Contemporary IR Theories and Approaches MCQs 2026

Ontology in constructivism asks

1. A only chemical elements ✓
2. B what exists in social reality (agents, structures, ideas) ✓
3. C only planets ✓
4. D only minerals ✓

Reflectivism labels approaches that

1. A reject all scholarship ✓
2. B question positivist science and emphasize interpretation ✓
3. C only run regressions ✓
4. D only study physics ✓

The "third debate" in IR refers to

1. A realism vs liberalism only ✓
2. B economics vs history only ✓
3. C positivist vs post-positivist methodological disputes ✓
4. D law vs medicine ✓

Human security approach shifts focus to

1. A only tanks and bombers ✓
2. B only space colonies ✓
3. C only corporate logos ✓
4. D protecting individuals from multiple threats beyond state-centric war ✓

Constructivist account of the end of Cold War stresses

1. A only NATO spending alone ✓
2. B only geography ✓
3. C only random luck ✓
4. D new ideas and Gorbachev's learning changing Soviet identity ✓

Feminist peace research links militarization to

1. A gendered hierarchies and masculinized security cultures ✓
2. B pure market forces only ✓
3. C only volcanic activity ✓
4. D only typography ✓

Postmodern security studies might analyze

1. A only troop numbers ✓
2. B only coal reserves ✓
3. C only rainfall ✓
4. D how visual media construct fear and otherness ✓

Systems theory equilibrium implies

1. A permanent revolution always ✓
2. B no feedback ever ✓
3. C tendencies toward balance unless disturbed ✓
4. D static forever without change ✓

Behavioural approach limitation critics say it

1. A is too interpretive ✓
2. B ignores all numbers ✓
3. C rejects computers ✓
4. D may oversimplify culture and meaning ✓

Constructivism's policy insight is that

1. A only bigger armies matter ✓
2. B ideas never change ✓
3. C leaders cannot learn ✓
4. D changing ideas and norms can transform international outcomes ✓

Constructivism in IR argues that

1. A international reality is socially constructed through ideas, norms and identities ✓
2. B only material power matters ✓
3. C states are born with fixed identities ✓
4. D science ends interpretation ✓

Alexander Wendt is a leading

1. A neorealist only ✓
2. B offensive realist only ✓
3. C mercantilist economist ✓
4. D constructivist theorist ✓

Wendt's famous claim is that

1. A anarchy is eternal and unchangeable ✓
2. B states cannot learn ✓
3. C ideas never influence behaviour ✓
4. D anarchy is what states make of it ✓

Constructivists emphasize

1. A only GDP and missiles ✓
2. B only geographic determinism ✓
3. C norms, identity and discourse in shaping state interests ✓
4. D only random chance ✓

A norm in constructivist terms is

1. A only a domestic statute ✓
2. B a shared expectation of appropriate behaviour ✓
3. C only a military unit ✓
4. D only a trade tariff ✓

Identity in constructivism affects

1. A nothing at all ✓
2. B how states define friends, enemies and interests ✓
3. C only weather patterns ✓
4. D only currency values ✓

Critical theory in IR challenges

1. A all empirical research ✓
2. B only ancient history ✓
3. C only mathematics ✓
4. D mainstream assumptions and power structures that reproduce domination ✓

The Frankfurt School influence in IR promotes

1. A status quo acceptance only ✓
2. B emancipation and reflection on hidden power ✓
3. C pure balance-of-power mechanics ✓
4. D rejection of ethics entirely ✓

Feminist IR theory highlights

1. A gendered power relations and exclusion of women in security discourse ✓
2. B only conventional military balances ✓
3. C only trade statistics ✓
4. D only cartography ✓

Feminist scholars argue traditional IR often

1. A treats women and gender as invisible or peripheral ✓
2. B fully includes all genders equally ✓
3. C rejects all security studies ✓
4. D only studies economics ✓

Standpoint feminism in IR suggests

1. A only elite men's views matter ✓
2. B gender is irrelevant to war ✓
3. C all theories are identical ✓
4. D marginalized perspectives reveal hidden truths about power ✓

Postmodernism in IR (e.g., Der Derian) questions

1. A grand narratives, fixed truth and sovereign subjectivity ✓
2. B only economic growth models ✓
3. C only population statistics ✓
4. D only engineering ✓

Poststructuralism focuses on

1. A fixed natural laws only ✓
2. B pure material forces only ✓
3. C how discourse constitutes subjects and power relations ✓
4. D only naval strategy ✓

Behaviouralism in IR (1960s) sought

1. A pure moral philosophy only ✓
2. B scientific methods, quantification and testable hypotheses ✓
3. C only literary criticism ✓
4. D rejection of data ✓

Systems theory in IR treats the international system as

1. A an interacting whole with feedback and properties beyond units ✓
2. B unrelated isolated states only ✓
3. C only domestic politics ✓
4. D only individual psychology ✓

Kaplan's systems models (e.g., balance of power, loose bipolar) illustrate

1. A one universal model only ✓
2. B domestic models only ✓
3. C different structural patterns producing different politics ✓
4. D no patterns exist ✓

Game theory in IR is used to model

1. A only natural disasters ✓
2. B strategic interaction where outcomes depend on others' choices ✓
3. C only poetry ✓
4. D only demography alone ✓

The prisoner's dilemma suggests under anarchy

1. A cooperation is always automatic ✓
2. B rational actors may not cooperate even when joint gains exist ✓
3. C defection never occurs ✓
4. D institutions are unnecessary ✓

Rational choice institutionalism combines

1. A only cultural narratives ✓
2. B only divine intervention ✓
3. C only random walks ✓
4. D rational actors with institutional constraints and incentives ✓

Norm life cycle (Finnemore/Sikkink) includes

1. A only military buildup phases ✓
2. B only economic cycles only ✓
3. C norm emergence, cascade and internalization ✓
4. D only electoral terms ✓

Constructivists differ from neorealists because they

1. A see ideas and identity as constitutive, not just effects of power ✓
2. B deny any role for material forces ✓
3. C reject all evidence ✓
4. D ignore states ✓

Marxist/critical approaches in IR analyze

1. A only ceremonial diplomacy ✓
2. B capitalism, imperialism and class in global relations ✓
3. C only sport ✓
4. D only grammar ✓

World-systems theory (Wallerstein) divides the world into

1. A only land and sea ✓
2. B only north and south poles ✓
3. C only urban blocks ✓
4. D core, semi-periphery and periphery ✓

Postcolonial IR theory examines

1. A only future technologies ✓
2. B only weather ✓
3. C how colonial histories shape contemporary global power ✓
4. D only sports leagues ✓

Edward Said's Orientalism is used in IR to critique

1. A mathematical proofs only ✓
2. B Western representations that justify domination of the "East" ✓
3. C trade balances only ✓
4. D naval tonnage only ✓

Securitization theory (Copenhagen School) studies

1. A how issues become framed as existential security threats ✓
2. B only military budgets ✓
3. C only agricultural yields ✓
4. D only museum curation ✓

Constructivist research often uses

1. A historical case studies and discourse analysis ✓
2. B only laboratory experiments on animals ✓
3. C only astrology ✓
4. D only fiction without evidence ✓

Feminist security studies broadens security to include

1. A only nuclear missiles ✓
2. B only naval bases ✓
3. C everyday violence, economic rights and human security ✓
4. D only space lasers ✓

Postmodern IR resists

1. A all empirical inquiry categorically ✓
2. B mathematics in physics ✓
3. C foundational claims to objective truth in world politics ✓
4. D geography maps ✓

Behavioural IR contrasted with traditionalism by prioritizing

1. A classical philosophy only ✓
2. B data, measurement and middle-range theory ✓
3. C only legal hermeneutics ✓
4. D only theology ✓

Cybernetics and systems approaches model

1. A only static billiard balls ✓
2. B feedback, homeostasis and adaptation in politics ✓
3. C only individual whim ✓
4. D only geology ✓

Agent-structure problem in IR asks

1. A how agents and social structures mutually constitute each other ✓
2. B only agents matter ✓
3. C only structures matter ✓
4. D neither matters ✓

Wendt identifies cultures of anarchy as

1. A Hobbesian, Lockean and Kantian based on shared ideas ✓
2. B only one eternal culture ✓
3. C only economic cultures ✓
4. D only linguistic families ✓

Critical theorists like Linklater emphasize

1. A permanent war as ideal ✓
2. B closed nationalism only ✓
3. C cosmopolitan ethics and transformation of political community ✓
4. D rejection of morality ✓

Feminist critics of realism argue it

1. A perfectly captures gender ✓
2. B rejects all war studies ✓
3. C is identical to liberalism ✓
4. D naturalizes masculinized concepts of power and security ✓

Postmodernists view sovereignty as

1. A a contested discursive construct rather than a simple fact ✓
2. B a natural eternal essence ✓
3. C irrelevant fiction with no effects ✓
4. D only a military map ✓

English School overlap with constructivism appears in

1. A shared emphasis on norms, institutions and international society ✓
2. B denial of all norms ✓
3. C pure individual psychology ✓
4. D only econometrics ✓

Quantitative IR methods include

1. A only single poems ✓
2. B large-N statistical analysis of conflict and trade ✓
3. C only one diary entry ✓
4. D only pottery styles ✓

Qualitative constructivist methods include

1. A only mass surveys always ✓
2. B only astrophysics ✓
3. C process tracing and interpretive understanding ✓
4. D only coin flipping ✓

Epistemology in IR debates concerns

1. A only military ranks ✓
2. B only river lengths ✓
3. C how we know what we claim about world politics ✓
4. D only building heights ✓