IB Diploma Programme Global Politics Higher Level

1.1 Framing Global Politics: Systems and Interactions

• Define the principal categories of actors in global politics — states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and non-state armed groups — and identify their formal roles within the international system
• Explain how the anarchic structure of the international system shapes state behavior, differentiating between unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar configurations of power distribution
• Apply the four core concepts — power, sovereignty, legitimacy, and interdependence — as analytical lenses to interpret a contemporary international event, explaining which concept best illuminates each dimension of the situation

1.2 Power in Global Politics

• Distinguish between hard power, soft power, and smart power, illustrating each with specific state and non-state examples drawn from at least two different geographic regions
• Analyse how structural, relational, and productive forms of power operate simultaneously in a given geopolitical dispute, evaluating which dimension most decisively shapes outcomes for weaker parties

1.3 Sovereignty in Global Politics

• Define Westphalian sovereignty, explaining the historical origins of the norm of non-interference and how it is codified in the UN Charter
• Analyse the tension between state sovereignty and international intervention, evaluating the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine as a contested evolution of sovereignty norms in cases such as Libya 2011 or Kosovo 1999

1.4 Legitimacy in Global Politics

• Explain the principal sources of political legitimacy — procedural, substantive, and performance-based — and identify how each is invoked by different types of political actors to justify authority
• Evaluate how the legitimacy crisis of international institutions such as the UN Security Council or the WTO undermines effective global governance, drawing on at least two contrasting case studies

1.5 Interdependence in Global Politics

• Explain complex interdependence theory, describing how economic, environmental, and security ties between states simultaneously constrain unilateral action and create shared vulnerability
• Evaluate whether deepening interdependence promotes peace or heightens systemic risk by comparing liberal institutionalist predictions against realist critiques, using concrete examples from trade, climate agreements, or pandemic response

1.6 Theoretical Perspectives in Global Politics

• Outline the core assumptions of realism and liberalism as mainstream IR theories, identifying the key propositions each makes about the nature of the state, the international system, and the possibility of cooperation
• Explain how constructivism, feminism, and postcolonialism challenge mainstream IR theories by foregrounding identity, norms, gender, and colonial legacies as constitutive factors in global politics
• Apply at least two contrasting theoretical perspectives — one mainstream and one critical — to analyse the same global political issue, articulating how each theory foregrounds different actors, causes, and solutions
• Evaluate the explanatory power of realism, liberalism, and constructivism in accounting for a specific case of multilateral treaty formation or breakdown, justifying which theoretical lens offers the most analytically complete account

2.1 Rights and Liberty

• Identify the principal instruments of international human rights codification — the UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, and core UN treaty bodies — and describe the obligations each imposes on state parties
• Explain the philosophical foundations of universalism and cultural relativism as competing frameworks for human rights, illustrating the debate through contested practices such as capital punishment, FGM, or child marriage
• Analyse the mechanisms and limitations of international human rights enforcement — including the ICC, universal jurisdiction, treaty body reviews, and UN Special Procedures — assessing why compliance remains uneven across state and non-state actors
• Evaluate the tension between women's rights norms under CEDAW and state invocations of cultural or religious sovereignty, drawing on case study evidence to assess the effectiveness of international pressure in achieving norm compliance

2.2 Justice and Equality

• Explain the distinction between retributive, distributive, restorative, and transitional justice, identifying a real-world mechanism or process that exemplifies each approach
• Analyse the relationship between social equality and justice, evaluating how structural inequalities based on race, gender, or economic class undermine the equal application of rights in both domestic and international contexts
• Evaluate the effectiveness of transitional justice mechanisms — truth and reconciliation commissions, international tribunals, and amnesties — in societies emerging from mass atrocities, comparing at least two national cases

2.3 The Future of Rights and Justice

• Synthesise emerging challenges to the international human rights regime — including digital surveillance, AI-enabled repression, and climate displacement — formulating a position on how rights frameworks must evolve to remain effective

3.1 Violence

• Define direct, structural, and cultural violence as a typology, identifying real-world examples that illustrate how each form enables and reinforces the others within a conflict system
• Evaluate competing justifications for political violence — Just War Theory, self-determination, self-defence, and revolutionary necessity — assessing the normative criteria each applies and how international law adjudicates between them

3.2 Conflict

• Explain the multi-causal drivers of armed conflict — including resource competition, ethnic nationalism, state fragility, proxy intervention, and ideological contestation — and distinguish structural from proximate causes
• Analyse the evolution of a specific intrastate or interstate conflict over time, tracing how the parties, objectives, tactics, and international responses shifted across identifiable phases

3.3 Peace

• Distinguish between negative peace (absence of direct violence) and positive peace (presence of structural justice), explaining Johan Galtung's framework and its implications for conflict resolution strategy
• Analyse the effectiveness of international peacekeeping and peacebuilding mechanisms — UN peacekeeping operations, the Peacebuilding Commission, regional bodies such as the AU and NATO, and multilateral peace agreements — evaluating conditions under which each succeeds or fails

3.4 Non-violence

• Explain theories and strategies of non-violent resistance — including Gandhian satyagraha, Gene Sharp's power theory, and civil disobedience — and identify historical movements where such strategies achieved or failed to achieve political change
• Evaluate whether non-violent movements are more effective than armed resistance in achieving durable political change, citing comparative evidence from at least two contrasting historical or contemporary cases

3.5 The Future of Peace and Conflict

4.1 Contested Concepts: Development, Poverty, Inequality, Sustainability

• Define development, poverty, inequality, and sustainability as contested political concepts, explaining how different ideological frameworks — neoliberal, dependency theory, post-development — attribute different meanings and priorities to each
• Evaluate the adequacy of competing development metrics — GDP per capita, Human Development Index, Multidimensional Poverty Index, and the Gini coefficient — in capturing the lived realities of poverty and inequality for marginalized populations

4.2 Globalisation

• Explain the principal economic, political, and cultural dimensions of globalisation, identifying how multinational corporations, the Bretton Woods institutions, and bilateral trade agreements shape the distribution of wealth and sovereignty
• Analyse the uneven distributional effects of economic globalisation on developing states, evaluating competing evidence on whether trade liberalisation reduces or deepens structural inequality

4.3 Pathways to Development and Sustainability

• Explain the principal pathways toward development and sustainability — state-led industrialisation, structural adjustment, sustainable development goals (SDGs), and South–South cooperation — identifying the actors and institutions driving each approach
• Evaluate the effectiveness of international development aid, debt relief initiatives (HIPC, MDRI), and conditional loans from the World Bank and IMF in generating sustainable development, assessing evidence for dependency versus empowerment outcomes

4.4 Our Global Future

• Analyse the political dimensions of climate change governance — the UNFCCC, Paris Agreement, CBDR principle, and climate finance debates — evaluating how power asymmetries between Global North and Global South shape negotiation outcomes and compliance
• Formulate a policy recommendation for achieving a specific Sustainable Development Goal in a designated low-income country, integrating analysis of political constraints, institutional capacity, international financing mechanisms, and competing stakeholder interests

Eight Global Political Challenges (Paper 3 content)

• Identify the eight Global Political Challenges — Borders, Equality, Environment, Health, Identity, Poverty, Security, Technology — and describe the principal political dimensions and key international actors relevant to each
• Analyse how at least two Global Political Challenges interact and reinforce each other — such as the nexus between Technology and Security or between Borders and Identity — using specific case study evidence to trace the mechanisms of interconnection
• Apply core concepts (power, sovereignty, legitimacy, interdependence) and at least one theoretical perspective to a self-researched case study addressing a Global Political Challenge, producing an integrated explanation that connects micro-level events to macro-level structural factors
• Formulate and justify a policy recommendation for addressing a researched Global Political Challenge, evaluating the political feasibility, unintended consequences, and distributional effects of the proposed solution across different stakeholder groups

Engagement Project (Internal Assessment)

• Design a political engagement project by identifying a locally or globally significant political issue, articulating a clear research question, and justifying a methodology that incorporates primary engagement with stakeholders affected by or responding to the issue
• Analyse and synthesise primary and secondary evidence gathered during a political engagement project, connecting findings explicitly to core course concepts and at least one thematic study, demonstrating how the evidence supports or complicates theoretical expectations
• Formulate a structured, evidence-based policy recommendation within the HL Engagement Project report — specific to the political issue investigated — evaluating the challenges, trade-offs, and potential unintended consequences of the proposed course of action