UPSC PSIR Optional Question Paper 2026

The PSIR Optional question paper 2026 for the UPSC Civil Services Mains examination is reproduced below in full — Political Science and International Relations Paper-I and Paper-II, Section A and Section B, exactly as they appeared in the question booklet. Below the papers, you will find a syllabus-wise mapping of every question, the thinkers and concepts that were tested, the difficulty verdict for each paper, and what the 2026 pattern means for your preparation.

PSIR Optional 2026: Paper Pattern at a Glance

PSIR Optional Question Paper-I (2026)

SECTION ‘A’

1. Write on the following in about 150 words each: 10×5=50
   (a) Resurgence of political theory
   (b) Post-colonial theory of State
   (c) The freedom of the pike is death to the minnows.
   (d) Legitimacy is always a ‘social construct’.
   (e) Herbert Marcuse turned Freudianism on its head in his critical theory.
2. (a) “Rights of the man are separate and independent of the State.” Critically analyze the perspective of Laski. 20
   (b) “Fortune favours the brave.” In the light of this statement, discuss Machiavelli’s concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘fortune’. 15
   (c) Discuss B. R. Ambedkar’s views on democracy and State socialism. 15
3. (a) Mill’s work was crucial to the development of liberalism, because it straddled the divide between classical and modern theories. Analyze. 20
   (b) Wollstonecraft developed first systematic feminist critique. Discuss her main ideas. 15
   (c) Discuss Gandhi’s approach to property in relation to trusteeship. 15
4. (a) “Representative democracy is not an absolute principle, rather a question of time, place and circumstances.” Analyze the statement. Mention the major challenges to representative democracy. 20
   (b) What is capability approach? Elaborate the distinctive features of the capability theory of equality. 15
   (c) Analyze Kautilya’s Saptanga theory. How do you explain its significance in present-day politics? 15

SECTION ‘B’

5. Answer the following in about 150 words each: 10×5=50
   (a) How did Swadeshi grow into a demand for Swaraj?
   (b) The Constitution of India was secular even before the word was included in the Preamble. Comment.
   (c) Identity has become an important phenomenon in the modern politics in India. Discuss.
   (d) Ending proxy leadership in Panchayati Raj is a necessary step towards true grassroots democracy. Comment.
   (e) Discuss the impact of liberalization on agriculture sector in India.
6. (a) From passive resistors to armed revolutionaries, the Indian Freedom Struggle has a strong imprint of women freedom fighters. Elucidate. 20
   (b) When there are multiple stakeholders of power, conversation and consensus become the natural ingredients of governance. Analyze with respect to coalition politics. 15
   (c) Evaluate the Centre-State relation with reference to Article 293 and analyze its implications for the Indian federal structure. 15
7. (a) Elucidate the prominent trends in voting behaviour in contemporary India, and discuss how astroturfing affects the scenario. 20
   (b) Highlight any five constitutional provisions that restrain the powers of the executive, and evaluate their effectiveness in current times. 15
   (c) Map the different types of ethnic conflicts that have emerged in 21st century India. 15
8. (a) Discuss the causes and consequences of inter-State water disputes in India. 20
   (b) Critically comment on the shifts in the functioning of the Indian Parliament in the last two decades. 15
   (c) “The lack of political will in preventing environmental degradation is one of the major challenges that India is experiencing.” Comment. 15

PSIR Optional Question Paper-II (2026)

SECTION ‘A’

1. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each: 10×5=50
   (a) Criticism of the institutional approach in comparative political analysis has come up in successive waves. Comment.
   (b) Extractive capitalism
   (c) Discuss various methods of Balance of Power.
   (d) Clientilism
   (e) What role does identity and technology play in the conceptualisation of Defensive realism?
2. (a) Discuss the factors responsible for the changing nature of states in contemporary industrial societies and explain its impact. 20
   (b) International Human Rights frameworks are hostage to politics among nations. Comment. 15
   (c) Diplomacy has always rested on two pillars: Institutional memory and individual craft. Elaborate. 15
3. (a) NATO, the oldest surviving collective security system, is facing challenge of transactional coercion from its own biggest member. What future does NATO have amidst such developments? 20
   (b) Theories of international relations which claim objectivity inevitably harbour subjective biases. Elucidate. 15
   (c) Does power transition theory reflect the dynamics of US-China relations? 15
4. (a) QUAD requires more robust architecture than the summit driven mode to tide over the current challenges. Elaborate. 20
   (b) How did the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) reflect geo-political division of the world during the cold war? 15
   (c) What is UNCLOS? Explain its salient features. 15

SECTION ‘B’

5. Answer the following questions in about 150 words each: 10×5=50
   (a) Describe India’s objections to agricultural negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
   (b) What strategic options can India exercise as a response to the tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan?
   (c) Discuss the three areas of security co-operation between India and Israel.
   (d) Discuss the main features of the land-boundary agreement between India and Bangladesh.
   (e) Analyse the relevance of India-Brazil economic co-operation in strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries.
6. (a) Accelerating of Chinese influence across South Asia is fundamentally reshaping the region’s geopolitical landscape. This is a big foreign policy challenge for India. Analyse. 20
   (b) Critically evaluate the important factors of India-Maldives relations on the eve of sixty years of diplomatic ties between the two countries. 15
   (c) “The mother of all deals” is a transformative milestone in Indo-EU trade relations. Elaborate on the new Security and Defence partnership. 15
7. (a) How does illegal cross border migration pose challenges to India’s security? Discuss the steps taken by the government in this direction and their effectiveness. 20
   (b) The island of Kachchatheevu remains an intractable issue in India-Srilanka relations. Comment. 15
   (c) India has adopted multi-alignment to fulfill its core values and interests in International relations. Discuss. 15
8. (a) Critically evaluate India-Russia relations in the 21st century. How have both the countries responded to America meddling in their relations in the recent times. 20
   (b) India has recognised that West Asia is not a single contest, but a tangle of rivalries, bargains and anxieties. Comment. 15
   (c) Examine India and South-Africa co-operation through bilateral and multi-lateral forums. 15

Paper-I Analysis: Syllabus-wise Mapping

A few questions belong to two areas at once — 1(e) is both Western thought and critical theory, 4(b) is both equality and development theory — so the marks above overlap deliberately and do not sum to 250.

What stands out in Paper-I

• Section A was built almost entirely on named thinkers. Marcuse, Laski, Machiavelli, Ambedkar, Mill, Wollstonecraft, Gandhi and Kautilya together carried roughly 115 of the 125 marks in the section. Conceptual questions on justice, rights or democracy that could be answered generically were largely absent — 4(a) on representative democracy was the one exception.
• Indian and Western thought were weighted almost equally. Ambedkar, Gandhi and Kautilya on one side; Machiavelli, Mill, Wollstonecraft and Marcuse on the other. Candidates who treat Indian Political Thought as the lighter half of the syllabus lost ground.
• Marcuse and the Frankfurt School were a genuine surprise. Question 1(e) on Freud and critical theory sits well outside the routine reading list, and required the argument that Marcuse rejected Freud’s claim that repression is the price of civilisation, replacing it with the idea of “surplus repression” and the possibility of a non-repressive social order.
• Two questions were disguised quotations. “The freedom of the pike is death to the minnows” is the classic formulation of the liberty–equality tension, associated with R. H. Tawney and much quoted by Isaiah Berlin; and 4(b) on the capability approach demanded Sen and Nussbaum by name even though neither was mentioned in the question.
• Section B was the most current-affairs-driven in recent memory. Astroturfing, proxy leadership in Panchayati Raj, the specific invocation of Article 293, ethnic conflicts of the twenty-first century, and shifts in Parliament’s functioning over two decades all needed live examples. Static notes alone would not fill these answers.
• Article 293 was the sharpest question on the paper. Rather than asking about federalism in general, the examiner named the provision governing State borrowing and Union consent — a question that rewarded candidates who follow the debate over State debt ceilings, off-budget borrowing and fiscal autonomy rather than those who had memorised the standard Centre–State list.

Paper-II Analysis: Syllabus-wise Mapping

What stands out in Paper-II

• Section A leaned firmly realist. Balance of power, defensive realism, NATO and collective security, and power transition theory applied to US–China together carried about 60 marks. Liberal, constructivist and Marxist approaches appeared only obliquely, through 3(b) on objectivity and bias.
• Two one-word questions tested vocabulary, not frameworks. “Extractive capitalism” and “Clientilism” were set as bare terms with no verb attached. Both come from comparative political economy rather than the standard IR theory list, and both reward a definition-plus-mechanism-plus-example structure: what it is, how it works, where it is visible.
• Question 3(a) was pointedly contemporary. Describing NATO as facing “transactional coercion from its own biggest member” invites an analysis of burden-sharing pressure from Washington, European strategic autonomy, and whether an alliance built on Article 5 credibility can survive doubts about the guarantor — a framing far sharper than the usual “assess NATO’s relevance”.
• Section B was almost purely bilateral. Eleven distinct pairings appeared: Pakistan–Afghanistan, Israel, Bangladesh, Brazil, China in South Asia, Maldives, the EU, Sri Lanka, Russia, West Asia and South Africa. There was no broad “determinants of foreign policy” question at all; even 7(c) on multi-alignment demanded live examples rather than doctrine.
• Some usually reliable topics were skipped entirely. The demand for a permanent UNSC seat, India’s nuclear doctrine, UN peacekeeping, Japan, and Africa as a region did not appear. Candidates who had banked heavily on those areas found fewer safe attempts than usual.
• Two questions required very recent reading. The “mother of all deals” framing in 6(c) points to the India–EU trade agreement and the accompanying Security and Defence Partnership, and 8(a) explicitly asks how India and Russia have responded to American pressure on their relationship. Neither can be answered from a static book.
• Two classic-but-neglected topics returned. The CMEA and UNCLOS are both firmly in the syllabus and both routinely skipped in revision. Together they carried 30 marks — a reminder that the older, less glamorous parts of the syllabus still pay.

Thinkers and Concepts Tested in PSIR Optional 2026

Six Signals from the 2026 Paper

1. Thinkers are the safest investment in Paper-I Section A. Almost the entire section reduced to named political theorists. Prepare each thinker with a defensible core argument, one internal tension or criticism, and one line of contemporary application — that is exactly the shape a 15- or 20-marker rewards.
2. The unglamorous parts of the syllabus are being examined. The Frankfurt School, Wollstonecraft, the CMEA and UNCLOS are all commonly skipped. Four questions and roughly 55 marks came from exactly those corners.
3. Paper-I Section B now demands the newspaper. Astroturfing, proxy sarpanch leadership, Article 293, twenty-first-century ethnic conflicts and two decades of parliamentary decline are all live debates. Maintain a running file of Indian-politics examples updated monthly, tagged to syllabus headings.
4. Paper-II Section B is a bilateral-relations paper. Prepare each significant partner as a self-contained note — historical arc, current irritants, economic and defence content, multilateral overlap, and the road ahead — including the smaller ones. Maldives, Sri Lanka, Brazil and South Africa all appeared this year.
5. One-word questions are back. “Extractive capitalism” and “Clientilism” carried no verb and no framing. For every conceptual term in the syllabus, be able to write 150 words cold: definition, mechanism, one theorist, one example, one limitation.
6. Theory must be applied, not recited. Kautilya was asked with “significance in present-day politics”, power transition theory with US–China, defensive realism with technology, and IR theory with the charge of hidden bias. A pure summary of the theory would have scored poorly in every one of these.

How to Use This Paper in Your Preparation

• Sit both papers under timed conditions before reading any analysis. Three hours each, five questions, no notes. The questions you could not attempt are your real syllabus gaps — not the ones you found hard.
• Build a one-page card for every thinker. Core argument, two key texts, one internal contradiction, one standard criticism, one contemporary application. Sixteen or so cards cover most of what Section A has asked over the last decade.
• Keep a bilateral-relations tracker. One page per country, updated as agreements and irritants develop. This year’s paper alone would have needed live entries for Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Israel, Brazil, South Africa, Russia and the EU.
• Practise the 150-word answer separately. Ten of the twenty-two questions in each paper are short answers carrying half the marks in their section. A definition, two arguments, one example and a one-line conclusion is the shape that fits the space.
• Link Paper-I theory to Paper-II practice deliberately. Legitimacy, hegemony, the post-colonial state and the capability approach all have direct applications in comparative politics and foreign policy answers, and examiners reward candidates who carry the concept across.
• Read this paper against the previous years. Federalism, coalition politics, non-alignment and multi-alignment, balance of power and India–China recur in some form almost every year. Recurrence, not novelty, is where most of the marks sit.

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