After the United Nations Security Council authorized military intervention by a coalition of armed forces intended to halt civil strife in a certain country, the parliament of one UN member nation passed a resolution condemning its own prime minister for promising to commit military personnel to the action. █ █████████████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ ████████████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ █████ ███ ████████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██ █████
There’s a
Resolve, Reconcile, or Explain questions present us two facts that seem to be in tension, then ask us to explain how they could both be true. In this stimulus, those facts are:
Fact 1: Parliament got super mad when the Prime Minister said “we’ll send some troops to the coalition.”
Fact 2: Parliament thinks the coalition is a good idea.
I think there are two main avenues of anticipation. First is that Parliament may like the coalition idea in general but not want to participate directly. You know, like “That’s a great idea! Someone (not us) should send some troops!”
Second (and this is where the right answer comes from), Parliament may have a procedural complaint about the Prime Minister speaking on their behalf. Something like “we’re down to send troops, PM, but that’s our call – not yours.”
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████████ █████████ ██████
The UN Security ███████ ██████ ███████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████████ ██ █████ ██████████
Nowhere in the stimulus did the UN directly commit any country’s troops, so (A) exists off to the side of the issue at hand.
(A) does suggest that countries need to commit troops voluntarily, which gets somewhat close to the “is it good or bad that the PM committed the troops?” question, but really (A) doesn’t offer any guidance with respect to why Parliament would be mad at the Prime Minister.
In the parliamentary ████████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ██████████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███████ ████████ ███████
This captures a procedural complaint Parliament could have about the Prime Minister’s move: they’re down to send troops, they’re just mad the PM acted like Parliament’s opinion on the matter was irrelevant.
It’s like a bossy friend ordering for you at a restaurant – “Oh she’ll have the grilled cheese.” – maybe you did want the grilled cheese, but you can still be angry your friend acted like it was their choice to make.
The parliament would ██ ███████████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ██████████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██ █████████████
I think the main reason (C) is wrong in the testwriters’ eyes is that it gives a reason why Parliament might be against both the PM’s troop commitment and the UN plan, which contradicts the stimulus' notion that they support the plan.
For anyone thinking “maybe Parliament is for the UN plan but against contributing directly,” (which is a reasonable anticipation IMO), I think (C) falls short in comparison to (B) because it only tells us they’re responsible for providing funding without telling us how they feel about providing that funding. That is, (C) would be much more powerful if it said “Parliament opposes the costs associated with committing troops despite their broader approval of the UN’s plan.”
The public would ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ███ ███████
Assuming we all want the public to support the military action, there’s no reason why the Prime Minister committing troops can’t be accompanied by the declaration of support from Parliament. That is, (D) doesn’t give us a reason why Parliament would be mad at the PM, since there’s no reason to think unilaterally committing troops will cost public support.
Members of the ██████████ █████████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██████████
Since both the PM and Parliament agree that the UN plan is a good idea, there’s no position the public could have that would reasonably split the difference between them. Let’s say the public is strongly against the UN plan – if Parliament is so attuned to public sentiment, why are they
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