International Relations MCQs from CSS Past Papers

Following are a few most repeated MCQs in CSS IR Past Papers. Candidates must at least memorize the following MCQs for CSS, PMS, and UPSC International Relations (IR) papers.

Contents hide

1 International Relations (IR) MCQs from CSS Past Papers

1.1 Books & Authors

1.2 Famous Treaties – IR MCQs

1.3 Famous Dates of International Events

1.4 Random IR MCQs from CSS Past Papers

1.5 CARs Capitals

International Relations (IR) MCQs from CSS Past Papers

Books & Authors

Neo-Realism or Structural Realism Theory was first outlined in the book Theory of International Politics (1979) by Kenneth Waltz.
The Tragedy of Great Power Politics is a book by John Mearsheimer
Interview with History, Book by Oriana Fallaci
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Book by Vladimir Lenin
Theory & Practice of International Relations: Book by Palmer & Perkins
Rise & Fall of Great Powers: Paul Kennedy
Preparing for the Twenty-first Century, Book by Paul Kennedy
Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Book by Henry Kissinger
Politics Among Nations, Book by Hans Morgenthau and Kenneth W. Thompson
The Communist Manifesto was first published in German on February 21, 1848.
Voyage through History: Masarrat Husain Zuberi
Conquest without War: Nikita Khrushchev
Higher than Hope: Nelson Mandela
The Military & Politics in Pakistan: Hasan Askari Rizvi
The Twenty Years’ Crisis: 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations by E. H. Carr
The End of History & the Last Man: Francis Fukuyama 1992 || Triumph of economic and political liberalism
Clash of Civilizations: Samuel P. Huntington 1996

Famous Treaties – IR MCQs

Treaty of Bonn, 7 November 921, a “pact of friendship”, was signed between Charles III of France and Henry I of Germany
Treaty of London, (April 26, 1915) secret treaty between neutral Italy and the Allied forces of France, Britain, and Russia to bring Italy into World War I.
Treaty of Vienna, 25 March 1815, was the formal agreement of the allied powers — Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia — committing them to wage war against Napoleon until he was defeated.
The Treaty of Rome brought about the creation of the European Economic Community. Signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany, and it came into force on 1 January 1958.
The treaty of the European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, (07 Feb 1992) is the foundation treaty of the European Union.
NPT opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force in 1970.
START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty): signed in 1991
INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) Treaty signed on 08 Dec 1987
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT), signed on October 30, 1947, by 23 countries, was a legal agreement minimizing barriers to international trade by eliminating or reducing quotas, tariffs, and subsidies while preserving significant regulations.
Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dayton Accords, is the peace agreement reached on 21 November 1995, and formally signed in Paris, on 14 December 1995.
CTBT was signed on 27 September 1996

Famous Dates of International Events

The Chinese Communist Party was founded on July 23, 1921.
ECO was founded in 1985 || 10 Member Countries
IMF 1944
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) 1944
Bretton Woods: July 1, 1944 – July 22, 1944
The UN Charter 1945 was drawn up in San Francisco.
ICJ: 26 June 1945 The Hague (Netherlands)
UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris on 10 December 1948.
NATO 1949
Suez Canal was nationalized by Egypt on July 26, 1956
Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC) is a political and economic union of Arab states bordering the Gulf. It was established in 1981 and its 6 members are the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain.
SAARC 8 Members 1985 || Idea originated in the mind of Zia ur Rehman
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eastern Europe and Asia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Founded December 8, 1991
Kyoto Protocol of 1997 was a framework convention on climate change.
Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition: December 15, 2015
India and Pakistan became full members of SCO on 9 June 2017
48th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, held in Islamabad, Pakistan, on 22-23 March 2022
Asian Development Bank (19 December 1966) HQ, Mandaluyong, Philippines
Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947
Marshall Plan: April 03, 1948
In October 1943, Joseph Stalin, Franklin D Roosevelt & Winston Churchill met in Iran and agreed in principle to form the UN.
First World War started after the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand by South Slav nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914.
2^nd World War started on 1 September 1939 with Hitler’s invasion of Poland and ended with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945.
Amnesty International: May 28, 1961, London, United Kingdom
Transparency International was founded on May 4, 1993
SCO 15 June 2001
ASEAN was established on August 8, 1967, in Bangkok, Thailand.
European Trade Union Confederation was established in 1973.
Shanghai Five group was created on 26 April 1996 || Shanghai Five Members: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.
Sino Pak Boundary Agreement 1963
Bandung Conference: 1955
UN was set up on October 24, 1945, in San Francisco, California, United States

Random IR MCQs from CSS Past Papers

Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
Euro in 19 EU countries
USA largest exporter of Weapons
Iran Pakistan Pipeline is also called Peace Pipeline | 2,775-kilometre (1,724 mi) pipeline to deliver natural gas.
Russia has the highest gas reserves.
The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries.
Jan Smuts from South Africa originally wrote the opening lines of the Preamble of UNO.
Realism: Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Niebuhr, Hans J. Morgenthau
Neo-Realism: Kenneth Waltz
Liberalism: Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, J J Rousseau
Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author who is considered the father of modern economics. Smith argued against mercantilism and was a major proponent of laissez-faire economic policies.
Clausewitz famously wrote, ‘War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means”.
Nelson Mandela was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and political leader who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, died on December 05, 2013. After 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela was released in 1990.
29 littoral countries around the Indian Ocean.
Herbert Spencer advocated the Principle of Survival of the Fittest.
Mussolini said that “My programme is action and not talk”.
Balance of threat theory: Stephen M. Walt
Jean Piaget is considered the father of constructivism.
Newest State: South Sudan (July 9, 2011)
Ostpolitik: The foreign policy of western European countries of detente with reference to the former communist bloc, especially the opening of relations with the Eastern bloc by the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in the 1960s.
Complex Interdependence in the international political economy is a concept put forth by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in the 1970s to describe the emerging nature of the global political economy.
The term “Axis of Evil” was first used by George W Bush.
Apartheid policy in South Africa governed relations between the white minority and nonwhite majority for much of the latter half of the 20th century (1948 – 1994), sanctioning racial segregation and political and economic discrimination against nonwhites.
Father of International Law: Hugo Grotius
Quid Pro Quo meaning in law: Something for Something
Jus ad Bellum refers to the conditions under which States may resort to war or to the use of armed force in general.
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., delivered a speech.
Ottawa Convention 1997 is related to Banning Landmines.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner of 2014 along with Malala is Kailash Satyarthi (who campaigned against child labor in India and advocated the universal right to education).
For many years, Brazil was under Portuguese rule.
Sheikh Ahmad Yasin found Hamas in 1987.
Ghana was formerly known as Gold Coast.
In 1877 the city was renamed Kristiania. The original name of Oslo was restored in 1925.
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty: 17 Oct
Glasnost & Perestroika mean Openness & Economic Restructuring. || Introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev
Malta Conference was held in 1945 between President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom on the island of Malta.
Yalta Conference (Feb 1945) was a meeting of three World War II allies: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.
Green Line is a term that emerged in the wake of Israel’s establishment in 1948, whose proper name is the 1949 Armistice Line. It refers to the border separating pre-1967 Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territories and constitutes an internationally recognized border.
Reagan Doctrine is “Military Support to Anti Communist”
Nixon Doctrine is a “Nuclear Umbrella”.
Warsaw: Capital of Poland
HQ of Conference on Disarmament: Geneva
The Iran-Iraq war lasted for 8 years.
Iran occupied Kuwait in August 1990.
Hitler: 1933
Korean War: 1950 – 1953
Hague Convention, any of a series of international treaties at the Hague in the Netherlands in 1899 and 1907.
Germany invaded Poland in 1939.
Bretton Woods Conference, officially known as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, was a gathering of delegates from 44 nations that met from July 1 to 22, 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to agree upon a series of new rules for the post-WWII international monetary system.
UAE is the federation of 7 Emirates.
Afghanistan became a buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire in 1879.
Suez Crisis between Egypt, France, Britain, and Israel began in 1956. The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France.
UN Charter consists of a preamble and 111 articles grouped into 19 chapters.
Prime Minister of UK at the time of Creation of Pakistan: Attlee
Neoliberalism is contemporarily used to refer to market-oriented reform policies such as “eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers” and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence on the economy.
The limit of the territorial waters is a distance of twelve nautical miles.
Deng Xiaoping is responsible for the economic reforms in China since the mid-1970s.
Neocolonialism: the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries, especially former dependencies.
United Nations (UN) has six main organs.
6 Scandinavian countries
King Abdulaziz Al-Saud established the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Sept 23,
USSR was replaced by Russian Federation in Dec 1991.
USSR Disintegration: 26 Dec 1991
Article 55 of the UN Charter promotes international Human Rights.
The term Cold War was first used by George Orwell.
Diplomatic relations between Pak & Afghanistan: Feb 1, 1948
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, United Kingdom.
General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) France
On 30 January 1972, Pakistan left Commonwealth in protest at the Commonwealth’s recognition of breakaway Bangladesh but rejoined on 2 August 1989.
China and Russia have the most neighboring countries with 14 neighbors each.
Sir Zafarullah Khan: President & Judge of ICJ
U-2 Incident: May 1, 1960
Security Council consists of fifteen
NAM was formed in 1961. Pakistan joined it in 1979.
The first OIC Conference was held in Rabat (capital city of Morocco). || Org of Islamic Cooperation
Ras Koh Hills is situated in the Chagai District of Balochistan.
Current Secretary-General of OIC: Dr. Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen || First Tunku Abdul Rahman
António Guterres: Portuguese
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” | French Revolution slogan (from 1789 to 1799)
The Commonwealth consists of 54 countries, including the United Kingdom.
Durand Line: 12 November 1893
The policy of Peaceful Co-existence was given by Nikita Khrushchev.
European Union (EU) consists of 27 member states.