UPSC CSE Political Theory — practice questions
120 free MCQs with worked solutions. Tap any question for the answer + explanation, or practice them all in the app.
Practice UPSC CSE Political Theory in the app →A slum stands beside luxury flats. Everyone praises equality yet inequality is everywhere. This is called a:The slogan Liberty, Equality and Fraternity was raised by revolutionaries in:A resident of an advanced industrial country uses how many times as much energy as someone in India?Giving a prime minister special rank is acceptable as long as the privileges are not:Equality requires that our treatment and opportunities are not pre-determined by:A child gifted at music outshines others. Such differences from capabilities and talents are:Inequalities that emerge from unequal opportunity or exploitation are called:Colonial masters claimed Africans were child-like and better at manual work. This belief was used to justify:The three main dimensions of equality are political, social and:In a democracy, political equality normally means granting all members:Equal citizenship brings rights such as voting, expression, association and freedom of:Equality of opportunity needs minimum conditions like health care, education, nourishment and a:Inequalities that stay untouched over generations are called:Feminism is a political doctrine of equal rights for:Feminists say inequality between men and women results from a system that values men more, called:Feminists distinguish biological difference, called sex, from socially assigned roles, called:Marx argued the root cause of entrenched inequality was private ownership of:Liberals uphold which principle as the fairest way to distribute rewards?Socialists favour government regulation and planning in key areas such as:Rammanohar Lohia identified how many kinds of inequality to fight simultaneously?Lohia's seven revolutions are together called:Unlike socialists, liberals believe political, economic and social inequalities are:A community fights to control its own life and destiny. In essence this is the struggle for:Nelson Mandela's autobiography is titled:Aung San Suu Kyi's book of essays is titled:The simplest definition of freedom is the absence of:Swaraj combines Swa and Raj, meaning:Who said Swaraj is my birth right?Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in:Gandhi said it is Swaraj when we learn to:Besides governments, constraints on freedom can come from social inequality such as the:Without some constraints, society would descend into:As a political ideology, liberalism has been identified with which value?Modern liberalism is distinctive for its focus on the:The harm principle comes from John Stuart Mill's essay:Under Mill's harm principle, the state has no business interfering with actions that are:A neighbour plays loud music at night. Mill would recommend:The law should constrain other-regarding actions only when they cause harm that is:For those who only run a hate campaign, we must not demand:In Indian constitutional discussions, justifiable constraints on freedom are called:Freedom as an inviolable area of non-interference, or freedom from, is called:Freedom to develop oneself, answering who governs me with I govern myself, is:Positive liberty traces its tradition to Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Gandhi and:Voltaire said he would defend to death your right to:Everyone wants justice for themselves and no one hates it; in that sense justice is compared to:In ancient Indian society, maintaining a just social order was linked to the idea of:Plato discussed justice through a dialogue between Socrates and his young friends in:Socrates argued that if everyone were unjust:Like a doctor with patients, a just ruler must be concerned with the people's:Immanuel Kant held that all human beings possess:Two workers from different castes do the same work; one gets 100 rupees and the other 75. This violates the prA school gives every student equal marks regardless of their answers. This ignores the principle of:Miners and policemen doing dangerous work may deserve a higher reward under the principle of:Suresh, who is visually impaired, gets 30 extra minutes in an exam. This reflects the principle of:The three principles of justice are equal treatment, proportional reward and:Harmonising the different principles of justice is a function of:Social justice concerns the just distribution of:To promote social equality, the Constitution abolished:State governments redistributed land more fairly through:The theory of just distribution using a veil of ignorance was put forward by:Under the veil of ignorance, we decide society's rules without knowing:Rawls expects people under the veil to view society from the point of view of the:For Rawls, fairness is the outcome of:Basic minimum conditions of life include nourishment, housing, clean water, education and a:Which international body has devised methods to calculate basic needs?Free market supporters believe a just distribution comes from:Members of one community are targeted because of their religion. Secularism first and foremost opposes such:Dalits barred from entering temples is an example of:Secularism accepts religion as a response to human suffering, so it is:Put positively, secularism promotes freedom within religions and equality:A state governed directly by a priestly order is called:Sixteenth century England was not theocratic but favoured which established church?Which country today has Sunni Islam as its official state religion?In the American model, separation of religion and state means:Under the western model, the state cannot give financial support to:Ataturk translates as:Who is called the philosopher of Indian secularism?Nehru said a secular state protects all religions but does not adopt any as the:Nehru did not believe in God, yet for him secularism did not mean:For Nehru, secularism meant complete opposition to:Indian secularism arose in the context of deep religious ___ that predated western ideas.Tolerance is not enough for secularism because tolerance is compatible with:Unlike France, India has no prohibition on wearing religious markers like turbans and veils in:Indian secularism is compatible with state-supported religious reform; the Constitution therefore bans:Religious minorities in India have the right to establish and maintain their own:The Indian state is secular because it is neither theocratic nor has it:The concept that lets the Indian state engage with or disengage from religion as needed is:A ramp for wheelchair users at a cinema shows that minority rights are:A student wants to skip the uniform and wear her own clothes. Is that a right? A right is essentially:Rights are the claims we regard as necessary for a life of:Being gainfully employed gives economic independence, which is why we speak of a right to:Rights like livelihood and free expression matter to all humans in society, so they are called:Why can smoking or taking banned drugs not be claimed as a right?Seventeenth and eighteenth century theorists said rights come from nature or God and are:The three natural rights identified were life, liberty and:Today the term ___ is used more than natural rights.Human rights assume all persons are entitled to certain things simply because they are:Kant said we should not treat people as we treat a pen, a car or a:Kant's view that every person has dignity is called the ___ conception of rights.Constitutionally recognised rights in India are called:When I assert my right to education, whom do I call upon to provide it?Rights place an obligation upon the state to:Because of my right to liberty, the police must produce ___ before taking me away.The sovereign state exists not for its own sake but for the sake of the:The right to vote, contest elections and form parties are:The right to a free and fair trial and to protest belong to:For a person living on the pavement, political rights alone have little value without:India's rural employment guarantee scheme is an example of recognising:The right to primary education in one's mother tongue is a:Protecting the ozone layer and forests represents the:Which nineteenth century German philosopher glorified war, believing only conflict grows civilisation?In the Second World War, the British answered German carpet bombing of London with raids of how many bombers?At least how many people died immediately in the atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?Which 1962 episode brought humanity close to total destruction when Soviet missiles were found in Cuba?Why is defining peace simply as the absence of war called misleading?Caste, class and gender inequality built into society cause hidden injury. What is this called?The practice of untouchability was outlawed by which document?The 2011 Census child sex ratio of 919 girls per 1000 boys is called an index of what?Negro slavery in the United States lasted until which year?Apartheid treated South Africa's Black majority as second-class citizens until which year?