The Global Politics engagement project (formerly the engagement activity): how to plan and write it

The Global Politics IA is now called the engagement project. Many students and older resources still call it the "engagement activity". You choose a political issue that matters to you, engage directly with people or groups involved in it, combine that with research, and write a report of up to 2,000 words. At HL you add a recommendation of roughly 400 words on how the issue could be addressed.

What separates strong projects from weak ones is rarely the topic. It is whether the engagement gave you material you can analyse with the course's concepts, and whether the report does that analysis instead of narrating what you did.

What is the engagement project, and what changed?

The current Global Politics course was first taught in August 2024 and first examined in May 2026, so everyone sitting the exams in 2026 or 2027 is on it. The IB's own Global Politics update page confirms the new name and that the old HL oral presentations are gone; HL students now sit Paper 3 instead. That means the IA is the only internal assessment in the course at both levels.

The IA is assessed on the process as well as the finished report: how you planned, researched, engaged and reflected. So the work you do before writing counts, and it needs to show on the page.

How do you choose an issue you can actually engage with?

Start from access, not from the headline. A good issue passes five tests:

1. It is political. Someone holds power over a decision, other people contest it, and there is a question of who gets what. "Plastic pollution" is a topic; "why our regional government dropped its proposed deposit-return scheme" is a political issue.
2. You can reach people involved. Not commentators, but people who make, oppose, carry out or live with the decision.
3. More than one perspective is reachable. If you can only talk to one side, you will struggle to evaluate.
4. The course concepts explain something. If power, legitimacy, sovereignty, interdependence or another concept you have studied doesn't help you understand the issue, it will be hard to analyse.
5. It fits 2,000 words. One place, one decision or dispute, one time frame.

Once you have an issue, frame it as one focused question you can investigate. The method in our guide to sharpening a research question works here too, and how to choose an IA topic covers the "is this too broad?" test in more detail.

What kinds of engagement work?

Engagement means direct contact with the issue and the people in it. The strongest projects combine two or three forms, so that each one checks the others.

• Interviews with stakeholders on different sides. Prepare open questions tied to your focus ("What happened when your group asked to see the noise assessment?"), not yes/no questions or questions you could answer from a website.
• Attending public meetings. Council sessions, planning hearings, public consultations and union meetings often let observers in. Note who speaks, who sets the agenda, what is not discussed and how decisions are justified.
• Volunteering or working alongside an organisation that has a stake in the issue. This gives you a view from inside, but also a bias you will need to reflect on.
• Taking part in or observing a campaign, such as a petition, a lobbying meeting or a public event, where it is safe and legal to do so.
• A short survey of a group affected by the decision. Useful as one strand; weak as the only strand, especially if the sample is just your classmates.

Keep a log as you go: date, what you did, who you met (anonymised if needed), what you learned and what changed in your thinking. That log is the raw material for showing your process, and it stops you reconstructing everything from memory the week before the deadline.

How do you turn engagement into analysis?

The report is not an account of your engagement. It uses what you found, together with your research, to explain the issue. Three habits make the difference.

Use concepts to explain, not to decorate

Name a concept only when it explains something specific. For the wind farm example: who set the terms of the consultation is a question of power, and whether residents accepted the outcome as fair is a question of legitimacy. The agenda-setting "second face" of power, which Steven Lukes builds into his three-dimensional view, is useful here if the consultation only asked residents where turbines should go, never whether.

Bring in theory where it changes the explanation

Theories are lenses. A liberal reading might stress that the consultation gave residents a formal channel; a critical reading might ask whose economic interests the national renewable energy target serves. One theory applied carefully beats four named in a list.

Synthesise: let sources talk to each other

Synthesis means putting what different people told you next to each other and next to your research, then explaining the gaps. The planning officer says the consultation was extensive; the campaign group says its questions about noise were never answered; the published consultation report shows that most responses were objections. That tension is your analysis.

Notice what the second version does: it uses two concepts precisely, explains a disagreement between stakeholders, and uses a short quotation as evidence rather than as narrative.

How should you structure the report?

There is no single required template, so check whether your teacher expects headings. A structure that maps onto what the criteria reward looks like this:

Put interview notes, your log and survey questions in appendices, since they don't count towards the limit. But don't hide the evidence there: anything you want credit for has to be used and explained in the report itself.

For the HL recommendation, be concrete. "The council should listen more" earns little. "The council should publish the noise assessment before the next consultation and add a community-benefit fund, because the two complaints that came up in every interview were secrecy and the lack of any local return" is a recommendation tied to your evidence. Then say what it would cost or who would resist it.

What do the criteria reward?

The criterion names below are the ones reported in published course outlines. The total is 24 at SL and 30 at HL, with the extra marks for the HL recommendation. Per-criterion marks are not given here because the figures in circulation come from a single source; ask your teacher for the current descriptors.

• Explanation and justification: you explain the issue clearly and justify why you chose it and how you chose to engage with it.
• Process: your planning, research, engagement and reflection are visible, and you show how decisions along the way shaped the investigation.
• Analysis and synthesis: you use concepts, theory and evidence to explain the issue, and you combine your engagement with your research rather than reporting each separately.
• Evaluation and reflection: you weigh competing perspectives and claims, judge the strength of your own evidence, and reflect on what the engagement taught you.
• Communication: the report is clear, organised and properly referenced. Our guide to sources and referencing for the IA covers how to cite interviews and meetings.
• HL recommendation: a realistic proposal grounded in your findings.

How do you keep the project ethical and safe?

You are dealing with real people and real disputes, so treat ethics as part of the plan, not an afterthought. Your teacher and school will have their own rules; follow them first.

• Get approval before you engage. Show your teacher who you plan to contact and how.
• Ask for consent. Tell interviewees what the project is, how their words will be used and that they can decline or withdraw. Ask before recording.
• Anonymise by default. Use roles ("a member of the campaign group") rather than names unless someone is a public official speaking in that role and has agreed.
• Take care with vulnerable people. Asylum seekers, people in crisis and children need extra care. Work through an organisation that supports them, and ask whether your questions could cause harm.
• Keep yourself safe. Don't meet strangers alone, don't attend events where there is a risk of violence or arrest, and don't break the law to "engage". A protest you observe from a safe distance with an adult is very different from one you join.
• Be fair in the write-up. You can have a view, but report the people you disagree with accurately.

The report must be your own work. AI tools have specific rules in the IB's academic integrity policy; read how to use AI in the IA without crossing the line before you use one for anything.

What does a realistic timeline look like?

Your school sets the deadlines, and they vary. Work backwards from your school's final deadline; most of the time goes into the engagement, which depends on other people's diaries.

1. Weeks 1–2: shortlist two or three issues, check access to people on each, choose one and draft a focus question. Agree it with your teacher.
2. Weeks 3–4: background research; prepare interview questions and consent wording; contact people. Expect some not to reply.
3. Weeks 5–9: engagement. Keep the log after every contact, and adjust your plan as you learn.
4. Weeks 10–11: plan the analysis around concepts and tensions, then write a full draft.
5. Weeks 12–13: act on your teacher's feedback on your draft (ask how much feedback your school allows and when), cut to the word limit, check references and appendices.

Once the IA is in, the same concepts carry straight into the exams: see how Global Politics Paper 1 works and the mistakes that cost Global Politics marks.