Western Political Thought: PSIR Optional PYQs (Topic-wise)

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PSIR Optional Complete Notes: Paper I + Paper II (All 4 Sections) by LotusArise IAS

Western Political Thought: Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, John S. Mill, Marx, Gramsci, Hannah Arend

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Plato

YearQuestionAnswer
2025Karl Popper presents a defence of the open society against its enemies. Elaborate.View answer
2024Critically examine Plato’s theory of Forms.View answer
2020Trace the evolution of Western Political Thought from ancient to contemporary period.View answer
2015“Plato was an enemy of the open society.” (Popper) Comment.View answer
2009Comment: “Western thought, one might say, has been either platonic or anti-platonic but hardly ever non – platonic.” (Popper)View answer
2007Comment: “Plato’s communism is a supplementary machinery to give effect to and reinforce that spirit which education is to create.” (Nettleship)View answer
2006Comment: “State is individual writ _large.” (Plato)View answer
2005Comment: “The State is Individual Writ Large.” (Plato)View answer
2004Plato’s theory of education ‘is the logical result of his conception of justice’. Discuss.View answer
2003Explain Plato’s communism and compare it with modern communism.View answer
2000Comment: “Until philosophers are kings, or kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never have rest from evil.”View answer
1993Comment: “For, no law or ordinance is mightier than knowledge.”. (Plato)View answer
1992Comment: ‘Reality is a shadow of ideas’. (Plato)View answer

Aristotle

YearQuestionAnswer
2021Explain the Aristotelian view of politics. To what extent do you think it has contributed – to the development of modern-day constitutional democracies?View answer
2019Explain Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s Idealism.View answer
2017Everywhere, inequality is a cause of revolution – Aristotle. Comment.View answer
2015Comment in 150 words: Aristotle’s Conception of Equality.View answer
2014Central to Aristotle’s political thought is his classification of the different types of political constitutions in the Politics. Evaluate.View answer
2011Comment: “The state is a creation of nature and man is by nature a political animal.” (Aristotle)View answer
2006Attempt a critique of Aristotle’s ideas on slavery.View answer
2002Comment: “The polis exists by nature and that it is prior to the individual.”View answer
1999Comment: “Polity or constitutional government may be described generally as a fusion of oligarchy and democracy.” (Aristotle)View answer
1998Comment: “Polity is the best practicable form of government.” (Aristotle)View answer
1996Comment: “Slavery is natural and beneficial both for the master and the slave.” (Aristotle)View answer
1995Comment: “Rule of law is better than rule of men.” (Aristotle)View answer
1994Comment: “The authority of the master and that of the statesman are different from one another.” (Aristotle)View answer
1991Comment: ‘The aims persued by revolutionaries, like the origins of revolution, are the same in tyrannies and kingships as they are under regular Constitutions.’View answer

Machiavelli

YearQuestionAnswer
2026“Fortune favours the brave.” In the light of this statement, discuss Machiavelli’s concepts of ‘virtue’ and ‘fortune’. (15 marks)View answer
2020Comment in 150 words: Machiavelli’s secularism.View answer
2018Critically examine Machiavelli’s views on religion and politics.View answer
2014Explain how Machiavelli’s application of empirical method to human affairs marks an important stage in the evolution of political science.View answer
2012Draw parallels between Arthashastra tradition and the ‘Realist’ tradition represented by Machiavelli.View answer
2007Discuss the importance of Machiavelli in the history of political thought. Is it correct to say that Machiavelli’s theory is ‘narrowly local and narrowly dated’?View answer
2003Comment “Machiavelli’s political philosophy was narrowly local and narrowly dated.” (Sabine)View answer
2000Comment: Power is an end in itself and he (Machiavelli) inquires into the means that are best suited to acquire, retain and expand power, thus separates power from morality, ethics, religion and metaphysics. (Ebenstein on Machiavelli)View answer
1998Comment: “The prince must be fox and the lion at the same time.” (Machiavelli)View answer

Hobbes

YearQuestionAnswer
2022Individualism is inherent in Hobbes’ absolutist ideology. Comment.View answer
2022Comment on State of Nature as State of War (Hobbes).View answer
2017Comment on Hobbesian notion of Political Obligation (150 words)View answer
2016Comment: “How would and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behavior tells us about our innate predispositions?” (Thomas Hobbes)View answer
2013Comment in 150 words: “Covenants without swords are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” (Hobbes)View answer
2013Comment on the assertion of Laslett that Filmer and not Hobbes was the main antagonist of Locke.View answer
2011Comment: Hobbes as an individualist.View answer
2004Comment: “Hobbes starts as an individualist but ends as an absolutist”.View answer
1999Consider: “Liberty or freedom, signifies properly the absence of opposition in external impediments of motion.” (Hobbes)View answer
1998Comment: “Hobbes relieved sovereignty completely from the disabilities which Bodin 4. had inconsistently left standing.” (Sabine)View answer
1998“Rousseau’s theory of Social Contract in Hobbes’s Leviathan with its head chopped off.” Discuss.View answer
1995Comment: “The end of every man is continued success in obtaining those things which he from time to time, desires. (Hqbbes)View answer
1993Comment: “The end of obedience is protection.” (Thomas Hobbes).View answer

Locke

YearQuestionAnswer
2025The foundational base of western democracy has been shaped by Locke’s ideas of constitutionalism, freedom and property. Elucidate.View answer
2024Write approximately 150 words on Locke’s views on Revolution.View answer
2022Write on the Locke’s Social Contract.View answer
2018John Locke is the father of liberalism. Explain.View answer
2012‘Locke is an individualist out and out.’ Substantiate this statement.View answer
2011It is said where there is no law there is no liberty. Give your view on this statement.View answer
2008Comment: “The great and chief aim of men’s uniting, into a Commonwealth and putting themselves under Government is the preservation of property.” (Locke)View answer
1999Comment: “The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of property; to which in the state of nature there are many things waiting.” (John Locke)View answer
1997Comment: “Whoever therefore out of a State of Nature united into a Commonwealth _must be understood to give up all the Power necessary to the Ends for which they united into Society, to the majority of the Community.” ·(Locke)View answer
1996Comment: “No man can be deprived of his property without his consent.” (Locke)View answer
1996“It is hard indeed to turn the Lockean doctrine into any kind of unqualified democratic theory.” (Mcpherson) Discuss.View answer
1991Comment: ‘The condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.’ (John Locke).View answer

Hegel and Marx

YearQuestionAnswer
2021Marx’s concept of ‘alienation’ is an essential part of the reality in capitalism.View answer
2020Discuss Karl Marx’s concept of class.View answer
2016Explain Marx’s understanding of Human Essence and Alienation.View answer
2015Discuss the relationship between base and superstructure in Marxist theory.View answer
2009Examine in detail Marx’s prescription for ending alienation and reaching the stage of de-alienation.View answer
2006Comment: “… that the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in Political economy.” (Marx)View answer
2004Explain Hegel’s theory of dialectical idealism.View answer
2003“The history of all hitherto existing society is· the history of class struggle.” (Karl Marx) Comment.View answer
2000Comment: “State is a march of God on the Earth.” (Hegel)View answer
1999Comment: ” …….all human history is a process whereby ideas· objectify themselves in material reality. (Hegel)View answer
1997Comment: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness.” (Marx)View answer
1996Comment: “Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world.” (Hegel)View answer
1994Critically examine the Marxian theory of social stratification.View answer
1992Comment: ‘The anatomy of civil society is to be sought in its political economy.’ (Marx)View answer
1992Marx treats individual primarily as a member of a class.’ Critically examine his views on the ‘economic man.’View answer

Lenin

YearQuestionAnswer
1999Comment: “Marx’s work could be seen as a compound of three elements-Green philosophy, English political economy and French socialism.” (Lenin)View answer
1998Comment: “Leninism is Marxism in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.” (Stalin)View answer
1991Comment: Lenin’s theory of ‘Democratic Centralism’.View answer

Hannah Arendt

YearQuestionAnswer
2025Hannah Arendt analysed a few categories of vita activa. Explain.View answer
2019Critically examine Hannah Arendt’s conceptual triad of labour, work and action.View answer

J.S. Mill

YearQuestionAnswer
2026Mill’s work was crucial to the development of liberalism, because it straddled the divide between classical and modern theories. Analyze. (20 marks)View answer
2023“The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human development.” (J. S. Mill). Comment.View answer
2021Comment in about 150 words: J.S. Mill’s ideas on women suffrage.View answer
2018Comment in 150 words: John Stuart Mill is a ‘reluctant democrat’. – C. L. WayperView answer
2014Comment in 150 words: “All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.” (J. S’. Mill)View answer
2011Comment: “The worth of a State …… is the worth of individuals composing it.” (J. S. Mill)View answer
2005Comment: “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number is self-protection.” (J.S. Mill)View answer
2004Comment: “Mill was the prophet of an empty liberty and an abstract individual”. (Barker)View answer
1999Critically examine: “In the first place, it is mostly considered unjust to deprive anyone of his personal liberty, his property or any other thing which belongs to him by law…………………….”. (John Stuart Mill)View answer
1998Discuss how early radical liberalism was modified by Jolin Stuart Mill.View answer
1996Comment: “The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.” (J. S. Mill)View answer
1995Comment: “The worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.” (J. S. Mill)View answer

Miscellaneous thinkers

YearQuestionAnswer
1997Comment: “Sin, therefore is the mother of servitude, and first cause of men’s subjection to men.” (St. Augustjne)View answer
1991Comment: ‘The relation of the state and its parts to tranquility will be seen to be similar to the relation of the animal and its parts to -health.’ (Marsiglio of Padua)View answer

Theories of Political Culture/ Political Systems

YearQuestionAnswer
2006Do you agree with the view that Political culture of a society is highly significant aspect of the Political System? Give reasons in support of your answer.View answer
1999Write: Impact of modernisation and new communication technologies on political processes of Afro-Asian countries.View answer
1997Comment: Process of Political socialization in Afro-Asian societies.View answer
1994Comment: Tribalism in Africa.View answer
1991Comment: Agents of political socialization.View answer

Syllabus unit: Western Political Thought

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4 Comments
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Urvashi

Even marks should be allotted in pyq

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shiv

right

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Gaurav

Plus word limit.

1
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KISHAN SRIVASTAVA

thanks

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