POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

1. POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES

A. Liberalism & Communitarian Critique

1. Do you agree with the view that ‘liberal democracy has won the historic battle of ideologies’? (1992)
2. Do you agree with the view that liberal theories are based on ‘atomism’, whereas communitarians have a ‘social thesis’? (2005)
3. Discuss the communitarian critique of liberalism. (2013)
4. John Locke is the father of liberalism. Explain. (2018)
5. Comment in 150 words: Liberalism as a revolutionary idea. (2020)
6. Write approximately 150 words on Decline of Liberalism. (2024)

B. Socialism & Marxism

1. Comment: ‘The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual problems of life’. (Karl Marx). (1991)
2. Analyse the post-Marxian developments in socialist thought. (1995)
3. “The root of politics, according to Marx, does not lie in the state; it lies in the social conditions underlying this institution, that is, in the material conditions of life as reflected through the mode of production.” Comment. (2005)
4. Comment: “Socialism is a much used hat, whose original shape no one can define.” (C. E. M. Joad). (2009)
5. Examine the debate on the ‘End of Ideology’. (2011)
6. Comment on the view that socialism in the 21st century may be reborn as anti-capitalism. (2014)
7. Discuss the key features of pre-Marxist socialist theory. (2015)
8. Define Socialism. Discuss the salient features of Fabian Socialism. (2017)
9. Comment: End of Ideology debate. (2019)
10. Write on the “Revolution in Permanence”. (2022)

C. Fascism

1. Comment: “Fascism is the destruction of liberal ideas and institutions in the interest of those who own the instruments of economic power.” (Laski). (2008)
2. Examine the conception of the State in the ideologies of Fascism and Marxism. (2014)
3. Comment in 150 words: “Nothing against the State, nothing over it, nothing beyond it.” – Mussolini. (2018)
4. Fascism displays an ambivalent stance towards parliamentary democracy. Explain. (2023)

D. Feminism

1. Comment: “Woman has always been man’s dependent, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality.” (Simone de Beauvoir). (2009)
2. Comment: ‘Personal is political’. (2010)
3. Distinguish between liberal feminism and socialist feminism in detail. (2010)
4. Comment on the difference between Liberal and Radical forms of Feminism. (150 words). (2012)
5. Comment in 150 words: “Personal is political”. (2013)
6. Distinguish between liberal feminism and radical feminism. (2019)

E. Neo-Liberalism, Postmodernism & Globalisation

1. Define ideology. Critically examine the “End of Ideology” debate. (2001)
2. “The Political ideology of Globalization is Neo-Liberalism.” Comment. (2016)
3. Comment on Post-modernism (150 words). (2017)
4. Factors like community, culture and nation weaken the hegemony of neo-liberalism today. Discuss. (2022)

F. Gandhism & Other Ideological Currents

1. Comment in 150 words on Eco-feminism. (2017)
2. Write a brief note on “The End of History debate”. (2017)