UPHESC Assistant Professor Political Science 2025 PYQs

Concept: The Central Vigilance Commission was set up in February 1964 on the recommendation of the Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption (1962–64).

1. CBI – 1 April 1963 (also linked to Santhanam Committee).
2. First Administrative Reforms Commission – 1966.
3. NHRC – 1993.
4. CVC got statutory status by the CVC Act, 2003.

Short trick: Santhanam → CBI 1963, CVC 1964.

Concept: NREGA was passed in August/September 2005 and renamed MGNREGA in 2009.

1. a ✘ – passed in 2005, not 2006.
2. b ✔ – came into force on 2 February 2006.
3. c ✘ – first implemented in 200 most backward districts (extended to all districts by 2008).
4. d ✔ – guarantees at least 100 days of wage employment per rural household per year.
5. e ✔ – it aims at livelihood security and reduction of rural poverty.

Short trick: Passed 2005 · In force 2006 · 200 districts · 100 days.

Concept: The World Bank's report Governance and Development (1992) put 'good governance' on the development agenda.

1. It defined governance as 'the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development'.
2. It stressed public-sector management, accountability, legal framework, transparency/information – and the role of participation and civil society.
3. The 1997 World Development Report (The State in a Changing World) came later and focused on state capability.

Short trick: Good governance → World Bank 1992.

Concept: Paul H. Appleby's first report, Public Administration in India: Report of a Survey (1953), recommended an Organisation and Methods (O&M) unit.

1. Accordingly the O&M Division was set up in the Cabinet Secretariat in March 1954.
2. Appleby also recommended the Indian Institute of Public Administration (1954).
3. Gorwala Report (1951) dealt with public administration and public enterprises; Santhanam (1962–64) with corruption.

Short trick: Appleby 1953 → O&M 1954 + IIPA 1954.

Concept: The Twelfth Schedule (74th Amendment, Art. 243W) lists 18 municipal functions.

1. Item 1: urban planning including town planning; item 2: regulation of land use and construction of buildings ✔.
2. Item 8: urban forestry, protection of the environment and promotion of ecological aspects ✔.
3. Item 13 is 'promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects', but running of industries is not a municipal function – so statement 2 is wrong.

Short trick: 12th Schedule = 18 items, civic services – no industry running.

Concept: The behavioural revolution (1950s–60s) moved comparative politics from formal-legal, descriptive study of institutions to empirical, quantitative, cross-national research.

1. Almond, Verba, Easton, Pye etc. used surveys, data and models (e.g. The Civic Culture).
2. Post-behaviouralism (1969) stressed relevance and action; neo-institutionalism and neo-statism ('bringing the state back in') came in the 1980s.

Short trick: Empirical = Behavioural.

Concept: Ruud Koole (Dutch political scientist, 1994) proposed the 'modern cadre party' model.

1. It is a party with a small active membership led by professionals, but with democratic accountability to members, relying on public subsidies and members' fees.
2. Maurice Duverger (Political Parties, 1951) gave the original 'cadre party' vs 'mass party' distinction – not the 'modern' cadre party.
3. Sartori classified party systems (polarised pluralism etc.).

Short trick: Cadre/mass = Duverger; MODERN cadre = Koole.

Concept: Easton's systems analysis borrows from General Systems Theory of biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

1. Like a living organism, a political system persists by adapting to stresses from its environment through inputs (demands, supports), outputs and feedback.
2. 'Persistence' and 'adaptation' are biological ideas (homeostasis).
3. Communication theory (cybernetics) is Karl Deutsch's source; structural-functionalism came from anthropology/sociology.

Short trick: Easton ← Bertalanffy (biology); Deutsch ← cybernetics.

Concept: Almond adapted Talcott Parsons' structural-functionalism (and Robert Merton's) to comparative politics.

1. Parsons: every social system must perform functions (AGIL – adaptation, goal attainment, integration, latency).
2. Almond: every political system performs input functions (socialisation, recruitment, interest articulation, aggregation, communication) and output functions (rule-making, application, adjudication).
3. Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown were the anthropological roots; Parsons was the direct sociological influence.

Short trick: Parsons (AGIL) → Almond (input–output functions).

Concept: In administration, authority (formal power) is the legitimate right of a manager to command and to assign work.

1. It is a managerial right ✔ and includes the right to assign work to subordinates ✔.
2. Under the classical (formal) theory authority flows downward – it is delegated from above (superior to subordinate) ✔.
3. It does not originate from below (the Hindi says 'delegated from below'); the bottom-up 'acceptance theory' of Barnard is about acceptance, not delegation – so B is not a feature.

Short trick: Authority flows top-down.