UPHESC Assistant Professor Political Science 2025 PYQs

Concept: The Marshall Plan (European Recovery Programme, 1948–52), proposed by US Secretary of State George C. Marshall (1947).

1. About 13 billion US dollars was given to rebuild war-torn Western Europe.
2. Aim: economic recovery and containment of communism (economic arm of the Truman Doctrine).
3. The USSR answered with the Molotov Plan and COMECON (1949).

Short trick: Truman Doctrine = political; Marshall Plan = economic, Western Europe.

Concept: Milestones of the UNFCCC process.

1. Rio Earth Summit – 1992 (UNFCCC adopted).
2. Kyoto Protocol – COP-3, 1997.
3. Bali (COP-13) – 2007, Bali Road Map/Action Plan.
4. Copenhagen (COP-15) – 2009, Copenhagen Accord.

Short trick: 92 → 97 → 07 → 09.

Concept: Thorsten Wojczewski studies India’s foreign-policy discourse – how India’s identity and self-image shape its ideas of world order (India’s Foreign Policy Discourse and Its Conceptions of World Order, 2018).

1. The view in the question – that India’s moral and civilisational values underlie a foreign policy of peaceful co-existence and ‘unity in diversity’ – belongs to this identity/discourse approach, and of the four names it fits Wojczewski.
2. Rajiv Sikri (Challenge and Strategy) writes as a practitioner on strategic interests; Makoto Kojima and Margaret Fisher are not known for this thesis.

Short trick: Values/identity → discourse of India’s foreign policy → Wojczewski.

Concept: US President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave the 'Atoms for Peace' speech at the UN General Assembly on 8 December 1953.

1. He proposed that nuclear powers contribute fissile material to an international agency for peaceful uses.
2. This led to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 1957.

Short trick: Eisenhower 1953 → IAEA 1957.

Concept: Paul Wilkinson's classic typology: revolutionary, sub-revolutionary and repressive (state) terrorism.

1. Statement 1 lists two recognised types ✔.
2. Ideological, bio- and eco-terrorism are also types, but the word 'only' makes statement 2 wrong – there are many other types (ethno-nationalist, religious, state, cyber, narco-terrorism, etc.).

Short trick: Watch for 'only' in statements – usually a trap.

Concept: In political usage the term 'Cold War' was first used by US financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at Columbia, South Carolina (16 April 1947): 'We are today in the midst of a cold war.'

1. Journalist Walter Lippmann popularised it through his book The Cold War (1947).
2. (George Orwell had used 'cold war' loosely in a 1945 essay, but standard texts credit Baruch with coining it for the US–Soviet rivalry.)

Short trick: Baruch coined, Lippmann popularised.

Concept: After the 1962 India–China war, six non-aligned countries (Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt/UAR, Ghana) met at Colombo in December 1962.

1. Convened by Sri Lankan PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike, they framed the 'Colombo Proposals' to settle the India–China border dispute.
2. India accepted them (with clarifications); China accepted only 'in principle'.
3. Tamil-issue agreements were the Sirima–Shastri Pact (1964) and the Rajiv–Jayewardene Accord (1987).

Short trick: Colombo 1962 = India–China; Sirima–Shastri 1964 = Tamils.

Concept: Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary, CPSU, 1985–91) launched the reforms.

1. Perestroika = restructuring (economic and political).
2. Glasnost = openness (freedom of information, transparency).
3. These reforms contributed to the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the USSR (1991).

Short trick: Gorbachev: P = restructuring, G = openness.

Concept: Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, at the 8th NAM Summit at Harare (1986), denounced the movement as an 'international hoax/falsehood' for failing to act against imperialism (after the US bombing of Libya).

1. Fidel Castro called the USSR the 'natural ally' of NAM (Havana, 1979).
2. Julius Nyerere was a strong supporter of NAM and South–South co-operation.

Short trick: Harare 1986: Gaddafi – 'hoax'; Havana 1979: Castro – 'natural ally'.

Concept: Basic principles of Indian foreign policy (Nehruvian legacy, Art. 51 DPSP).

1. Peace, friendship with all, Panchsheel (peaceful co-existence) and non-alignment – India acted as a bridge between the two power blocs ✔.
2. Opposition to imperialism, colonialism and racial discrimination (apartheid) ✔.
3. Both statements are true.

Short trick: NAM + Panchsheel + anti-colonialism + anti-racism = core of India's foreign policy.

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.