All Free International Relations MCQs with Answers

Every International Relations question in the bank, across all chapters, each with the correct answer and a written explanation. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.

1,618 questions · page 75 of 81

  • A. Balance of power politics conflict with self-determination
  • B. Great powers carve out spheres of influence antithetical to the freedom of nation states
  • C. Nationalist demands and disputes often lead to conflict and injustice
  • D. All of the above

Explanation: The justice versus order tension appears in all three ways: power politics can override self-determination, spheres of influence restrict…

Correct answer: All of the above
  • A. Processes of historical change are a reflection of the economic development of a society
  • B. Processes of economic change are based in history
  • C. Processes of historical change are based in class war
  • D. None of the above

Explanation: Historical materialism explains social and political change through the development of the material economy, especially the mode of…

Correct answer: Processes of historical change are a reflection of the economic development of a society
  • A. The change in the economic base of a society leads to the change in superstructure
  • B. The change in superstructure leads to the change in the economic base of a society
  • C. Both a and b
  • D. Neither a nor b

Explanation: In Marxist analysis, the economic base, including the mode of production, conditions the superstructure of law, politics, and ideas.

Correct answer: The change in the economic base of a society leads to the change in superstructure
  • A. There are two types of world systems: world-empires and world-economies
  • B. The modern world system is a world economy
  • C. The world system has a core, semi-periphery and periphery
  • D. All of the above

Explanation: Wallerstein distinguishes world-empires from world-economies and describes the modern capitalist world-economy through core…

Correct answer: All of the above
  • A. it comes out of a barrel of a gun
  • B. it is mixture of coercion and consent
  • C. it is purely economic
  • D. it is purely economic

Explanation: For Gramsci, durable power combines coercion with consent: ruling groups maintain control through force as well as institutions, ideas…

Correct answer: it is mixture of coercion and consent
  • A. Hegemony is a product of the lack of class conflict
  • B. That consent for a particular social and political system was produced and reproduced through the
  • C. Both a and b
  • D. None of the above

Explanation: Gramsci shifted Marxist analysis toward hegemony, showing how consent to a social order is continuously produced through institutions…

Correct answer: That consent for a particular social and political system was produced and reproduced through the
  • A. A reconciliation with power
  • B. Humanity gaining power over nature
  • C. A reconciliation with nature
  • D. None of the aboveTry Prep Courses

Explanation: Critical theory treats emancipation as liberation from forms of domination and a transformed relationship between humanity and nature.

Correct answer: A reconciliation with nature
  • A. Critical theory attempts to challenge power
  • B. Critical theory accepts the parameters of the present order and critiques it within those parameters
  • C. Critical theory attempts to challenge the prevailing order by seeking out social processes that could lead to emancipatory change
  • D. Critical theory accepts the parameters of the present order and helps legitimate and unjust systemDownload Interactive Maps

Explanation: Robert Cox distinguishes critical theory from problem-solving theory by its willingness to question the existing order and identify social…

Correct answer: Critical theory attempts to challenge the prevailing order by seeking out social processes that could lead to emancipatory change
  • A. The social basis and nature of authoritarianism
  • B. The structure the family
  • C. The concepts of reason and rationality
  • D. All of the aboveExplore Philosophy Books

Explanation: The Frankfurt School examined authoritarianism, the family as a social institution, and changing ideas of reason and rationality.

Correct answer: All of the aboveExplore Philosophy Books
  • A. an anomaly in the history of the development of capitalism
  • B. a part of long-term trends in the development of capitalism
  • C. something to be prevented
  • D. none of the above

Explanation: Marxists generally view globalization as part of capitalism’s long-term expansion and transformation, not as an exceptional break from…

Correct answer: a part of long-term trends in the development of capitalism
  • A. Republic formed by Napoleon Bonaparte
  • B. A Frankish republic
  • C. Part of the Roman Republic
  • D. A republic set up by Giuseppe Garibaldi

Explanation: The Cisalpine Republic was a French client republic created by Napoleon in northern Italy in 1797.

Correct answer: Republic formed by Napoleon Bonaparte
  • A. Part of the Mongol Empire
  • B. Gold taken by Spain from the New World
  • C. An area in Mexico once ruled by the Aztecs
  • D. Napoleon's conquest of Egypt

Explanation: The Golden Horde was the Mongol khanate that ruled much of the western steppe and parts of Eastern Europe after the division of the Mongol…

Correct answer: Part of the Mongol Empire
  • A. Baghdad
  • B. Ottoman empire
  • C. Iran
  • D. Persia Empire

Explanation: Pan-Islamism was a movement advocating political unity among Muslims and became especially associated with the Ottoman Empire under Sultan…

Correct answer: Ottoman empire
  • A. Renaissance
  • B. Enlightenment
  • C. Liberalism
  • D. Modernism

Explanation: The Enlightenment was an eighteenth-century European movement that emphasized reason, science and individual liberty while challenging…

Correct answer: Enlightenment
  • A. Free action
  • B. Free will
  • C. Freedom will
  • D. Free freedom will

Explanation: Free will is the doctrine that people can choose and control their actions rather than being completely determined by God, fate or prior…

Correct answer: Free will
  • A. The unification of the proletariat into a ruling class
  • B. The overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy
  • C. a & b both
  • D. None of these

Explanation: In Marxist theory, the immediate political objective is to organize the proletariat as a class and overthrow bourgeois political…

Correct answer: a & b both
  • A. A country with a constitution
  • B. Delineated area of rule-governed activity
  • C. A set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision making, procedures around which actors expectations converge in a given area of international relations
  • D. b and c

Explanation: An international regime is a set of principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which expectations converge in a…

Correct answer: b and c
  • A. Principles are represented by coherent bodies of theoretical statements about how the world works ii. norms specify general standards of behaviour iii. rules operate at a lower level of generality than principles and norms iv. Decision making procedures identify specific prescriptions for behaviour, which will regularly change as a regime is consolidated and extended
  • B. Rules are coherent with the way of life of its actors ii. representatives are elected democratically iii. there is a legal system iv. rule-enforcement is under supervision of police military institutions
  • C. 'the concept of the regime is so complicated, there are no principle elements'
  • D. None of the above

Explanation: Krasner identifies principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures as the four elements of international regimes.

Correct answer: Principles are represented by coherent bodies of theoretical statements about how the world works ii. norms specify general standards of behaviour iii. rules operate at a lower level of generality than principles and norms iv. Decision making procedures identify specific prescriptions for behaviour, which will regularly change as a regime is consolidated and extended
  • A. The situation in which the regime does not have a clear successor to its ruler in case of death
  • B. A situation in which a regime's constitution is not followed or insignificant
  • C. A situation in which formal rules have been brought into existence without any expectation that they will be observe
  • D. a and b

Explanation: A dead-letter regime exists when formal rules are established but there is little or no expectation that actors will actually observe…

Correct answer: A situation in which formal rules have been brought into existence without any expectation that they will be observe
  • A. Because it is the major mechanism for establishing and maintaining a regime in the absence of a hegemon, since it deters actors from defecting
  • B. Because forming a regime needs much cooperation
  • C. Because following the golden rule puts all actors in the same situation
  • D. None of the above

Explanation: Reciprocity encourages states to cooperate by linking present behaviour to future responses: cooperation is returned with cooperation and…

Correct answer: Because it is the major mechanism for establishing and maintaining a regime in the absence of a hegemon, since it deters actors from defecting