All Free International Relations MCQs with Answers

• A. military spending
• B. geographic size
• C. population
• D. money

Explanation: Money is highly fungible because it can be converted into many different capabilities, including weapons, intelligence, diplomacy or…

• A. Power distribution
• B. Power center
• C. Power shift
• D. Polarity

Explanation: Polarity classifies an international system by the number of major independent power centres, such as one in a unipolar system or two in a…

• A. sovereignty
• B. reciprocity
• C. linkage
• D. territorial respect

Explanation: Sovereignty is the foundational traditional norm that recognizes states' authority over their territory and domestic affairs and their…

• A. Thucydides
• B. Machiavelli
• C. Hobbes
• D. Woodrow Wilson

Explanation: Thucydides, Machiavelli and Hobbes are commonly treated as intellectual predecessors of realism because they stress power, conflict and…

• A. hegemonic stability
• B. anarchy
• C. the Prisoner's Dilemma
• D. chaos

Explanation: Anarchy in international relations means the absence of a central world authority above states, not disorder or complete chaos.

• A. alliance
• B. security community
• C. social contract
• D. union

Explanation: An alliance is a coalition in which states coordinate their policies or military actions for a shared objective, commonly against a…

• A. Thucydides
• B. Hobbes
• C. Ibn Kahaldum
• D. Machiavelli

Explanation: The statement comes from Thucydides' account of the Melian Dialogue during the Peloponnesian War, where Athenian power politics is starkly…

• A. negotiation
• B. globalism
• C. geopolitics
• D. national interest

Explanation: Geopolitics studies how geographical factors such as location, territory, resources, and access to waterways shape state power and…

• A. states act like rational individuals who "think" in pursuing national interests
• B. nations think multilaterally in most situations
• C. human nature is essentially good
• D. a state's power is best determined by the size of its territory

Explanation: Realists treat states as rational, unitary actors that calculate how to protect and advance their national interests under international…

• A. education of population
• B. strength of scientific and technological base
• C. total GDP
• D. patriotism

Explanation: Total GDP is a relatively tangible measure of economic capacity, while education, scientific capability, and patriotism are longer-term or…

• A. power of ideas
• B. patriotism
• C. diplomatic skill
• D. military forces

Explanation: Military forces can be deployed directly to coerce or deter another state, making them a short-term capability for exercising influence.

• A. Brazil
• B. Pakistan
• C. Saudi Arabia
• D. France

Explanation: France is a recognized great power because it combines major military, economic, diplomatic, and technological capabilities with a…

• A. Great Britain
• B. Colombia
• C. Iran
• D. Luxembourg

Explanation: Iran is commonly classified as a middle or significant regional power because of its population, resources, military capacity, and…

• A. Seeks to study the experiences of blacks in colonial powers
• B. Linked black people across Africa, the Caribbean and the USA around a set of humanist values that were supposedly held by blacks the world over
• C. Was introduced to post-colonial studies by Franz Fanon
• D. Was introduced to post-colonial studies by Edward Said

Explanation: Negritude was a literary and cultural movement that connected Black people across Africa, the Caribbean and the United States by affirming…

• A. Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961)
• B. Power, Power, power (1951) and How Colonisation Happened (1960)
• C. The Way to Prosperity (1955) and The Colonised (1975)
• D. Colonies (1980) and Post-Colonial Theory (1990)

Explanation: Fanon’s two major works are Black Skin, White Masks, published in 1952, and The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961.

• A. That there have been too many political science theories based purely on the works of academics
• B. That because stories and novels are generated by culture they therefore produce meanings and significances that are indicative of that culture
• C. Novels and stories are more enjoyable to read than works of theory so post-colonial studies will garner more followers using this method
• D. Turner didn't have access to academic works when he was writingSocial Sciences

Explanation: Turner treats novels as cultural products, so they reveal the meanings, assumptions and values generated within a society.

• A. African, mate scholars who were educated in the United States
• B. Indian scholars who had spent years abroad studying the cultures of those in other countries
• C. Feminist scholars with Latin American backgrounds
• D. Academics who had been to more than twenty countries

Explanation: World-travelling is associated with feminist post-colonial scholarship, especially the work of María Lugones, whose thinking reflects a…

• A. Portrayal of the colonised errs towards either a passive and conquerable subject or an irrational, untamed barbarian. This means that the colonial subject becomes consistently stereotyped
• B. Scholars did not travel to colonies and therefore could not establish an accurate picture of colonised peoples
• C. Post-colonial scholars were too focused on the colonising power rather than the colonised peoples
• D. The colonised did not make enough effort to have their voices heard

Explanation: Bhabha calls colonial discourse ambivalent because it depicts the colonised inconsistently, as both a supposedly passive subject to be…

• A. Ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financscapes and ideoscapes
• B. Ethnoscapes, econoscapes, culturescapes, financscapes and ideoscapes
• C. Geographical flows, cultural flows, ideas-flows, technological flows, ethnicity flows
• D. Liberal flows, realist flows, post colonial flows and post structuralist flowsSocial Sciences

Explanation: Appadurai identifies ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes as major global cultural flows.

• A. That the entire world is now in the post-colonial era
• B. That the global south alone is now in the post-colonial era
• C. That post-colonialism, spelled with a hyphen, is a concept only applicable to those countries that experienced colonialism
• D. That there was a grammatical error in the earlier spelling

Explanation: Writing postcolonialism without a hyphen commonly signals a broad global condition shaped by colonial histories and their continuing…