Revision & Exam Practice for the “legacy” A Level qualifications including:

• Edexcel (Unit 3C – Representative Processes in the USA, Unit 4C – Governing the USA)
• AQA (Unit 3A – The Politics of the USA, Unit 4A – The Government of the USA)
• OCR (F855 – US Government & Politics)

How to use these questions for revision and exam practice:

1. For long-answer or essay questions, plan a 4 paragraph response using the PEEACH paragraph structure (P=point, E=evidence, E=explain, A=argument, C=counter argument, H=how does this answer the question?)
2. Once you have completed your question, read the indicative content.
3. Using the essay criteria, colour code each criteria to show how successful you were at including this in your essay (red, amber or green)
4. There is also a space for you to add additional notes and/or examples that don’t appear in the indicative content, or add better explanations, or include additional, points from the indicative content.

‘The two major parties have no significant overlap in ideas and policies.’ Discuss. (45)

Indicative Content

Factors which suggest that the two major parties now have no significant ideological overlap include:

• since the 1970s, the base of the Democratic Party has identified with ‘big government’ and liberal social causes, such as affirmative action, gay rights, abortion rights and gun control; since 2008 President Obama and Democrats in Congress have advanced (or attempted to advance) a number of liberal causes including health care reform, gender equality of pay, immigration reform, gun control etc
• the Reagan presidency established the core values of the Republican Party as social and fiscal conservatism; these were reinforced subsequently by the dominance of the Christian Right and more recently by the rise of the Tea Party movement; the House Republican leadership has supported a series of ‘Ryan budgets’ which aim to cut taxes and drastically reduce government spending, and state Republican governments have actively sought to reduce the availability of abortion; they have been almost unanimously hostile to the agenda of President Obama.

Factors which suggest that the two major parties still have some significant ideological overlap include:

• despite ideological polarisation, the parties remain broad coalitions and at least some of the differences between them are more rhetorical than substantive; both parties still subscribe to the ‘American creed’ and in particular support the role of religion in public life; it is still almost impossible to be a self-confessed atheist and run for public office (there is only one in Congress currently)
• under President Clinton, the Democrats moved back towards the centre; he campaigned for and achieved a balanced budget, campaigned on ‘welfare, a second chance not a way of life’ and signed the Republican Congress’s welfare reform bill in 1995, and extended the federal death penalty
• President Bush campaigned as a ‘compassionate conservative’: the major domestic policy initiative of his presidency was the No Child Left Behind education bill, co-sponsored in the Senate by Ted Kennedy; he signed a $534BN prescription drug benefit addition to Medicare in 2003 and the TARP program in 2008
• President Obama has adopted a more conciliatory persona abroad than President Bush, but in substance American foreign policy is arguably unchanged; he doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay remains open
• domestically, he re-affirmed the Hyde amendment’s prohibition of federal funding on abortion through executive order and, in attempting to revive the economy and in ‘bailing out’ the banks and auto-makers, he followed the policies of his predecessor.