Critically examine the Marxist aspect of political economy approach to the study of comparative politics.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 locate Marxist strand inside political economy → politics read through economic structure + class → set against liberal market faith
Route 2 Marxist PE reads comparative development through mode of production, not markets → exploitation as the organising idea
historical materialism → mode of production = economic base shapes political-legal superstructure → state as instrument of bourgeoisie (not neutral) → applied to uneven development across nations → Frank’s dependency (core/metropole drains periphery/satellite → underdevelopment) → Wallerstein’s world-systems (single capitalist world economy → core extracts surplus from periphery)
economic determinism → reduces politics to bourgeoisie–proletariat struggle → ignores culture/ideational factors + understates agency → Kenworthy: ignores political-cultural context + India’s poverty fall through capitalism weakens the thesis
Route 1 strong tool for exposing exploitation + structural inequality → but limited unless balanced with agency + context
Route 2 valuable diagnosis of global inequality → needs agency, culture, and empirical variation to complete it
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
