Practice IB Global Politics Topic Equality with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for Equality and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 turned a network founded in 2013 into the largest protest wave in recent memory. Within weeks, marches under the Black Lives Matter banner appeared in the United Kingdom, France, Australia and dozens of other countries, each attaching the slogan to its own history of policing and race. Supporters argue the movement changed what societies are willing to discuss. Critics counter that attention faded quickly and that durable change still depends on statutes, budgets and courts, which move at the pace of domestic politics rather than street mobilisation."
Source: Adapted from international press commentary on the 2020 protest wave.
Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about the Black Lives Matter protest wave of 2020.
Analyse one political issue raised by the transnational spread of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Recommend a course of action that a transnational movement such as Black Lives Matter and allied domestic legislators could take to convert protest attention into durable reductions in racial inequality, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which transnational protest movements are more effective than domestic policy reform at reducing racial inequality.
Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law recognised a fixed list of national races and left the Rohingya off it, rendering roughly a million people effectively stateless in the country many had lived in for generations. Without citizenship they lost secure access to movement, marriage, schooling and the vote. In 2017 military clearance operations drove about 740,000 Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh, bringing the total sheltering in the camps around Cox's Bazar to roughly a million. In 2019 The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, arguing the treatment of the Rohingya breached the Genocide Convention. Analysts disagree over whether the deepest cause is religious hostility toward a Muslim minority or the legal fact of statelessness itself."
Source: Adapted from human rights and legal reporting on the Rohingya.
Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about the drivers of inequality faced by the Rohingya.
Analyse one political issue raised by the statelessness of the Rohingya.
Recommend a course of action that international actors such as the ICJ, UNHCR and the government of Bangladesh could take to reduce the inequality faced by the stateless Rohingya, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which statelessness, rather than religious discrimination, is the root driver of inequality faced by the Rohingya.
Stimulus
Discussions of economic inequality often hinge on whether justice requires equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. Equality of opportunity holds that fairness is achieved when everyone competes on a level playing field, regardless of the wealth gaps that result. On this view, the priority is removing barriers to participation rather than narrowing the final distribution of income and wealth.
Equality of outcome, by contrast, focuses on the distribution itself. Oxfam's annual wealth reporting repeatedly documents extreme concentration, noting that a small number of billionaires hold more wealth than large shares of humanity, and argues this concentration is itself unjust. Redistributive tools such as the 2021 OECD and G20 agreement on a global minimum corporate tax of 15 per cent aim to reclaim revenue from the most profitable firms, reflecting a concern not only with opportunity but with the concentration of outcomes across the world economy.
Adapted from "Level Playing Fields or Level Results? The Politics of Economic Equality" by Dr Marcus Feldt, International Journal of Distributive Justice (2022).
Using at least two examples from the stimulus, contrast equality of opportunity with equality of outcome
With explicit reference to a global political challenge from one of your researched case studies, explain how a partnership between a state or intergovernmental organization and a non-state actor has been used to reduce global economic inequality
Based on your answer to part (b), recommend one strategic change that would make the partnership more effective at reducing the concentration of global wealth
Evaluate the extent to which global redistributive mechanisms can reduce economic inequality between and within states. Base your response on one researched case study and integrate links to at least two HL extension topic areas.
Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "South Africa dismantled apartheid and guaranteed formal legal equality in its 1996 Constitution, yet it remains among the most unequal countries on earth, with a Gini coefficient around 0.63. Wealth is still sharply divided along racial lines three decades after the first democratic elections in 1994. Policies such as Black Economic Empowerment tried to broaden ownership and opportunity, but critics say they enriched a connected few while leaving mass poverty untouched. The country's experience has sharpened an old debate: is the priority to widen the starting gate so everyone can compete fairly, or to narrow the gap in what people actually end up with?"
Source: Adapted from development and economic commentary on post-apartheid South Africa.
Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about inequality in post-apartheid South Africa.
Analyse one political issue raised by the gap between formal legal equality and persistent inequality in South Africa.
Recommend a course of action that the South African government could take to reduce inequality of outcome while preserving equality of opportunity, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which reducing inequality of outcome matters more than guaranteeing equality of opportunity for long-term social stability.
Stimulus
Data extract (adapted): Results from Mexico's 2020 national population census, the first full national census to count the Afro-Mexican population, following the 2015 intercensal survey (Encuesta Intercensal) that first counted them nationally. Figures compare the Afro-Mexican population with the national average.
Share of total population: about 2.5 million, roughly 2 percent (national total: 100 percent).
Completed upper-secondary education: about 30 percent of Afro-Mexicans (national average: about 40 percent).
Living in high-marginalisation municipalities: about 43 percent of Afro-Mexicans (national average: about 24 percent).
Reported experiencing skin-colour discrimination: about 55 percent of Afro-Mexicans (national average: not applicable).
Source: Adapted from Mexico's national statistics agency (INEGI) 2020 census reporting and CONAPRED survey findings.
Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about the situation of the Afro-Mexican population revealed by Mexico's 2020 census.
Analyse one political issue raised by the official recognition and measurement of the Afro-Mexican population.
Recommend a course of action that the Mexican government and CONAPRED could take to reduce colourism-linked inequality for the Afro-Mexican population, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which official recognition and measurement of a marginalised group is a precondition for reducing its inequality.