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 short-answer questions, write a 3 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 and the mark scheme.
3. Complete the “Make It Better” (MIB) Task:
   1. Highlight the parts of the indicative content your were able to fully explain and exemplify in green.
   2. Highlight the parts of the indicative content you partially explained and/or exemplified in yellow.
   3. Highlight the parts of the indicative content which you did not include in red.
4. Using the mark scheme, award yourself a level and a mark – compare this to your target grade – are you on track to achieve this in the examination?
5. 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.

Assess the arguments that support the theory of party decline. (15)

Indicative Content

The arguments which support the theory of party decline include:

• parties are unable to organise government to deliver a political programme – decreasingly valid, as party control in Congress has strengthened
• pressure groups have taken over the role of parties in financing election campaigns – in the wake of Citizens United, increasingly valid though parties still have a significant role in funding elections
• parties don’t control the selection of their own candidates –still the case, even after introduction of ‘super-delegates’ to party conventions, e.g. success of Trump in the Republican primary
• parties are loose coalitions which lack a coherent ideological identity – this has become less valid in recent years as the Democratic Party has become more clearly liberal and the Republican Party more conservative
• US voters ‘split their tickets’ between candidates of different partiesdecreasingly valid, spilt ticket voting has declined in recent years
• the percentages of strong party identifiers have declined
• elections are increasingly candidate centred and campaign ads will frequently not mention a party name
• technology enables candidates to communicate directly with voters rather than traditional parties rallies and meetings