BSOC-105 Solved Question Paper for June 2026 gives complete, exam-length answers to all 8 questions IGNOU set in BSOC-105 Political Sociology, a six-credit core course of the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Sociology programme.
BSOC-105 Political Sociology key facts for the June 2026 solved paper
- Course code: BSOC-105
- Course title: Political Sociology
- Programme: Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Sociology (BASOH)
- Credits: 6 (IGNOU BSOC-105 assignment booklet 2025-26)
- Blocks / units: 4 blocks and 12 units (eGyanKosh)
- Maximum marks: 100
- Duration: 3 hours
- Questions in the paper: 8 (attempt any 5, about 400 words each, 20 marks each)
- Choice rule: any 5 of 8; no sections, no compulsory question
- Marks split: 8 × 20 = 160 printed; 5 × 20 = 100 attempted
- Printed word limit: about 400 words per 20-mark answer
- Paper language: English and Hindi printed in the same paper
- Assessment weightage: term-end exam 70%, assignments 30%
- Sample answers on this page: 2 (Q1 and Q3)
- Answers in the paid file: All 8, including 6 not shown on this page
What the BSOC-105 Solved Question Paper June 2026 covers
BSOC-105 Political Sociology studies how power, the state, elites and citizenship are shaped by society, and how politics changes society back. The June 2026 paper tested exactly that range, from the scope of the discipline to Stalin's totalitarian state.
The BSOC-105 Question Paper for this session was printed in English and Hindi with the same 8 questions. Each one carries 20 marks and asks for about 400 words, so our answers are written to that length rather than as short notes.
You can read two full answers on this page. The other six, on the state, Foucault, elites and masses, segmentary societies, Stalin and democracy, are listed below as question text only and answered in the complete file.
The topics follow the IGNOU course material for this paper. You can check the official course listing on eGyanKosh, IGNOU's study material repository before you start revising.
BSOC-105 Political Sociology sample answers: Q1 and Q3 solved
Two June 2026 answers are shown in full here: Q1 on the nature and scope of political sociology and Q3 on Weber's typology of authority.
We picked these two because both topics have come up again and again in IGNOU Political Sociology papers. Read them to judge the depth and structure of the whole file.
Question 1 (20 marks)
Q1 20 marks Block 1, Unit 2 6 of 7 earlier papers
Discuss the nature and scope of Political Sociology. 20
Introduction. Political sociology studies the two-way relationship between society and politics. It asks how social forces such as class, caste, religion, gender and education shape the distribution of power, and how political institutions in turn reshape social life. The discipline grew in the twentieth century at the meeting point of sociology and political science.
Nature of political sociology
- Interdisciplinary: it draws on sociology, political science, history and economics. Giovanni Sartori (1969) separated a 'sociology of politics', which explains politics only through social factors, from political sociology proper, which treats society and the polity as shaping each other.
- Power as the core concept: Max Weber defined power as the chance of an actor to carry out their own will even against resistance. Political sociology studies power wherever it operates, in families, parties, bureaucracies and movements, not only inside the state.
- Empirical and comparative: it relies on surveys, voting studies and comparison of regimes. Seymour Martin Lipset's Political Man (1960) linked stable democracy to economic development and a large middle class.
- Dynamic: the field has moved from a state-centred focus to newer ideas such as Michel Foucault's view of power as spread through everyday institutions, and to studies of globalisation and identity.
Scope of political sociology
- State, nation and citizenship: the origin and forms of the state, and the expansion of rights. T. H. Marshall's Citizenship and Social Class (1950) traced civil, political and social rights.
- Power, authority and legitimacy: why people obey, explained through Weber's traditional, charismatic and legal-rational authority.
- Elites and masses: Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca and Robert Michels argued that an organised minority always rules; Michels called this the 'iron law of oligarchy'.
- Political culture and participation: Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba's The Civic Culture (1963) compared citizens' political attitudes across five nations.
- Parties, pressure groups and social movements: how interests are organised and how protest changes policy.
- Indian political processes: Rajni Kothari's Caste in Indian Politics (1970) showed caste and democratic politics changing each other, while the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to panchayats and municipalities.
Conclusion. Political sociology is therefore not a narrow study of government. It examines every arena where power is produced, accepted or resisted, which is why its scope keeps widening from the state to elites, citizenship, movements and local self-governance.
Length check: this answer runs to about 380 words, inside the printed 400 and close to the 340 to 370 words a 31-minute hand-written answer allows. If time is short, keep the introduction, the four nature points and the first four scope points with their thinkers; the parties point and the Indian-processes point can shrink to one line each.
Question 3 (20 marks)
Q3 20 marks Block 2, Unit 4 4 of 7 earlier papers
Discuss Weber's typology of authority. 20
Introduction. Max Weber separated power from authority. Power is the ability to impose one's will even against resistance, while authority (Herrschaft, often translated as domination) is power that people accept as legitimate. In Economy and Society, published after his death in 1922, Weber classified authority by the ground on which its legitimacy rests, giving three ideal types.
1. Traditional authority
Legitimacy comes from belief in the sanctity of age-old customs. People obey a person because they hold a position fixed by tradition, such as a hereditary king, a tribal chief or a village elder. Loyalty is personal, rules are mostly unwritten and the system resists change. Weber described its forms as gerontocracy, patriarchalism and patrimonialism, where rulers treat administration as their personal household.
2. Charismatic authority
Legitimacy rests on devotion to the extraordinary qualities of an individual: heroism, sanctity or exceptional character. Followers obey the leader, not a rule or a custom. Religious prophets and mass leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi are common examples. Charisma is revolutionary because it breaks existing routines, but it is unstable. When the leader dies, a succession problem arises, and charisma is 'routinised' into either traditional or legal-rational authority.
3. Legal-rational authority
Legitimacy comes from belief in the legality of enacted rules. People obey an impersonal legal order and the office, not the individual holding it. Its purest form is bureaucracy, with a hierarchy of offices, written rules and files, specialised training, salaried full-time officials and separation of the office from private property. A modern prime minister or a district magistrate in India exercises this type of authority within constitutional limits.
Evaluation
Weber called these ideal types, meaning analytical models rather than descriptions of any real society. In practice they mix: the British monarchy combines traditional symbolism with legal-rational government. Marxist critics argue that legitimacy may reflect ideology and class domination rather than genuine belief, and Foucault later showed that power also works through everyday disciplines outside formal authority.
Conclusion. Weber's typology remains the starting point for explaining why people obey. It links the study of legitimacy to the growth of bureaucracy, which Weber saw as the defining feature of modern society.
Length check: this answer runs to about 360 words, inside the printed 400 and writable in the 31 minutes a five-answer paper allows. If time is short, keep the power-versus-authority definition, the source of legitimacy and one example for each type, and the routinisation of charisma; the evaluation can drop to two sentences.
Questions answered only in the full file
Q2 What do you understand by the term 'State'? 20
Q4 Explain Foucault's concept of governmentality. 20
Q5 Differentiate between elites and masses. 20
Q6 Explain the key features of segmentary societies. 20
Q7 Write a note on Stalin's notion of a totalitarian state. 20
Q8 Explain the meaning of democracy. 20
Stalin's totalitarian state and Foucault's governmentality are the two answers students ask us about most, and both sit in the full BSOC-105 file with the other four.
BSOC-105 Political Sociology block and unit wise syllabus with exam topics
BSOC-105 Political Sociology has 4 blocks and 12 units, and every June 2026 question maps to a unit in Blocks 1 to 3.
The table pairs each official unit with the topics IGNOU has actually examined from it between December 2021 and June 2026. Block 2, Basic Concepts, carries four units and supplied four of the eight June 2026 questions. For the full reading list, see our BSOC-105 Study Material.
| Block | Unit | Topics IGNOU has examined | Thinkers and references to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Block 1: Understanding Political Sociology | Unit 1: Polity and Society | Notions of state, nation and society | Max Weber (definition of the state) |
| Block 1: Understanding Political Sociology | Unit 2: Political Sociology: Nature and Scope | Nature and scope; emergence and growth as a field of study | Sartori, Lipset |
| Block 2: Basic Concepts | Unit 3: State and Citizenship | Meaning of the state; Marxist view on its origin; Divine Rights theory; state and citizenship | Marx, Engels, T. H. Marshall |
| Block 2: Basic Concepts | Unit 4: Power and Authority | Notions of power in politics; Weber's types of authority; Weber's typology of social action | Max Weber |
| Block 2: Basic Concepts | Unit 5: Government, Governance and Governmentality | Concept of governance; Foucault's governmentality; features of bureaucracy | Foucault, Weber |
| Block 2: Basic Concepts | Unit 6: Elites, Ruling Classes and Masses | Culture as a marker of elite status; social networks; reproduction of elites; elites vs masses | Pareto, Mosca, Michels |
| Block 3: Political System | Unit 7: Segmentary | Political principles of stateless society; types and key features of segmentary societies | Evans-Pritchard, Fortes |
| Block 3: Political System | Unit 8: Totalitarianism | Traits of totalitarianism; totalitarianism as a form of government; Stalin's state | Hannah Arendt, Friedrich and Brzezinski |
| Block 3: Political System | Unit 9: Democratic | Meaning of democracy; major functions of the political system | Almond, Lipset |
| Block 4: Everyday State and Local Structure of Power | Unit 10: State and Society in India | Threats to national integration; nation-building challenges in India | Rajni Kothari |
| Block 4: Everyday State and Local Structure of Power | Unit 11: Local Self-Government | Field view of local self-governance; its significance to society in India | 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) |
| Block 4: Everyday State and Local Structure of Power | Unit 12: Social Movements and Resistance | Main features of social movements with examples | New social movement theorists |
Unit coverage: 8 of 12 units fed a question, exactly one each, and in unit order: Q1 to Q8 map to Units 2 to 9. Units 1, 10, 11 and 12 gave nothing, so Block 4 was dead in June 2026.
Block split: Block 1 = 1 question, Block 2 = 4, Block 3 = 3, Block 4 = 0; total 8.
Half-units: Unit 3 gave the state (Q2) but not citizenship, and Unit 5 gave governmentality (Q4) but not governance. Both unasked halves have their own exam history in the repeat table below.
BSOC-105 paper pattern and marks distribution
The BSOC-105 June 2026 paper has 8 questions of 20 marks each; you attempt any 5 in about 400 words each, for 100 marks in 3 hours.
The IGNOU BSOC-105 Question Paper has no sections and no compulsory question, so every choice is yours. Students who prepare only five topics often get stuck when one is missing, which is why we suggest covering at least seven theme areas. Older papers for comparison are on our IGNOU Previous Year Question Paper page.
| Item | BSOC-105 June 2026 detail |
|---|---|
| Questions printed | 8 essay-type questions, no internal choice or sections |
| Questions to attempt | Any 5 |
| Length per answer | About 400 words |
| Marks per question | 20 |
| Total marks | 100 |
| Time allowed | 3 hours |
| Language versions | English and Hindi printed in the same paper |
| Weightage in final result | Term-end exam 70%, assignments 30% |
Printed 8 × 20 = 160 marks; attempted 5 × 20 = 100. Three questions, 60 printed marks, are spare.
Is 400 words achievable? 180 minutes ÷ 5 answers = 36 minutes each. Keep about 5 minutes per answer for reading and planning, and 31 minutes at 11 to 12 handwritten words a minute gives roughly 340 to 370 words. The printed 400 (20 words a mark) is a fair upper target, not a minimum, and matches the limit printed on BSOC-101 and BSOC-103.
Block arithmetic: Block 2 alone offered 4 of the 5 answers you need; Blocks 2 and 3 together offered 7, two to spare. Blocks 1 and 2 together offered exactly 5, with no margin. Block 4 offered none.
Most repeated BSOC-105 important questions topics, December 2021 to June 2026
In the 8 official BSOC-105 papers we could read, the scope of political sociology and the elites topic each appeared 7 times, ahead of totalitarianism at 6.
We counted sessions, not individual questions, so a paper with two elites questions counts once. Sessions used: December 2021, June 2022, June 2023, December 2023, December 2024, June 2025, December 2025 and June 2026, all from ignou.ac.in or webservices.ignou.ac.in.
In the table below, the count covers only the seven papers before June 2026, and June 2026 sits in its own column. Counted this way, local self-governance moves up to joint third and governance draws level with the state and with power and authority, because June 2026 no longer adds one to the topics it happened to ask.
| Topic | Earlier sessions asked | Earlier papers (of 7) | In June 2026? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nature, scope and emergence of political sociology | Dec 2021, Jun 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q1 |
| Elites: culture, social networks, reproduction, types, elites vs masses | Dec 2021, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 6 | Yes, Q5 |
| Totalitarianism as a form of government | Dec 2021, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 5 | Yes, Q7 |
| Local self-governance in India | Dec 2021, Jun 2022, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2025 | 5 | No |
| Power and authority, including Weber's types of authority | Dec 2021, Jun 2023, Dec 2023, Dec 2025 | 4 | Yes, Q3 |
| The state: meaning, Marxist view, Divine Rights theory | Dec 2021, Jun 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 4 | Yes, Q2 |
| Governance | Jun 2022, Dec 2023, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 4 | No |
| Foucault's governmentality | Jun 2023, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 3 | Yes, Q4 |
| Stateless and segmentary societies | Dec 2021, Jun 2023, Dec 2024 | 3 | Yes, Q6 |
| Citizenship and its link with the state | Jun 2022, Jun 2025, Dec 2025 | 3 | No |
| National integration and nation-building in India | Jun 2022, Dec 2024, Jun 2025 | 3 | No |
| Political system and democracy | Jun 2022, Dec 2023 | 2 | Yes, Q8 |
Local self-governance, governance and citizenship were all missing in June 2026 after appearing several times before, so they deserve time before the next exam. For short revision lists on these, use our IGNOU Solved Guess Paper.
Two sessions are not counted: we found no December 2022 BSOC-105 paper, and the June 2024 file on the IGNOU site is a scanned image we could not read reliably.
Hit rate: 8 of the 12 tracked topics came back in June 2026 = 67%, every one as a full 20-mark question. The four misses (local self-governance 5 of 7, governance 4 of 7, citizenship 3 of 7, national integration 3 of 7) average 3.75 earlier appearances, against 4.1 for the eight that came back, so June 2026 skipped topics with almost as much history as the ones it asked.
Two signals agree: the dead units line up with the skipped topics. Local self-governance (Unit 11) and national integration (Unit 10) sit in Block 4, which gave nothing; governance and citizenship are the unasked halves of Units 5 and 3.
Session split (3 June and 4 December papers in the earlier window): no tracked topic scores zero on either side, so no topic is locked to one session. The two samples on this page, scope (3 of 3 June, 3 of 4 December) and authority (1 of 3 June, 3 of 4 December), serve both sessions.
December 2026 shortlist: what June 2026 left out
- Local self-governance in India. 5 of 7 earlier papers, the most-asked topic June 2026 skipped, and its unit sits in Block 4, which gave no question at all. Know the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) and a field view of panchayats.
- Governance. 4 of 7 earlier papers. June 2026 took governmentality from Unit 5 and left governance, the other half of the same unit.
- Citizenship and its link with the state. 3 of 7 earlier papers, including both 2025 sessions. June 2026 took the state from Unit 3 and left citizenship; T. H. Marshall is the thinker to carry.
- National integration and nation-building in India. 3 of 7 earlier papers, and the second Block 4 topic with a record.
- Social movements and resistance. Unit 12 is in dead Block 4 and the syllabus table lists it as examined, but it has no row in the repeat table, so its count is unknown. Check the earlier papers before ranking it.
Coverage: these five topics come from Units 3, 5, 10, 11 and 12. Together with the repeat staples (scope, elites, totalitarianism), they give a student eight prepared areas for a five-answer paper.
How our BSOC-105 Political Sociology answers are written and checked
Each BSOC-105 answer is written from the official June 2026 paper, matched to the 400-word length IGNOU asks for, and checked for thinkers, titles and dates.
Our sociology team first reads the earlier papers for the course to see how IGNOU frames a topic. For example, the elites theme has moved from culture as a marker of status to social networks and now to the elites and masses contrast.
Answers follow one structure: an introduction that defines the key term, headed points with a named thinker under each, an evaluation for theory questions, and a short conclusion. Book titles and years, such as Weber's Economy and Society (1922), are checked against standard sources.
Prateek Talwar, Academic Head of Unnati Educations, authors the file and Sheetal Kirola, reviewer, reviews it before release. Anything we cannot confirm is left out rather than guessed.
BSOC-105 solved file index: all 8 June 2026 questions
The full BSOC-105 file answers all 8 June 2026 questions; 2 are open on this page and 6 are in the paid file only.
Use this index to plan which five you will attempt. If you are collecting papers for the whole programme, our BASOH Question Paper page lists the other Sociology Honours courses.
| Q no. | Question as printed | Block and unit | Where to read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Discuss the nature and scope of Political Sociology. | Block 1, Unit 2: Political Sociology: Nature and Scope | On this page |
| 2 | What do you understand by the term 'State'? | Block 2, Unit 3: State and Citizenship | Full file only |
| 3 | Discuss Weber's typology of authority. | Block 2, Unit 4: Power and Authority | On this page |
| 4 | Explain Foucault's concept of governmentality. | Block 2, Unit 5: Government, Governance and Governmentality | Full file only |
| 5 | Differentiate between elites and masses. | Block 2, Unit 6: Elites, Ruling Classes and Masses | Full file only |
| 6 | Explain the key features of segmentary societies. | Block 3, Unit 7: Segmentary | Full file only |
| 7 | Write a note on Stalin's notion of a totalitarian state. | Block 3, Unit 8: Totalitarianism | Full file only |
| 8 | Explain the meaning of democracy. | Block 3, Unit 9: Democratic | Full file only |
Which IGNOU programmes include BSOC-105 Political Sociology
BSOC-105 Political Sociology is a six-credit core course of IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Sociology, programme code BASOH.
The June 2026 paper itself is headed BASOH, and the IGNOU assignment booklet lists three tutor-marked assignments for it, worth 30% of the final result. You can see the full course list on our IGNOU Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Sociology page.
BSOC-105 builds on earlier BASOH courses that introduce sociology and political sociology as a sub-field. If you meet the course under a different programme, check your programme guide, because the credit value and paper pattern can differ.
How to get the full BSOC-105 Solved Question Paper on WhatsApp
Message WhatsApp 9899436384 to get all 8 BSOC-105 June 2026 answers, including the 6 not shown on this page.
Tap the button, send the prefilled message, and our team will reply with the file details. The IGNOU BSOC-105 Solved Question Paper reaches you as a PDF you can read on your phone or print for revision.
Mention your exam session when you write. If you are appearing in December 2026, ask us which repeated topics from the table above you should add to your revision.
BSOC-105 Political Sociology FAQs
How do I get the full BSOC-105 Solved Question Paper June 2026?
Send a message on WhatsApp to 9899436384 and ask for the BSOC-105 June 2026 solved file. It contains complete answers to all 8 questions in the paper, including the 6 that are not shown on this page. Each answer is written to about 400 words, matching the IGNOU instruction, so you can revise the full Political Sociology paper from one file.
How many questions are in the BSOC-105 June 2026 question paper?
The BSOC-105 June 2026 paper prints 8 questions and asks you to attempt any 5. Every question carries 20 marks, so the paper totals 100 marks in 3 hours. There are no sections or compulsory questions, which means your choice of 5 matters. Pick the topics you can explain with thinkers, examples and a clear conclusion.
Which BSOC-105 Political Sociology topics repeat most in IGNOU exams?
Across 8 official BSOC-105 papers from December 2021 to June 2026, the nature and scope of political sociology and the elites topic each appeared 7 times. Totalitarianism came 6 times, while power and authority, the state and local self-governance came 5 times each. Preparing these six areas covers most of the paper, though IGNOU can still set a new question.
Who writes and checks the BSOC-105 Political Sociology answers?
Our sociology subject team writes the BSOC-105 answers after reading the official paper and earlier IGNOU papers for the same course. Prateek Talwar, Academic Head of Unnati Educations, authors the file, and Sheetal Kirola, reviewer, reviews it. They check thinkers' names, book titles and dates, answer length and structure before the file goes to students.
How long should a BSOC-105 answer be in the IGNOU exam?
The BSOC-105 paper asks for answers of about 400 words each. In practice that means a short introduction, three to five clear points with a thinker or example under each, and a two-line conclusion. Writing far longer rarely adds marks and eats into time, because you must finish five answers of 20 marks each in 3 hours.
Is the BSOC-105 June 2026 solved paper useful for the December 2026 exam?
Yes, the BSOC-105 June 2026 solved paper is useful for December 2026 because IGNOU repeats core Political Sociology themes. Seven of its eight questions match topics already asked in earlier papers we checked. It does not predict the next paper, so also revise local self-governance, governance and citizenship, which were absent in June 2026 but asked several times before.
Which programme is BSOC-105 Political Sociology part of?
BSOC-105 Political Sociology is a six-credit core course in IGNOU's Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Sociology, programme code BASOH. The course carries three tutor-marked assignments worth 30% of the final result, and the term-end exam carries 70%. If you study it under any other programme, check your programme guide before relying on this paper pattern.
What do the two BSOC-105 sample answers on this page show?
The two BSOC-105 sample answers on this page show the exact format of the full file. Q1 covers the nature and scope of political sociology, and Q3 covers Weber's typology of authority. Both use an introduction, headed points with dated thinkers, an evaluation where needed and a conclusion. The remaining six answers follow the same structure.
Who prepared these BSOC-105 answers
The BSOC-105 answers on this page and in the full file were written by the Unnati Educations sociology team from the official June 2026 paper, the IGNOU course units on eGyanKosh and seven earlier BSOC-105 papers from December 2021 to December 2025.
Prateek Talwar, Academic Head at Unnati Educations, led the analysis on this page: restating the repeat table over the seven earlier papers so that local self-governance rises to joint third, matching each June 2026 question to its unit (Q1 to Q8 run in order through Units 2 to 9 and Block 4 gave nothing), showing that the dead block and the unasked halves of Units 3 and 5 line up with the four skipped topics, and checking that the printed 400-word length fits a 36-minute answer.
Sheetal Kirola reviewed the page. She checked every row of the repeat table against the sessions listed, the 160 printed and 100 attempted marks, the dates and titles in both samples (Sartori 1969, Lipset's Political Man 1960, Marshall 1950, Almond and Verba 1963, Kothari 1970, the 73rd and 74th Amendments 1992, and Weber's Economy and Society 1922), and Weber's three types with their sub-forms of traditional authority.