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POWER 50 is fifty capsules across fifty days — the whole PSIR syllabus revised once, in the order the syllabus is actually built. One topic a day, no jumping around. The method is simple and it works only if you hold to it: read the day’s capsule, write the same day, and don’t break the chain. Running alongside are PSIR Dynamics 2026 and the PYQ Vault — 560 previous-year questions spread over the fifty days, roughly eleven a day — so your revision and your answer-writing move together.
Day 2 — Theories of the State
Day 2 takes the state itself. We begin with what the state is — its meaning, the four core attributes of population, territory, government and sovereignty, and its five defining features — before tracing its origin and evolution and the long shift in sovereignty from monism to pluralism. From there the capsule moves through the types, functions and significance of the state, and then works theory by theory: liberal, neo-liberal and libertarian, pluralist, Marxist (both the instrumentalist and the structuralist readings), post-colonial, anarchist, Gandhian, fascist and authoritarian, and feminist. It closes with why each theory still earns marks, the power quotes worth carrying into the hall, a scholar index, and a map of how UPSC has set this topic. On the PYQ record from 2015 to 2025, this chapter has carried six 10-markers, one 15-marker and three 20-markers — every theory in it has been asked at least once, so none of it is optional.
Write before the evening:
- What is the Marxist and liberal approach towards the state? On what grounds are the theoretical differences between them premised? Explain. (UPSC 2025, 20m)
- Critically examine the neo-liberal theory of State. (UPSC 2018, 20m)
- Discuss the Feminist theory of the State. (UPSC 2016, 15m)
If you go blank on a thinker or a point above, it is covered in full in your Foundation and OGP class notes and handouts — revise it first, then write.
