BPSC 133 Solved Guess Paper 2026 for Comparative Government and Politics (IGNOU BAG)

The importance of comparison in social-scientific research

Question: Describe the importance of comparison in social scientific research. Also examine the significance and relevance of the comparative study of politics.

You can't be scientific if you're not comparing. (James Coleman)

Comparison in social-scientific research

1. Basis of scientific research: comparison helps build grounded theory, test hypotheses, infer causality (finding causes) and make reliable generalisations.
2. Features of such research: precision, validity, reliability, verifiability and some predictability.
3. No laboratory in social science: a scholar cannot order a government to change its electoral system, so real cases are studied and compared.
4. Control function: Sartori argued that control (checking) is possible in social science only through comparison, which makes comparison indispensable.
5. Learning from others: Sartori adds that comparison helps in generalised propositions, predictions and learning from other countries' experience.
6. Probabilistic causality: results are stated as likelihoods, not the certainty of a laboratory.

Integrative thinking: Swanson called thinking without comparison "unthinkable". Durkheim said comparison makes research cease to be purely descriptive. Smelser showed that even a word like "democratic" has meaning only against other cases. Manoranjan Mohanty asked us to look for relationships, and Eric Wolf warned that seeing only differences can distort facts, as colonisers did to justify their rule.

Utility for comparative politics: comparison is used to build and test theory (the broader the cases, the sounder the theory), it gives theories scientific rigour (strictness), and it moves beyond "compare and contrast" towards explaining relationships, which makes us question our own system too.

Conclusion: Comparison is the closest thing social science has to a laboratory. It gives control, sound theory and a deeper reading of political reality.

Military regimes, totalitarian regimes and the consequences of military rule

Question: Explain the differences between Totalitarian and Military regimes. Describe the consequences of military in politics, with some examples.

Military regimes are states where members of the armed forces make the top political decisions exclusively or predominantly.

Military regimes are a sub-set of authoritarian regimes. They replace a civilian government, rule in their own name and carry an innate (built-in) lack of legitimacy.

Types: in the military-junta type, a council of army, navy and air force officers is the supreme policy maker and appoints a civilian cabinet under it. In the presidential type, the military plays a supporting role and the cabinet is mostly civilian, as in Zaire.

Consequences of military rule

1. No real modernisation: Pye, Halpern and Johnson once saw the army as a modernising force; later studies found a negative or no unique effect on development.
2. Failed national integration: military rule in Pakistan in the 1950s and 60s produced the Third World's first successful secessionist movement; Nigeria broke apart after the 1966 coup; Sudan has fought guerrillas since 1958.
3. Vicious circle: Huntington says durable institutions drive development, but military rulers censor the press and ban politics, so civilian leaders never learn the craft, civilian rule fails and the army returns.
4. Loss of professionalism: Syria and Egypt lost to Israel in 1967, Uganda's army collapsed in 1979 and Argentina lost the Falklands war.

Conclusion: A military regime usurps power by force, fails at economic and political development and even damages the army's own professionalism.

Essential features and the changing nature of federalism

Question: Describe the essential features of Federalism. Discuss the changing nature of Federalism.

The first federation was the USA under the 1789 constitution, followed by Canada (1867) and Australia (1901). India became federal by devolution (passing down) of power from the centre.

Essential features

1. Division of power: power is split between federal and state governments. Residuary powers stay with the states in the USA but go to the centre in India, Canada and Belgium; India also has a concurrent list.
2. Written constitution: both levels draw power from a supreme constitution that is hard to amend, so federal constitutions are rigid.
3. Judicial review: a supreme court settles centre-state disputes and can declare any unconstitutional law void.

Changing nature

1. Althusius: in the early 17th century he argued that every human association rests on a pact that leads to federal union.
2. Dual federalism: early US levels were sovereign and equal in their own spheres, with constant tension, for over a century.
3. Cooperative federalism: from the 1930s and 1940s both levels worked on internal give and take, which led to centralisation in the USA, Australia and Canada.
4. Interdependent federalism: neither level is fully independent or subordinate; Elazar calls it "self-rule plus shared rule".
5. Federalism as a process: C J Friedrich (1968) saw it as joint decision-making on joint problems.
6. Indian case: development tasks pulled India towards the centre, yet it never became unitary and shows a cooperative trend.

Conclusion: Division of power, a written constitution and judicial review make a federation, and its meaning has moved from dual to cooperative and interdependent federalism.

Almond and Coleman's classification of pressure groups

Question: How have Almond and Coleman classified pressure groups into different categories? Discuss the nature of associational and non-associational pressure groups.

Organisations trying to influence the policy of public bodies in their own chosen direction, though never themselves prepared to undertake the direct Government of the country. (Samuel Finer)

1. Institutional groups: formed inside schools, universities, the judiciary, bureaucracy, hospitals and police. They are rule-bound and professional, such as the Indian Medical Association and the All India Bar Association, and their closeness to government gives them easy influence.
2. Associational groups: highly organised with limited goals. Business bodies like ASSOCHAM, CII and FICCI are the most influential; trade unions (AITUC, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh), peasant unions (Bharatiya Kisan Sangh) and student bodies (ABVP, NSUI, SFI) also belong here.
3. Non-associational groups: informal groups based on religion, culture, kinship, ethnicity or tribe, with no fixed procedure. They protect a whole community, so they are also called socio-cultural groups, for example the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee and Balmiki Samaj.
4. Anomic groups: short-lived, spontaneous groups that rise in emergencies such as famine. Their actions are unpredictable and can turn violent, as with the Mizo National Famine Front, which later became the Mizo National Front.

Conclusion: The four-fold scheme shows pressure groups ranging from formal professional bodies to sudden, spontaneous movements.

The state, its elements, and developed vs developing countries

Question: Define State and describe its essential elements. Distinguish between the developed and developing countries. Why are developing countries also known as 'Third World'?

A compulsory political organisation with a centralised government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a specific territory. (Max Weber)

Four elements: population, a definite territory, a government that acts for the state, and sovereignty, the power to enforce its will independently. Without any one of them there is no state. The state differs from the nation, which is a cultural-political idea of shared identity, and from the government, which is only the agency working on the state's behalf.

Why "Third World": during the Cold War the US-led bloc was the First World and the Soviet-led bloc the Second. New post-colonial states joined neither and were called the Third World. After the Cold War the term was seen as outdated, though Nico Smith (2010) argues they still remain a third world.

Conclusion: The state rests on four elements. Developing states are post-colonial and poorer, while developed states are industrialised and richer.