PSIR - Strategy, resources & discussion

The best I can think of is Hannah Arendt as @HeNeArKr said. Public sphere and active citizenship for sure. In addition, I think mentioning her idea of representative thinking, which is essential to good citizenship and demands much more of people in charge than representative democracy does, will add to the answer. Plus it makes a catchy sentence (“representative thinking, not representative democracy”). 

Also, just to deepen the explanation of representative democracy, the two models: delegate model of Locke and Bentham and enlightened representation model of Mill and Burke. The flaws of both can be pointed out separately. 

For criticism apart from Arendt, Rousseau as was mentioned here. For an Indian context, Gandhi and Roy should be enough.

I think quoting Indian critics will still be valuable even if the points are not very new, simply because they’re Indian. And we can potentially expand on it giving examples of the Indian experience - in this case under British rule.

Nice! Love the point about "representative thinking". It's going into my notes now. I read the explanation from plato.stanford and its discussion on the role of debate in formation of political opinion makes a great point for Deliberative Democracy

I was talking about partyless democracy given by gandhi,roy as " Parties are prostitutes"  not representative of public opinion. Hence we should go for village republics or direct democracy.

If you know the scholar you can and if the scholar is someone renowned. I don't know what's advisable or not just my personal opinion in the above case -political parties were compared with prostitutes by Gandhi so you can quote it. Although in GS I would avoid using such terms ( again my personal opinion)

Macpherson model is also called the radical theory of democracy. MN Roy model od democracy is also closed to it.

Its based on the humanity at the centre. In their views, different types of systems which undertake to fulfil the aspirations of the masses, enjoy support of the masses and provide for an opportunity for the amelioration of the condition of the masses, qualify as democracies irrespective of the structures and procedures adopted by them for serving these purposes.
Direct democracy however, have an explicit view that political parties are also necessary even when they advocate for direct people participation. 

Called an illusion of democracy, propagate civil disengagement with the unresponsive nature of modern government. 
Rousseau's "general will" can be used to understand.
Can quote Amartya Sen that unless there is civic participation, its not possible to have good governance. 

Hannah can be quoted as how@whatonly told.

Besides I don't see much emphasis on renewed US-Russia rivalry. Most articles are about US-China competition. 

So I feel it has less chance but yes it can be prepared since we have time. 

Woh India's vision of emerging WO tha i guess !

Russia ke saath nhi. China ke saath hi hoga CW ab. Pehle Nuclear deterrence tha ab shayad Cyber deterrence ho.(Maine hi socha hai, lol ... dont quote) 

Both are selecting and forming group with other countries. Lets see how it roles in next 15 years, when it would be time for the elephant to Rise. 

“There have been some prominent shifts in the world, in the recent past leading towards gradual unfolding of a new world order in coming future”. Comment .

Maine jyada likha isme and hence shi se structure nhi hua .. wrote from 2001 and 2008 later about Russia resurgence .. also axis of evil and China rise .. middle kingdom ... end me how India sees the multipolar world. But kuchh zyada ho gya likhne ka .. Joseph Nye ka 3D chess board likhna hi bhul gya ...yeh sab kahani btane ke chakar me. End me socha likhun but answer end krr rha tha tab .. lol .. how you guys manage this thing... wrote my first answer after like 6 months 

Why is India considered as an Elephant in IR lexicon.

Is this answered in Does the Elephant dance, if somebody has read it.

Maybe this is the reason. I'm not sure.

@Jammu or anyone, where can I find SR’s crash course video explaining structure of answers, etc.

Mile toh bhejna mujhe bhi bhai

Hi to all the very cool, but erudite veterans here,

I've started out recently, armed with PSIR as the weapon of choice, absence of familiarity with the subject led me to seek refuge under the very towering Shubhra Ranjan, she's started out promisingly with Western Political Thought, which I feel (after stalking this thread here) is probably the superstructure of the PSIR syllabus.

My question here is besides revising Ma'am's class notes everyday, should I also be supplementing this with a textbook at this stage, like OP Gauba, Sushila Ramaswamy, or should I wait for Western Political Thought to get over, get really cozy with Maam's notes and then begin reading other texts? 

Also, I have made a booklist for PSIR, but after scouring through the internet, I saw quite a handful of toppers vouch for just Maam's notes and some addition value addition here and there. Do you all attest to this? Are there books which are essential must reads? (Gauba, Sushila Ramaswamy, Bhargava, Baylis and Smith, Andrew Heywood) I feel a little uneasy with the idea of taking up an optional and not going through the textbooks. SR also very convincingly in her first lecture dissuaded from taking up any readings, she then very reluctantly, doled out the names of certain textbooks.  

To avoid complacency, I've started out with reading Maam's notes of Paper-2, so that I would also be covering the Paper-2 groundwork on my own simultaneously with Maam's lectures of Paper-1.

Please help me out here, any help on this front would be a lifesaver! @whatonly @Villanelle @babu_bisleri @KropotkinSchmopotkin @Jammu 

(this thread is absolutely dope, a lot of golden nuggets here, thank you to all of you! )

I don’t think it is there on public platform anywhere. The videos in my portal to which I subscribed last year are no more there.

Maybe you can search for people who subscribed to her year long TS. There were batches that started in Oct, Dec 2020 for Mains 2021.