Syllabus map · 26 topics · 8 HL only
IB Global Politics syllabus map
IB Global Politics studies how power is gained, used and contested by states, international organisations, movements and individuals. SL and HL share a core and three thematic studies; HL adds research into global political challenges. The map follows the order of the Heptavo app: open any topic to see what it covers, what you need to be able to do, the terms to use precisely and the mistake to avoid.
How it's assessed
| Component | SL | HL |
|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 (source-based, core) | 1 h 15, 30% | 1 h 15, 20% |
| Paper 2 (essays, thematic studies) | 1 h 45, 40% | 1 h 45, 30% |
| Paper 3 (stimulus-based, HL extension) | — | 1 h 30, 30% |
| Internal assessment (engagement project) | 30% | 20% |
This map follows the Global Politics course first examined in May 2026. The old HL oral presentations were replaced by Paper 3, which you answer using case studies you have researched yourself.
Tap a topic to see what it asks, what you need to be able to do, the key terms and the trap. Topic titles follow the course structure; all explanations are ours.
Unit 1 — Understanding power and global politics
The core: the actors, concepts and theories you use to analyse any political issue, and the basis of Paper 1.
1.1Framing global politicsSL
The basic vocabulary of the course: states, nations, actors, levels of analysis and political systems. Questions ask you to identify the actors in a source, explain their roles and analyse an issue at more than one level.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish a state, defined by the Montevideo criteria (permanent population, defined territory, government, capacity to enter relations with other states), from a nation
- Classify actors as states, IGOs, NGOs, multinational corporations or social movements, and identify the wider stakeholders in an issue
- Analyse one issue at the individual, national, international and global levels
- Explain how the way an issue is framed shapes which institutions and remedies seem appropriate, and who gains from the framing
- Explain how a political system's formal rules and unwritten norms decide which actors can exert influence
Key terms
- state
- nation
- non-state actor
- intergovernmental organisation (IGO)
- non-governmental organisation (NGO)
- stakeholder
- levels of analysis
- political issue
Common trap Using "country", "state" and "nation" interchangeably. Precision earns marks: the Kurds are a nation without a state, and Belgium is one state containing more than one national community.
Practise 1.1 in Heptavo →1.2Power in global politicsSL
What power is, where it comes from and how actors use it. Questions ask you to identify the type of power at work in a source and judge how effectively an actor turned its resources into outcomes.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish hard, soft and smart power (Nye), and classify sanctions and aid as hard power
- Distinguish relational power from structural power, including Strange's security, production, finance and knowledge structures
- Explain Lukes's three faces of power: winning decisions, keeping issues off the agenda and shaping what people want
- Distinguish power over, power to and power with
- Explain polarity, hegemony and the balance of power, and why the same resources can win one dispute and lose another
Key terms
- hard power
- soft power
- smart power
- structural power
- hegemony
- polarity
- balance of power
- agenda-setting
Common trap Calling economic sanctions or aid "soft power" because no force is used. In Nye's terms they are coercion and payment, which is hard power; soft power works by attraction, making others want what you want.
Practise 1.2 in Heptavo →1.3Sovereignty in global politicsSL
The claim to supreme authority over a territory, and how it is challenged, pooled and defended. Questions ask you to analyse how far a source shows an actor's sovereignty being limited, and whether that limit was imposed or chosen.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish internal from external sovereignty, and de facto control from de jure title
- Explain the Westphalian model and the challenges to it from globalisation, IGOs, non-state actors and secessionist movements
- Explain when the UN Charter allows the use of force (self-defence, Security Council authorisation) and how the responsibility to protect reframes sovereignty
- Compare the declaratory and constitutive views of state recognition
- Argue whether joining a binding agreement loses sovereignty or exercises it (pooling)
Key terms
- sovereignty
- internal sovereignty
- external sovereignty
- Westphalian sovereignty
- recognition
- pooled sovereignty
- jurisdiction
- responsibility to protect (R2P)
Common trap Treating every treaty commitment as a loss of sovereignty. Ask whether the state chose to be bound and whether it can still leave; a state that consents to an obligation is using its sovereignty, not surrendering it.
Practise 1.3 in Heptavo →1.4Legitimacy in global politicsSL
Why people and states accept some uses of power as rightful. Questions ask you to explain where an actor's legitimacy comes from in a source and to evaluate the challenges to it.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish power, authority, legitimacy and legality
- Apply Weber's traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority to real examples
- Distinguish input, throughput and output legitimacy and apply them to a government or an IGO
- Explain how recognition by other states gives external legitimacy and what it gives access to
- Judge a non-state actor's legitimacy by whom it represents, how it acts, what means it uses and what it achieves
Key terms
- legitimacy
- authority
- legality
- rational-legal authority
- charismatic authority
- accountability
- transparency
- output legitimacy
Common trap Treating legal and legitimate as the same thing. An action can be lawful and widely seen as unjust, or unlawful and widely supported; say which audience judges it legitimate and on what grounds.
Practise 1.4 in Heptavo →1.5Interdependence in global politicsSL
How mutual reliance between actors creates both cooperation and bargaining power. Questions ask you to explain how interdependence shapes the choices of the actors in a source and whether it makes cooperation more or less likely.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish interdependence, dependence and interconnection, and explain how asymmetry creates power
- Distinguish sensitivity from vulnerability (Keohane and Nye)
- Describe complex interdependence: multiple channels, no fixed hierarchy of issues and little use for military force
- Explain collective action problems and the conditions that make cooperation hold (monitoring, reciprocity, repeated interaction)
- Describe the main forms of global governance: international law, the UN system, regimes, regional bodies and non-state actors
Key terms
- interdependence
- asymmetry
- sensitivity
- vulnerability
- complex interdependence
- collective action problem
- global governance
- international regime
Common trap Assuming interdependence means equality or guarantees cooperation. Interdependence is usually asymmetric, and the less dependent side can use the channel the other cannot do without to apply pressure.
Practise 1.5 in Heptavo →1.6Theoretical perspectivesSL
The main theories used to explain international politics. Questions ask you to explain an event from more than one perspective and to judge which explains it better.
You need to be able to
- Explain how realism, liberalism and constructivism each read international anarchy
- Distinguish classical from structural realism, and defensive from offensive realism
- Explain the security dilemma and why it can produce an arms race with no aggressor
- Explain liberal arguments about institutions, trade and the democratic peace, which is a claim about pairs of democracies
- Outline what Marxist, feminist, postcolonial and green perspectives add
Key terms
- anarchy
- self-help
- security dilemma
- relative gains
- absolute gains
- democratic peace
- norms
- constructivism
Common trap Name-dropping theories without using them. Apply a perspective to predict or explain the specific behaviour in the case, then say what it misses that another perspective catches.
Practise 1.6 in Heptavo →Unit 2 — Rights and justice
What rights are, who protects them, and how justice and equality are argued over and delivered.
2.1Rights and libertySL
What human rights are, how they are written into law and how far they are enforced. Questions ask you to analyse a rights claim, explain who is responsible for protecting it and evaluate how well it is enforced.
You need to be able to
- Trace the codification of rights from the UDHR (1948) to the two 1966 covenants, and explain the role of treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council
- Distinguish negative liberty (freedom from interference) from positive liberty (the real capacity to act)
- Distinguish first-, second- and third-generation rights and the different duties each places on the state
- Explain absolute, qualified and derogable rights, and the test of proportionality
- Debate universalism against cultural relativism with a specific example
Key terms
- human rights
- UDHR
- covenant
- negative liberty
- positive liberty
- derogation
- universalism
- cultural relativism
Common trap Calling the UDHR a binding treaty. It is a declaration; binding obligations come from treaties such as the 1966 covenants, and enforcement depends mostly on states and on regional and national courts.
Practise 2.1 in Heptavo →2.2Justice and equalitySL
Competing ideas of justice and equality, and the institutions that try to deliver them. Questions ask you to apply a theory of justice to a case and evaluate a justice mechanism such as a court or a truth commission.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish distributive, procedural, retributive and restorative justice
- Distinguish equality, equity and structural change
- Explain Rawls's veil of ignorance and difference principle, and Nozick's entitlement theory as a rival
- Explain universal jurisdiction, and the ICC's role as a court that steps in only where national courts are unwilling or unable
- Explain the tools of transitional justice (trials, truth commissions, reparations, vetting) and what each trades off
Key terms
- distributive justice
- restorative justice
- equity
- veil of ignorance
- difference principle
- complementarity
- universal jurisdiction
- transitional justice
Common trap Writing that the ICC can take any case it chooses. Under complementarity it acts only when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute genuinely, which is why so few cases reach it.
Practise 2.2 in Heptavo →2.3The future of rights and justiceSL
Emerging debates over new rights, who can claim them and who owes them. Questions ask you to evaluate whether a new claim or mechanism actually strengthens the protection of rights.
You need to be able to
- Explain how most new rights claims extend existing rights to new facts, such as privacy and mass data collection
- Explain how strategic climate litigation applies existing legal duties to a government's emissions policy
- Explain the gap between ratifying a treaty and delivering remedies to victims
- Outline the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: states protect, companies respect, victims need remedy
- Explain how drones, cyber operations and autonomous weapons strain the assumptions of the law of armed conflict
Key terms
- climate justice
- strategic litigation
- intergenerational justice
- due diligence
- corporate accountability
- enforcement gap
- ratification
- autonomous weapons
Common trap Using the number of ratifications as evidence that a right is protected. Ratification is the first step; ask what monitoring, complaint routes and remedies actually follow.
Practise 2.3 in Heptavo →Unit 3 — Peace and conflict
Why violence and conflict happen, how they end, and what lasting peace needs.
3.1ViolenceSL
The forms violence takes and who may use force rightfully. Questions ask you to identify direct, structural and cultural violence in a source and analyse how violence is justified or restrained.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish direct, structural and cultural violence (Galtung)
- Explain Weber's state monopoly on the legitimate use of force, and Arendt's argument that violence is a sign of lost power
- Distinguish genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by their legal elements
- Explain jus ad bellum and jus in bello, including distinction and proportionality
- Explain why battle-death counts understate the human cost of armed conflict
Key terms
- direct violence
- structural violence
- cultural violence
- monopoly on violence
- genocide
- crimes against humanity
- war crimes
- proportionality
Common trap Using "genocide" for any mass killing. Genocide requires intent to destroy a protected group as such; other mass atrocities may be crimes against humanity or war crimes, and the label should match the evidence.
Practise 3.1 in Heptavo →3.2ConflictSL
The types, causes and stages of conflict, and how parties move towards settlement. Questions ask you to analyse the causes and current stage of a conflict and evaluate attempts to resolve it.
You need to be able to
- Classify a conflict by its parties: interstate, intrastate (including internationalised), extrastate or non-state
- Distinguish structural from proximate causes, and grievance from greed or feasibility explanations
- Describe the stages from latent to overt conflict, and the idea of a mutually hurting stalemate
- Distinguish mediation, arbitration and enforcement, and official from track-two diplomacy
- Distinguish positions, interests and needs, and use Galtung's conflict triangle (contradiction, attitudes, behaviour)
Key terms
- conflict
- interstate conflict
- intrastate conflict
- grievance
- mutually hurting stalemate
- mediation
- track-two diplomacy
- conflict triangle
Common trap Treating conflict and violence as the same thing. Conflict is incompatible goals between parties; violence is one way of pursuing it, which is why conflicts can be waged and resolved non-violently.
Practise 3.2 in Heptavo →3.3PeaceSL
What peace means and how it is made, kept and built. Questions ask you to evaluate a peace process or a peace operation against the difference between negative and positive peace.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish negative peace (no direct violence) from positive peace (structural and cultural violence also addressed)
- Distinguish preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peacebuilding
- Explain the peacekeeping principles of consent, impartiality and minimum force, and the tensions between them
- Evaluate the liberal peace model against the local turn
- Explain the three pillars of R2P and the difference between a settlement and reconciliation
Key terms
- negative peace
- positive peace
- peacekeeping
- peacebuilding
- liberal peace
- impartiality
- reconciliation
- responsibility to protect
Common trap Calling a ceasefire "peace" without qualification. A ceasefire is at most negative peace; positive peace shows in changed structures, such as previously excluded groups sharing power.
Practise 3.3 in Heptavo →3.4Non-violenceSL
How non-violent movements work and why they succeed or fail. Questions ask you to analyse a movement's strategy and evaluate the conditions for its success.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish principled non-violence, such as Gandhi's satyagraha, from pragmatic non-violence chosen because it works
- Explain Sharp's pillars of support and the idea that obedience can be withdrawn
- Classify methods as protest and persuasion, non-cooperation or non-violent intervention
- Explain why broad participation and non-violent discipline raise the cost of repression, using Chenoweth and Stephan's (2011) finding that, across campaigns from 1900 to 2006, non-violent ones succeeded more often than violent ones
- Explain the radical flank effect in both directions
Key terms
- civil resistance
- civil disobedience
- satyagraha
- pillars of support
- non-cooperation
- backfire
- defection
- radical flank effect
Common trap Describing non-violence as passive. Strikes, boycotts and occupations actively withdraw cooperation a regime depends on, so explain which pillar the campaign targeted and why that hurt.
Practise 3.4 in Heptavo →3.5The future of peace and conflictSL
How conflict is changing: grey-zone and hybrid tactics, new technologies, climate pressure and new forms of war. Questions ask you to evaluate how well existing rules and institutions cope with these changes.
You need to be able to
- Explain grey-zone coercion and hybrid warfare in relation to the threshold of an armed attack
- Explain climate change as a threat multiplier rather than a direct cause of conflict
- Compare "old" and "new" wars (Kaldor)
- Distinguish structural from operational prevention, and explain the warning–response gap
- Distinguish self-help, collective defence and collective security
Key terms
- grey zone
- hybrid warfare
- threat multiplier
- new wars
- conflict prevention
- collective defence
- collective security
- information operations
Common trap Writing that climate change causes conflict. It raises risk where it meets existing fault lines such as exclusion, inequality and weak institutions, so show that mechanism in your case.
Practise 3.5 in Heptavo →Unit 4 — Development and sustainability
How development is defined and measured, which strategies work, and how growth meets environmental limits.
4.1Contested concepts of developmentSL
How development is defined and measured, and the theories about why some places are poorer than others. Questions ask you to evaluate a measure or a theory of development against a case.
You need to be able to
- Explain what GDP per capita measures and what it leaves out
- Explain the HDI, the inequality-adjusted HDI and the Multidimensional Poverty Index
- Explain Sen's capability approach: resources, conversion factors, capabilities and functionings
- Read a Lorenz curve and interpret a Gini coefficient
- Compare modernisation, dependency and post-development theory, and weak with strong sustainability
Key terms
- GDP per capita
- Human Development Index
- Multidimensional Poverty Index
- capability approach
- Gini coefficient
- modernisation theory
- dependency theory
- sustainable development
Common trap Treating a rising HDI or GDP as development for everyone. Both are national averages and can rise while whole groups are left behind; use inequality-adjusted or disaggregated data to show who benefited.
Practise 4.1 in Heptavo →4.2GlobalisationSL
Interconnection across borders and what it does to states, inequality and production. Questions ask you to evaluate the effects of globalisation on a particular state, group or sector.
You need to be able to
- Describe the economic, political, cultural and technological strands of globalisation
- Compare hyperglobalist, sceptic and transformationalist views of what globalisation does to the state
- Explain how value is shared along a global value chain, and why gross trade figures can overstate a country's contribution
- Explain tariff escalation and commodity dependence as barriers to moving up the value chain
- Explain the race to the bottom and the evidence for and against it
Key terms
- globalisation
- global value chain
- comparative advantage
- tariff escalation
- race to the bottom
- transformationalist
- homogenisation
- hybridisation
Common trap Treating globalisation as one thing that is simply good or bad. Separate its strands and say who gains and who loses in the specific case, since gains are often spread thinly while losses are concentrated.
Practise 4.2 in Heptavo →4.3Pathways to development and sustainabilitySL
Strategies for development and sustainability, from global goals and aid to trade, finance and climate policy. Questions ask you to evaluate how effective a pathway has been in a specific context.
You need to be able to
- Compare the Millennium Development Goals with the Sustainable Development Goals
- Compare aid with other flows: remittances, trade earnings, foreign direct investment, debt service and illicit outflows
- Explain aid choices: bilateral or multilateral, conditional or not, tied or untied, project or budget support
- Distinguish mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage, and explain common but differentiated responsibilities
- Explain the poverty trap and why a small push may not be enough to escape it
Key terms
- Sustainable Development Goals
- official development assistance
- conditionality
- tied aid
- remittances
- foreign direct investment
- poverty trap
- common but differentiated responsibilities
Common trap Assuming aid is the main resource flowing into poorer countries. Remittances and trade earnings are often much larger, and debt service and profit outflows can mean resources run the other way.
Practise 4.3 in Heptavo →4.4Our global futureSL
Long-term shared challenges: climate change, global public goods, population change, the oceans and possible futures. Questions ask you to evaluate how far current cooperation can meet these challenges.
You need to be able to
- Explain tipping points and planetary boundaries
- Explain global public goods and why free-riding makes them hard to provide
- Compare the Kyoto Protocol's assigned targets with the Paris Agreement's nationally determined contributions
- Explain the demographic transition and the demographic dividend
- Describe the main zones under the law of the sea: territorial sea (12 nautical miles), contiguous zone (24), exclusive economic zone (200) and the high seas beyond national jurisdiction
Key terms
- global public good
- free-rider problem
- nationally determined contribution
- tipping point
- planetary boundaries
- demographic dividend
- exclusive economic zone
- high seas
Common trap Saying the Paris Agreement sets binding emissions targets. Each party must submit and update its own contribution, but meeting the target is not legally enforced; pressure comes from transparency and review.
Practise 4.4 in Heptavo →HL extension — Global political challenges
Eight challenges that HL students research through their own case studies and apply in Paper 3.
5.1BordersHL
How borders are drawn, enforced, contested and crossed, and what they mean for people and states. In Paper 3 you combine an unseen stimulus with case studies you have researched yourself.
You need to be able to
- Explain borders as institutions that sort people, goods and capital and display sovereignty
- Distinguish refugees, internally displaced persons and other migrants, and explain non-refoulement
- Explain how migration is securitised and what that framing makes possible
- Explain push and pull factors, remittances and the brain-drain argument
- Distinguish a free trade area, a customs union and free movement of people
Key terms
- border
- refugee
- internally displaced person (IDP)
- non-refoulement
- securitisation
- self-determination
- customs union
- digital sovereignty
Common trap Calling everyone who crosses a border a refugee. Refugee status under the 1951 Convention requires being outside your own country with a well-founded fear of persecution on specific grounds; people displaced by climate impacts generally fall outside it.
Practise 5.1 in Heptavo →5.2EnvironmentHL
The politics of environmental harm, shared resources and responsibility for them. Paper 3 expects you to analyse a stimulus on this challenge alongside your own researched cases.
You need to be able to
- Explain the tragedy of the commons and how quotas or ownership change the incentives
- Explain free-riding on global public goods in climate policy
- Apply common but differentiated responsibilities, including the debate over carbon border charges
- Explain the no-harm rule, the precautionary principle and polluter pays
- Explain what securitising an environmental issue gains and risks
Key terms
- tragedy of the commons
- global commons
- precautionary principle
- polluter pays principle
- common but differentiated responsibilities
- loss and damage
- carbon border adjustment
- securitisation
Common trap Blaming environmental damage only on irresponsible actors. Commons problems arise even when every actor behaves rationally, so explain the incentive structure and the institution that could change it.
Practise 5.2 in Heptavo →5.3EqualityHL
Inequality between people and groups, how it is measured and how it is addressed. Paper 3 rewards case studies that show how inequality is produced and contested in specific places.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish inequality between individuals from inequality between groups, and of opportunity from of outcome
- Use the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient, and say what they leave out
- Distinguish formal from substantive equality and explain indirect discrimination
- Explain intersectionality: how different disadvantages combine
- Explain how tax and spending incidence can make a policy regressive
Key terms
- horizontal inequality
- vertical inequality
- Gini coefficient
- formal equality
- substantive equality
- indirect discrimination
- intersectionality
- redistribution
Common trap Assuming a rule that treats everyone the same cannot discriminate. A neutral rule can fall harder on one group with no discriminatory intent, which is indirect discrimination and the reason for substantive measures.
Practise 5.3 in Heptavo →5.4HealthHL
Health as a political issue: who governs it, what determines health outcomes and what changes when disease is treated as a security threat. In Paper 3 you apply your own case studies to a stimulus on this challenge.
You need to be able to
- Explain what the WHO can and cannot do, and what the International Health Regulations require of states
- Explain the social determinants of health and why provision often runs inversely to need
- Explain the gains and costs of securitising disease
- Apply the idea of a global public good to vaccines and pandemic response
- Explain compulsory licensing and the debate over patents and access to medicines
Key terms
- global health governance
- World Health Organization
- International Health Regulations
- social determinants of health
- securitisation
- global public good
- compulsory licensing
- vaccine nationalism
Common trap Writing that the WHO can order states to act. It can assess, declare emergencies and recommend, but compliance depends on governments, so analyse why states did or did not follow its advice.
Practise 5.4 in Heptavo →5.5IdentityHL
How identities are formed, mobilised and accommodated in politics. Paper 3 asks you to bring case studies of identity politics to bear on a stimulus.
You need to be able to
- Explain multiple and constructed identities, including Anderson's idea of nations as imagined communities
- Compare primordialist, instrumentalist and constructivist accounts of identity
- Distinguish civic from ethnic nationalism, and explain the clash between self-determination and territorial integrity
- Compare assimilation, integration, multiculturalism and consociational power-sharing
- Explain jus soli, jus sanguinis and how statelessness can pass down generations
Key terms
- identity politics
- nationalism
- civic nationalism
- ethnic nationalism
- self-determination
- multiculturalism
- consociationalism
- statelessness
Common trap Treating identity groups as fixed and natural. Show how an identity was mobilised by particular actors at a particular time; constructed does not mean unreal, but it does mean it has a history.
Practise 5.5 in Heptavo →5.6PovertyHL
How poverty is defined, measured, reproduced and reduced. Paper 3 rewards case studies that show why poverty persists in a specific context and what has worked against it.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish absolute, national and relative poverty lines, and explain what the poverty gap adds to a headcount
- Explain multidimensional poverty and how the MPI is calculated
- Explain the poverty trap, and why growth concentrated in sectors employing few people may barely reduce poverty
- Explain social protection floors and the trade-offs of targeting
- Explain Sen's entitlement approach to famine
Key terms
- absolute poverty
- relative poverty
- poverty gap
- multidimensional poverty
- poverty trap
- social protection
- targeting
- entitlement
Common trap Judging how severe poverty is from a headcount alone. A headcount shows how many people are below a line, not how far below; use the poverty gap or a multidimensional measure.
Practise 5.6 in Heptavo →5.7SecurityHL
What security means, whose security counts and how it is pursued. In Paper 3 you test the stimulus against security case studies you have researched.
You need to be able to
- Distinguish state security from human security by the referent object
- Explain securitisation as a speech act that needs audience acceptance
- Explain the security dilemma, deterrence and confidence-building measures
- Distinguish alliances (collective defence) from collective security
- Evaluate the accountability problems raised by private military and security companies
Key terms
- referent object
- human security
- securitisation
- security dilemma
- deterrence
- collective security
- fragile state
- private military company
Common trap Writing "security" without saying whose. Name the referent object (the state, a community or individuals), because the threats and the right responses differ for each.
Practise 5.7 in Heptavo →5.8TechnologyHL
How digital technology redistributes power between states, companies and citizens. Paper 3 asks you to connect a stimulus on this challenge to case studies of your own.
You need to be able to
- Explain the layers of the digital divide beyond connection: electricity, affordability, devices, skills and content
- Explain digital sovereignty, data localisation and the splinternet
- Explain the difference between being seen in public and being recorded and matched, and how algorithmic bias causes harm without intent
- Explain platform power as a form of structural power
- Explain how dual-use export controls work as a state response
Key terms
- digital divide
- digital sovereignty
- data localisation
- splinternet
- surveillance
- algorithmic bias
- platform power
- dual-use technology
Common trap Measuring the digital divide only by internet connection. Affordability, devices, skills and relevant content decide whether people can actually use a network, so a connected population can still be excluded.
Practise 5.8 in Heptavo →Try 4 Heptavo questions
Real questions from the app, with the explanation after each answer.
1.3 · Sovereignty in global politics
In international law, a state's jurisdiction is
- its right to be free from intervention by others
- the territory over which it claims sovereignty
- the set of treaties by which it has agreed to be bound
- its authority to make and apply law over persons and events
Show the answer and why
Answer: D
Jurisdiction is usually territorial and is not only territorial: nationality, protective and universal bases all extend it beyond the border, which is what makes prosecutions for offences committed abroad possible at all. Collapsing it into territory removes those cases from view.
2.3 · The future of rights and justice
Climate justice is the argument that
- environmental protection should take priority over economic development, even where that slows growth in poorer states
- those least responsible for emissions bear the greatest costs of climate change, which is an injustice requiring redress
- every state should reduce emissions by the same proportion, regardless of its wealth or its historical contribution
- climate change cases should be brought before the International Criminal Court and tried as crimes against humanity
Show the answer and why
Answer: B
Climate justice is a distributive claim about the mismatch between responsibility and harm — and, increasingly, an intergenerational one. Option C is formal equality, which is precisely what the climate justice argument rejects.
3.2 · Conflict
In the study of peace and conflict, conflict is best defined as
- a breakdown of political order within a state or society
- the use of armed force between two or more organised groups
- any disagreement that leads to the open use of violence
- incompatible goals or interests between two or more parties
Show the answer and why
Answer: D
Conflict is incompatibility; violence is one way of pursuing it. Keeping them separate is what allows the whole non-violence sub-topic to exist — and an answer that treats the two as synonyms cannot make sense of a peaceful transition.
4.2 · Globalisation
A state lowers labour and environmental standards to attract investment, and its neighbours follow. This dynamic is called
- import substitution
- a race to the bottom
- comparative advantage
- the resource curse
Show the answer and why
Answer: B
It is a collective action failure: each government's move is rational and the outcome is worse for all of them. The evidence that it happens systematically is more mixed than the phrase suggests, which is a useful qualification rather than a refutation.
