BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper June 2026 gives you complete, exam-length answers to the official IGNOU term-end paper for Comparative Government and Politics, written by our subject experts after studying every BPSC 133 paper we could trace back to June 2022. Two answers are open below, and the full file with all 10 questions is shared on WhatsApp 9899436384.
BPSC 133 key facts
- Course code: BPSC 133
- Course title: Comparative Government and Politics
- Programme: Bachelor of Arts (General), BAG
- Credits: 6 (core course)
- Blocks and units: 5 blocks, 13 units
- Maximum marks: 100
- Duration: 3 hours
- Questions in the June 2026 paper: 10 (Q1 to Q5 in Section I, Q6 to Q10 in Section II)
- Solved samples on this page: 2 (Q1 and Q6)
- Questions in the paid file: All 10, including 8 not shown on this page
What the BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper for June 2026 covers
BPSC 133 Comparative Government and Politics is a 6-credit core political science course in IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (General) programme, and this file solves its June 2026 term-end paper in full. The paper had 10 questions in two sections, running from the gap between comparative government and comparative politics to short notes on lobbying and the separation of powers.
Every answer is written to the 400-word length the paper asks for, with an introduction, headed points, named thinkers and a conclusion. Section I answers deal with methods, regimes and forms of government; Section II answers deal with parties, elections, the state and globalisation.
June 2026 also brought fresh angles on old units. Earlier papers asked about proportional and mixed-member elections, but this one asked about the majority system. Parliamentary and presidential forms used to be compared; this time the presidential system stood alone. Globalisation returned, but through ethnic resurgence rather than sovereignty.
Two BPSC 133 answers solved in full, plus the other eight questions
Questions 1 and 6 are solved in full below, one from each section, so you can judge the depth and style before asking for the complete file. Question wording is copied exactly as printed in the official June 2026 paper, including its question numbers.
Q1. How is study of comparative government different from study of comparative politics ?
Answer
Introduction. Comparative government and comparative politics are often used as if they were the same thing, but they mark two different stages in the growth of the discipline. Comparative government is the older, traditional study of the formal institutions of states. Comparative politics is the wider study, which took shape after the Second World War, of political behaviour, processes and whole political systems across countries.
Comparative government: meaning and features. The traditional approach looked mainly at constitutions, legislatures, executives and courts, asking what the law says about how power is organised. It was descriptive and historical, often normative in asking which form of government is best, and largely confined to Western states such as Britain, the United States and France. James Bryce's Modern Democracies (1921) is a well-known example of this style.
In 1955 Roy Macridis, in The Study of Comparative Government, criticised this tradition as non-comparative, parochial, static, descriptive and formalistic. In his view it described single countries one by one instead of explaining why political systems differ, and it ignored everything that happened outside formal institutions.
Comparative politics: meaning and features. The newer field grew out of the behavioural revolution. The Committee on Comparative Politics of the US Social Science Research Council, set up in 1954 under Gabriel Almond, pushed scholars to study informal structures too: political parties, pressure groups, public opinion, elites, political culture and socialisation. David Easton's systems approach and Almond's structural-functional approach gave shared categories for comparing countries.
Comparative politics also widened the map. Newly independent states in Asia, Africa and Latin America became central to the field, and scholars borrowed tools from sociology, economics and psychology to build testable explanations.
Main differences.
- Scope: comparative government studies the formal organs of the state; comparative politics studies the whole political system, including society and informal processes.
- Method: the first relies on legal and historical description; the second uses empirical, often quantitative, comparison.
- Area: the first focuses on Western democracies; the second covers developed and developing countries alike.
- Purpose: the first describes and prescribes; the second explains and generalises.
- Outlook: the first is static; the second studies change, development and modernisation.
Conclusion. The two are not opposites. Comparative politics grew out of comparative government and still studies institutions, and since the 1980s new institutionalism and works such as Bringing the State Back In (1985) have renewed interest in them. A good answer treats comparative government as the narrower, institutional core within the broader field of comparative politics.
Q6. What is multi-party system ? Elaborate.
Answer
Introduction. A party system is the pattern of competition and cooperation among the parties of a country. A multi-party system is one in which three or more parties have a realistic chance of winning seats and sharing power, so that no single party can normally form a government on its own. It stands between the one-party system and the two-party system seen in countries such as the United States.
Main features.
- Several significant parties, none of which can count on a stable majority.
- Coalition governments, built through pre-poll or post-poll alliances.
- Parties that often speak for a particular region, class, religion, language or ideology.
- A divided opposition, since rival parties compete for the same political space.
Types. Giovanni Sartori, in Parties and Party Systems (1976), split multi-party systems into two kinds. Moderate (limited) pluralism has roughly three to five relevant parties competing towards the centre, as in post-war Germany. Polarised (extreme) pluralism has more than five, including anti-system parties pulling to the extremes, as in Weimar Germany and Italy's First Republic.
Why multi-party systems arise. Lipset and Rokkan (1967) traced European parties to social cleavages such as centre-periphery, church-state, land-industry and owner-worker. Maurice Duverger argued that proportional representation encourages many parties, while plurality voting tends towards two. India uses first-past-the-post yet has many parties, because regional, linguistic and caste identities and federalism sustain state-level parties.
The Indian example. After the Congress dominance of the early decades, India moved into an era of coalitions from 1989: the National Front, the United Front, the NDA government of 1998 to 2004 and the UPA governments of 2004 to 2014. Regional parties became partners in national power.
Merits.
- It represents a diverse society more fully.
- Voters get a wider choice of programmes and leaders.
- It blocks domination by any one party.
- It encourages consensus and bargaining in policy making.
Demerits.
- Governments can be unstable; France's Fourth Republic (1946 to 1958) saw more than twenty cabinets.
- Small partners can extract concessions out of proportion to their size.
- Accountability is blurred because blame is shared across the coalition.
- Decisions can be slow while partners negotiate.
Conclusion. A multi-party system mirrors social diversity and widens democratic choice, but it works well only when parties accept coalition rules and build stable alliances. Post-war Germany shows it can be stable; Weimar shows how it can fail. Its success depends less on the number of parties than on the ideological distance between them.
Questions answered only in the full file
- Describe Historical method of comparison and its relevance.
- Write a note on the nature of democratic regimes in developing states.
- Describe the main features of presidential system of Government.
- Describe essential features of Federalism.
- Describe majority system of elections.
- Discuss the nature of state in developing countries.
- In what way globalization has revived ethnic resurgence.
- Write short notes on the following : (a) Lobbying (b) Separation of powers
These eight cover democracy in developing states, the presidential system, federalism, majority elections, the developing-country state, ethnic resurgence and two short notes. Their full answers are in the paid file only.
BPSC 133 Comparative Government and Politics block-wise syllabus
BPSC 133 is taught through 5 blocks and 13 units, moving from comparative method to regimes, forms of government, participation and the state. The table lists what each block covers, using topics that have actually appeared in its exam papers.
| Block | Units | Topics examiners draw from |
|---|---|---|
| Block 1: Introduction | Unit 1 Comparative Analysis: Nature, Scope and Utility; Unit 2 Methods of Comparative Political Analysis | Comparative government versus comparative politics; historical, case-study and statistical methods of comparison; post-behaviouralism |
| Block 2: Comparing Regimes | Unit 3 Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes; Unit 4 Civilian and Military Regimes | Traits of authoritarian and totalitarian rule; democracy in developing states; why the military steps into politics |
| Block 3: Forms of Government | Unit 5 Parliamentary and Presidential Systems; Unit 6 Federal and Unitary Systems | Parliamentary and presidential systems with collective responsibility; unitary, federal and confederal set-ups; separation of powers |
| Block 4: Patterns of Political Participation and Representation | Unit 7 Political Parties and Party Systems; Unit 8 Pressure Groups; Unit 9 Electoral Processes | Two-party versus multi-party systems; Almond and Coleman's pressure group types and lobbying; majority, proportional and mixed-member elections |
| Block 5: State in Contemporary Perspective | Unit 10 State in Developed and Developing Countries; Unit 11 State-Civil Society Relations; Unit 12 State in the Era of Globalisation; Unit 13 Contemporary Debates on the Nature of State | The Third World state; Gramsci on civil society; sovereignty and ethnic revival under globalisation; liberal, Marxist and feminist views of the state |
Block 4 alone has supplied three of the ten June 2026 questions. If your BPSC 133 Study Material is short on time, revise parties, pressure groups and electoral processes first.
You can read the official unit texts for Block 2 of BPSC 133 on eGyanKosh, IGNOU's own repository of self-learning material.
BPSC 133 Question Paper pattern and marks split
The June 2026 BPSC 133 Question Paper had 10 questions; you attempt any five, at least two from each section, for 100 marks in 3 hours. Every question carried 20 marks and asked for about 400 words.
| Item | June 2026 paper |
|---|---|
| Sections | Two: Section I (Q1 to Q5) and Section II (Q6 to Q10) |
| Questions printed | 10 |
| Questions to attempt | 5 in all, at least 2 from each section |
| Length asked | About 400 words per answer |
| Marks per question | 20 |
| Short-note question | Q10: lobbying and separation of powers (no per-note split printed in June 2026; earlier papers gave 10 + 10) |
| Total marks and time | 100 marks in 3 hours |
| Weight in final result | Term-end exam 70 per cent, assignments 30 per cent |
The pattern has shifted over time. The IGNOU BPSC 133 Question Paper for June 2025 and December 2025 printed only 8 questions, and papers from June 2022 to December 2023 carried two short-note questions of 10 + 10 marks. December 2024 and June 2026 moved back to 10 questions with wider choice.
Older BPSC 133 papers are worth timing yourself against. Our IGNOU Previous Year Question Paper collection keeps them in one place.
Topics that keep returning in BPSC 133 exams
Pressure groups appeared in all 7 official BPSC 133 papers we checked, and federalism and forms of government in 6 each. We counted topics in the official IGNOU papers for June 2022, June 2023, December 2023, December 2024, June 2025, December 2025 and June 2026. December 2022 and June 2024 papers could not be traced, so they are not counted.
| Topic | Course unit | Sessions where it appeared | Times |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pressure groups (methods, types, links with parties, lobbying) | Unit 8 | June 2022, June 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, June 2025, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 7 |
| Unitary, federal and confederal systems; changing federalism | Unit 6 | June 2022, June 2023, Dec 2024, June 2025, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 6 |
| Parliamentary and presidential forms; collective responsibility | Unit 5 | June 2022, June 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 6 |
| Electoral systems: proportional, mixed-member, majority | Unit 9 | June 2022, June 2023, Dec 2024, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 5 |
| Historical method of comparison | Unit 2 | June 2022, June 2023, June 2025, June 2026 | 4 |
| Authoritarian, totalitarian and military regimes | Units 3 and 4 | June 2022, June 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024 | 4 |
| Political parties and party systems (two-party, multi-party) | Unit 7 | June 2023, Dec 2023, June 2025, June 2026 | 4 |
| Feminism and patriarchy | Block 5 | June 2022, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Dec 2025 | 4 |
| Globalisation, sovereignty and ethnic revival | Unit 12 | June 2022, June 2023, June 2025, June 2026 | 4 |
| Why compare: comparison and social-scientific research | Unit 1 | Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 4 |
| Democratic regimes in developing countries | Unit 3 | June 2025, Dec 2025, June 2026 | 3 |
| State in developed and developing countries | Unit 10 | Dec 2024, June 2025, June 2026 | 3 |
| Liberalism and pluralism | Block 5 | June 2022, June 2023, June 2025 | 3 |
| Civil society, including Gramsci | Unit 11 | June 2022, Dec 2024 | 2 |
Five of the ten June 2026 questions sit in the top four rows of this table. For a wider shortlist across courses, see our IGNOU Important Questions page.
How our BPSC 133 answers are written and checked
Each BPSC 133 answer is drafted from the IGNOU course blocks, shaped to 400 words and then checked by a second reviewer. Prateek Talwar and our political science team write the answers; Sheetal Kirola reviews them before the file is released.
We start from the unit the question comes from, then build the answer the way examiners mark it: a defining introduction, four to six headed points, a named thinker or real example for each claim, and a short conclusion. Thinkers such as Almond, Easton, Sartori, Duverger and Gramsci are cited with book titles and years where relevant.
Reviewing covers wording, length and facts. Dates of Indian coalition governments, book years and thinkers' terms are checked before release. The same method runs through our BAG Question Paper files for other courses.
BPSC 133 solved file index, question by question
All 10 June 2026 questions are in the paid file; 2 of them are also solved on this page. Use this index to see which unit each question tests.
| Q no. | Question topic | Section | Course unit | Where to read it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Comparative government versus comparative politics | I | Unit 1 | On this page |
| 2 | Historical method of comparison | I | Unit 2 | Full file only |
| 3 | Democratic regimes in developing states | I | Unit 3 | Full file only |
| 4 | Presidential system of government | I | Unit 5 | Full file only |
| 5 | Essential features of federalism | I | Unit 6 | Full file only |
| 6 | Multi-party system | II | Unit 7 | On this page |
| 7 | Majority system of elections | II | Unit 9 | Full file only |
| 8 | State in developing countries | II | Unit 10 | Full file only |
| 9 | Globalisation and ethnic resurgence | II | Unit 12 | Full file only |
| 10 | Short notes: lobbying; separation of powers | II | Unit 8 and Unit 5 | Full file only |
Programmes that include BPSC 133 Comparative Government and Politics
BPSC 133 is a core political science course in IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (General), and the June 2026 paper is printed for BAG. It is a 6-credit course with three tutor-marked assignments.
If you are enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts (General) with political science as a discipline, BPSC 133 is one of your core papers, alongside the other BPSC courses in your programme guide.
Students of BA (Honours) Political Science (BAPSH) and BA (Political Science) under BAFPS study a sister course instead, BPSC 105 Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics. It overlaps in themes but has its own syllabus and paper, so check the code on your hall ticket.
How to get the full BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper on WhatsApp
Message BPSC 133 June 2026 to WhatsApp 9899436384 and our team will share the full solved PDF with all 10 answers. That is the 2 answers on this page plus 8 more that appear only in the file.
The IGNOU BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper comes as a PDF you can read on your phone or print. Each answer keeps the paper's own question number, so you can match it against the official June 2026 paper as you revise.
BPSC 133 Comparative Government and Politics FAQs
These answers cover the BPSC 133 file, the June 2026 paper and how to get the full solved PDF.
What is included in the BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper for June 2026?
The file answers all 10 questions of the official June 2026 IGNOU paper for Comparative Government and Politics. Each long answer runs to about 400 words with an introduction, headed points and a conclusion, and Q10 is split into two short notes on lobbying and the separation of powers. Two answers, Q1 and Q6, are shown on this page so you can check the quality first.
How many questions were in the BPSC 133 June 2026 exam paper?
The BPSC 133 June 2026 paper printed 10 questions in two sections: Q1 to Q5 in Section I and Q6 to Q10 in Section II. Students had to attempt five questions in all, with at least two from each section, writing about 400 words per answer. Every question carried 20 marks, for a total of 100 marks in three hours.
How do I get the full BPSC 133 Solved Question Paper on WhatsApp?
Send a message saying BPSC 133 June 2026 to WhatsApp 9899436384. Our team will reply with the details and share the complete PDF once you confirm. The full file has all 10 answers: the 2 you can read on this page plus the 8 that appear only in the file. You get the solved paper as a PDF that you can read on your phone or print.
Which BPSC 133 topics repeat most often in term-end exams?
In the seven official BPSC 133 papers we checked, from June 2022 to June 2026, pressure groups appeared every time, counting the June 2026 note on lobbying. Federal and unitary systems and the parliamentary and presidential forms each appeared six times, and electoral systems five times. The historical method, regimes, party systems, feminism, globalisation and comparison itself each appeared four times.
Is BPSC 133 Comparative Government and Politics part of BA Honours Political Science?
No. BPSC 133 is the comparative politics course in IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (General), and its June 2026 paper is printed for BAG. Students of BA (Honours) Political Science (BAPSH) and BA (Political Science) under BAFPS study a sister course, BPSC 105 Introduction to Comparative Government and Politics, which has its own paper. Check your programme guide if you are unsure which code you hold.
How long should a BPSC 133 answer be in the exam?
The BPSC 133 paper asks for about 400 words per answer, and each question carries 20 marks. Aim for an introduction, four to six headed points with a named thinker or example, and a short conclusion. For short-note questions like Q10 in June 2026, split your space evenly between the two notes. Our solved answers follow this same length so you can practise against them.
Who writes and checks the BPSC 133 answers?
The BPSC 133 answers are written by Prateek Talwar and our political science team after studying the IGNOU course blocks and earlier papers, and are reviewed by Sheetal Kirola before release. Each answer is checked against the question wording, the 400-word limit and facts such as dates, book titles and thinkers' names, so you can quote them with confidence.
Will the BPSC 133 June 2026 answers help for the December 2026 exam?
They can help you revise, because BPSC 133 keeps returning to the same units: federalism, forms of government, parties, pressure groups, electoral systems and the state. Working through a full solved paper also shows you how to shape a 400-word answer. No file can predict the exact December 2026 questions, so use it alongside your course blocks and IGNOU assignments.