

This World War II policy allowed millions of Mexicans to work temporarily in the United States.

	a.	Maquiladoras Act
	b.	Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
	c.	North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
	d.	Bracero Program