Civil Service Mains Optional POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS




PAPER - I

Political Theory and Indian Politics:

1.Political Theory: meaning and ap-proaches.

2.Theories of the State: Liberal, Neo-liberal, Marxist, Pluralist, Post-colonial and
feminist.

3.Justice: Conceptions of justice with spe-cial reference to Rawl’s theory of justice
and its communitarian critiques.

4. Equality: Social, political and economic;
relationship between equality and free-dom; Affirmative action.

5.Rights: Meaning and theories; different
kinds of rights; concept of Human Rights.

6.Democracy: Classical and contempo-rary theories; different models of democ-racy – representative, participatory and
deliberative.

7.Concept of power, hegemony, ideology
and legitimacy.

8.Political Ideologies: Liberalism, Social-ism, Marxism, Fascism, Gandhism and
Feminism.

9.  Indian Political Thought : Dharam-shastra, Arthashastra and Buddhist tradi-tions; Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Sri
Aurobindo, M.K. Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar,
M.N. Roy .

10.  Western Political Thought: Plato,
Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, John
S. Mill, Marx, Gramsci, Hannah Arendt.
Indian Government and Politics:

1.Indian Nationalism:
(a) Political Strategies of India’s Freedom
Struggle: Constitutionalism to mass
Satyagraha, Non-cooperation, Civil Dis-obedience; Militant and revolutionary
movements, Peasant and workers’ move-ments.
(b) Perspectives on Indian National Move-ment: Liberal, Socialist and Marxist; Radi-cal humanist and Dalit.

2. Making of the Indian Constitution: Lega-cies of the British rule; different social and
political perspectives.

3.Salient Features of the Indian Constitu-tion: The Preamble, Fundamental Rights
and Duties, Directive Principles; Parlia-mentary System and Amendment Proce-dures; Judicial Review and Basic Struc-ture doctrine.

4. (a) Principal Organs of the Union Gov-ernment: Envisaged role and actual work-ing of the Executive, Legislature and Su-preme Court.
(b) Principal Organs of the State Govern-ment: Envisaged role and actual working
of the Executive, Legislature and High
Courts.

5.Grassroots Democracy: Panchayati Raj
and Municipal Government; significance
of 73rdand 74thAmendments; Grassroot
movements.

6.  Statutory Institutions/Commissions:
Election Commission, Comptroller and
Auditor General, Finance Commission,
Union Public Service Commission, Na-tional Commission for Scheduled Castes,
National Commission for Scheduled
Tribes, National Commission for Women;
National Human Rights Commission, Na-tional Commission for Minorities, National
Backward Classes Commission.

7.  Federalism: Constitutional provisions;
changing nature of centre-state relations;
integrationist tendencies and regional as-pirations; inter-state disputes.

8.Planning and Economic Development :
Nehruvian and Gandhian perspectives; role
of planning and public sector; Green Revo-lution, land reforms and agrarian relations;
liberalilzation and economic reforms.

9.Caste, Religion and Ethnicity in Indian
Politics.

10.Party System: National and regional
political parties, ideological and social
bases of parties; patterns of coalition poli-tics; Pressure groups, trends in electoral
behaviour; changing socio- economic pro-file of Legislators.

11.  Social Movements: Civil liberties and
human rights movements; women’s move-ments; environmentalist movements.


PAPER – II


Comparative Politics and International Relations


Comparative Political Analysis and In-ternational Politics:

1. Comparative Politics: Nature and major
approaches; political economy and politi-cal sociology perspectives; limitations of
the comparative method.

2. State in comparative perspective: Char-acteristics and changing nature of the State
in capitalist and socialist economies, and,
advanced industrial and developing soci-eties.

3. Politics of Representation and Partici-pation: Political parties, pressure groups
and social movements in advanced indus-trial and developing societies.

4. Globalisation: Responses from devel-oped and developing societies.

5. Approaches to the Study of International
Relations: Idealist, Realist, Marxist, Func-tionalist and Systems theory.

6. Key concepts in International Relations:
National interest, Security and power; Bal-ance of power and deterrence; Transnational
actors and collective security; World capital-ist economy and globalisation.

7. Changing International Political Order:
(a) Rise of super powers; strategic and
ideological Bipolarity, arms race and Cold
War; nuclear threat;
(b) Non-aligned movement: Aims and
achievements;
(c) Collapse of the Soviet Union; Unipolar-ity and American hegemony; relevance of
non-alignment in the contemporary world.

8. Evolution of the International Economic
System: From Brettonwoods to WTO; So-cialist economies and the CMEA (Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance); Third
World demand for new international eco-nomic order; Globalisation of the world
economy.

9. United Nations: Envisaged role and ac-tual record; specialized UN agencies-aims
and functioning; need for UN reforms.

10. Regionalisation of World Politics: EU,
ASEAN, APEC, SAARC, NAFTA.

11. Contemporary Global Concerns: De-mocracy, human rights, environment, gen-der justice, terrorism, n
uclear proliferation.
India and the World:

1. Indian Foreign Policy: Determinants of
foreign policy; institutions of policy-mak-ing; continuity and change.

2. India’s Contribution to the Non-Alignment
Movement: Different phases; current role.

3. India and South Asia:
(a) Regional Co-operation: SAARC – past
performance and future prospects.
(b) South Asia as a Free Trade Area.
(c) India’s “Look East” policy.
(d) Impediments to regional co-operation:
river water disputes; illegal cross-border
migration; ethnic conflicts and insurgen-cies; border disputes.

4. India and the Global South: Relations
with Africa and Latin America; leadership
role in the demand for NIEO and WTO ne-gotiations.

5. India and the Global Centres of Power:
USA, EU, Japan, China and Russia.

6. India and the UN System: Role in UN
Peace-keeping; demand for Permanent
Seat in the Security Council.

7. India and the Nuclear Question: Chang-ing perceptions and policy.

8. Recent developments in Indian Foreign
policy: India’s position on the recent crisis
in Afghanistan, Iraq and West Asia, grow-ing relations with US and Israel; vision of a
new world order