Practice IB Global Politics Topic Sovereignty with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for Sovereignty and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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Source
Text extract (adapted): "In October 2017 a regional government staged an independence vote that the national constitutional court had banned. Millions cast ballots; the central state sent in police, suspended the region's autonomy and prosecuted its leaders."
Using the source and your own knowledge, how a nationalist or secessionist movement can challenge the sovereignty of an existing state.
the extent to which human rights are violated in the name of national security.
(a) Using Source B, three things the data suggest about the recognition of contested entities as states.
(b) Using Source A, how international recognition can be a source of a state's sovereignty.
(c) what Source C and Source D suggest about how important international recognition is to statehood.
(d) Using the sources and your own knowledge, the claim that a state is sovereign only when other states recognise it as such.
Source A
Adapted from "The Return of the Border," a discussion of the resurgence of sovereignty, published in an international affairs review, 2022.
Reports of the death of the sovereign state have proved premature. Faced with pandemics, migration and economic shocks, governments have reached instinctively for the oldest tool of all: the border. States closed their frontiers during COVID-19, reintroduced controls within regions that had abolished them, and reasserted the right to decide who may enter and on what terms. Movements demanding the return of powers from international bodies have gained ground. Far from fading away, the sovereign state remains the unit to which populations turn in a crisis, and the actor that ultimately controls force, taxation and law within its territory.
Source B
Adapted from a teaching table on the sources of state sovereignty, based on an international relations textbook, 2020.
| Source of sovereignty | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Control of territory | The state governs a defined geographic area |
| Monopoly on legitimate force | Only the state may lawfully use coercion within its borders |
| Recognition by other states | Other governments accept the state's authority |
| Consent of the governed | The population accepts the state's right to rule |
| Legal frameworks | Constitutions and international law define the state's powers |
"Sovereignty remains the most important foundation of a state's power in global politics." Using both sources and your own knowledge, this claim.
Source A
Text extract (adapted): "An international human-rights court exists precisely to override the state. When a national parliament or court fails to protect a person's rights, a citizen can appeal above the government's head to judges in another country, whose rulings the state has promised to obey. That is not a loss of sovereignty but its highest expression: a state binding itself, by treaty, to standards no majority at home may violate."
Source B
Text extract (adapted): "There is something troubling about foreign judges halting a government's policy overnight. A last-minute injunction from a supranational court can block a decision taken by an elected parliament on matters at the heart of national life, such as who may enter the country. Governments increasingly ask why unelected outsiders should have the final word, and some now threaten to leave the treaty altogether."
what Sources A and B suggest about whether international human-rights courts undermine national sovereignty.
Source A
Text extract (adapted): "A flag, a border and a government are not enough. A territory becomes a state in the eyes of the world only when other states agree to treat it as one, exchanging ambassadors, signing treaties and granting it a seat at the table."
Source B
(Figures are approximate.)
Source C
Text extract (adapted): "Recognition is politics dressed as law. Powerful states recognise their friends and deny their enemies. A people can meet every practical test of statehood and still be refused a seat because a great power wields a veto."
Source D
Text extract (adapted): "What matters is not paperwork abroad but control at home. An entity that collects taxes, keeps order and defends its borders is sovereign in fact, whatever foreign ministries choose to say."
