(Paper) IAS Mains Previous Year Paper Political Science (1986)

Paper: IAS Mains Previous Year Paper Political Science (1986) 

Paper-I- Political Science-1986 (Mains)

SECTION A

1. Comment on any three of the following in about 200 words each:
(a) "From the hour of their birth some are marked out for subjection, other’s for rule." (Aristotle)
(b) "I doubt not, but if it had been a thing contrary to any man's right of dominion, or to the interest of men that have dominion, that the three angles of a triangles should be equal to two angles of a square ; that doctrine should have if not disputed, yet by the burning of all books of geometry, suppressed, as far as he whom it concerned was able." (Hobbes)
(c) "It was iron and corn which first civilized men, and ruined humanity." (Rousseau)
(d) "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do." (Bentham)

2. Critically examine the Behavioural and the Marxist approaches to the study of Politics.

3. Write a critical note on the more important developments in the theory of Democracy in recent years.

4. Elucidate the concepts of Liberty and Equality and examine the view that the two cannot be reconciled in the modern state.

SECTION B

5. Comment on any THREE of the following in about 200 words each:
(a) "The Hindu nation was born with Sanatana Dharma; with it, it moves, and with it, it grows. When, Sanatana Dharma declines then the nation declines, if Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing with the nation, it would perish. Sanatana Dharma, that is nationalism." (Aurvbindo Ghosh)
(b) Little do town dwellers know how the semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work they do for the foreign exploiter.....that the government established by law in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses." (Gandhi, 1922)
(c) "I am convinced that the only key to the 'solution of the world's problems and of India's problems lies in socialism, and when I use this word I do so not is a vague, humanitarian way, but in a scientific, economic sense. (Nehru, 1936)
(d) "On 26th January 1950, we are going to eater into a life of contradiction. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic rights we wilt have 'inequality...... We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality
will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up." (Ambedkar)

6. Critically examine the contribution of contemporary political science to the understanding of the political process in the countries of what is described as "the third world".

7. Discuss the emerging problems of casterism, linguism, communalism and regionalism in the Indian polity, clearly indicating how, in your opinion, these problems should be understood and resolved.

8. "......a political alliance of the intermediate classes with the upper classes, resorting to socialist ideology only to win mass support but using all levers of power to facilitate a type of capitalist development in the-interest of a narrow section of Indian society". (K. K R. V. Rao 1973) Examine this assessment of the working of Indian political system.

Paper - II- Political Science-1986 (Mains)

SECTION A

1. Comment on any three of the following in about 200 words each:
(a) "Open covenants openly arrived at."
(b) "International law can hardly be characterized as a branch of true law."
(c) "Balance of power is still a basic element in international relations."
(d) "The basic fact of international life is the sovereign equality of all States"

2. Examine in detail the nature and extent of the impact of decolonization on the 'international system’.

3. Examine the basic difference between arms control and disarmament. Which of these is likely to succeed ? In this context briefly examine the various efforts at arms control since 1960's.

4. "Detente was a mere myth. The cold war never ended". "The new cold war is basically the reversal of a slow process of detente built so painfully by the two
super Powers under pressure of so many forces." Which of the above two statements would be a correct description of international reality ?

SECTION B

5. Comment on any THREE of the following in about 200 words each:
(a) American interest in South East Asia is merely to contain Soviet influence.
(b) India has been making a mistake in not accepting Chinese proposals for a border settlement,
(c) The West Asian conflict has defined solution despite the sincere efforts of the super powers.
(d) The non aligned States and the Third World States are merely two expressions of the same phenomenon.

6. "The foreign policy of a country is neither determined by domestic factors, nor by international environment; it is basically determined by the views of the top decision-makers. Would you agree with this view of the foreign policy process in the United Slates?

7. Examine the attitude of the nuclear weapons states to the acquisition and development of nuclear technology by Third World countries. To what extent is this attitude justified?

8. "India claims to be a non-aligned country but ever since 1950's it has been lilting towards the Soviet Union and against the United States." Would this be an accurate estimate of India's policy towards the two Super Powers?