Edexcel A2 Global Politics Paper 3D OFFICIAL THREAD

SO how did you guys find the exam today?

I thought it went really well actually. I did the UN question for the 45 marker, then the 15 markers on sovereignty, economic globalisation and superpowers/great powers. The UN 45 marker I knew would come up, and I had basically revised that essay for months haha! How did you find it?

Reply 2

sheens1

Original post by Redmonds

how did you know it would come up, what are your predictions for unit 4?

Reply 3

Redmonds

Original post by sheens1

how did you know it would come up, what are your predictions for unit 4?

I noticed a rotation between the EU 45 marker and the UN 45 marker since 2008, and it was the EU last year. Technically the EU shouldn't have come up this year, but given the context of the referendum I can see why they chose to do both for the last version of that paper. For 4D, I think there will be a Clash of Civilisations 45 marker.

Reply 4

imansu

Original post by Redmonds

That's good to hear (well done btw). And I did think the UN was very likely to come up this year, but I was planning to avoid it at all costs. I did the EU 45 marks question (I was surprise to see it on the paper- but like you said it made sense to why they bought it up again). I did the sovereignty question, the superpower/great power question (that wasn't my favourite tbh) and regionalism for the 15 markers. It was alright I suppose, just questioning if the examiner will be able to read my handwriting (it's not the most readable of writings).

Good luck to everyone for 4D btw! I am really hoping there is a North/South divide question this time around.

Reply 5

imansu

Original post by Redmonds

For the Clash of Civilisations questions, would you mind outlining the for and against points?? :smile:

Reply 6

Tariq_

For argument
- Rise of culture: Globalisation has eroded a state's ability to provide a sense of civic belonging to people, which means they often identify in cultural terms rather than with nation state. Witnessed in decline of socialism/nationalism & rise of 'Islamisation' and 'Hinduisation'. Examples include the rise of Islamic fundamentalism (Iranian revolution in 1979) and the Bharajihta Janata party in India which seeks to promote Hindu nationalism
- Cultural conflict: Rise of cultural belonging creates tendency towards tension and conflict. Different civilisations develop different values and ideas and different understandings of the world & means that cross-cultural understanding impossible. Awareness of 'other' culture divides people into 'us' and 'them', thus creating tension. Examples include rise of 'Asian values' and Islam v Western society.
- Civilisational conflict: Tendencies that Huntingdon points to in thesis are evident in nature of modern world. Tension between China & USA has cultural nature (Liberal-democratic west & Confucian China) and also tension between the West and Islam has a cultural character.

Against argument
- Civilisations are complex and fragmented: Huntingdon's thesis presents civilisations are hermetically sealed and is based on 'tectonic' model of civilisations. In reality civilisations are complex and fragmented and interpenetrate each other. Examples include Shi'a and Sunni divisions within Islam & also fact that Asian practices have influenced western societies and vice versa.
Cultural harmony and peaceful coexistence between cultures: Cultural similarity no guarantee of peace & most wars take place between states from same civilisation. Also evidence of peoples from different cultures living amongst each other peacefully such as in the Balkan states in the era of the Ottoman Empire. Cultural tensions therefore more a consequence of economic/social injustices rather than cultural incompatibility. - Example of this being economic underdevelopment in Muslim world, failure of Arab socialism, USA neo-colonialism all has more significant impact on rise of militant Islam than cultural tensions.
Cultural homogenisation: Effectiveness of globalisation in terms of 'complex interdependence' means that states unlikely to engage in conflict despite cultural tensions. Also force of cultural globalisation has flattened out cultural differences between states and so 'fault-line' conflict that Huntingdon refers to is not so relevant.

Hope this helps :smile:

Any other contributions/examples to add to this would be useful...

Reply 7

Redmonds

Original post by imansu

For the Clash of Civilisations questions, would you mind outlining the for and against points?? :smile:

Sounds like you did well then :smile:

In terms of the Clash of civilisations, if the question was something along the lines of 'To what extent is the clash of civilisations thesis relevant' I would say:

Is relevant: The fact that global conflict and tension seemingly always occurs on the fault lines of different religions (i.e Bosnia/Yugoslavia, the Kashmir region, Isreal/Iran, Iraq/Syria/Afghan etc); the resurgence in religious fundamentalism/nationalism in recent years (i.e Hindu nationalism in India, Wahhabi Islam in the Middle East, Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka) and an increase in the polarisation between different world religious groups/civilisations (Increase in religious terrorism, groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and their involvement in the execution of Christian groups etc)

Isn't relevant: Realist argument (The global system is in a state of anarchy, nation states are still the key drivers of conflict and tension, not religious groups); Liberal argument (Complex interdependence has resulted in homogenisation rather than polarisation between religious groups, immigration and assimilation has created multi-faith communities with no significant conflict of interests) and the fact that religious conflicts often take place within religions themselves (i.e in the Middle East, the conflict is largely between two different forms of Islam, an inter-denominational conflict between Sunni and Shia, rather than Islam vs Christianity/ Western values)

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 8

sheens1

Original post by Redmonds

Sounds like you did well then :smile:

thank you for this, is there any pattern to the 15 markers? Also, if there was a 15 mark question on religion in politics, would you define religion to begin with

Reply 9

Redmonds

Original post by sheens1

thank you for this, is there any pattern to the 15 markers? Also, if there was a 15 mark question on religion in politics, would you define religion to begin with

I would be confident that a human rights question will come up, there always seems to be a human rights 15 marker, on some papers there have been two! I think nuclear weapons could also come up as a 15 marker, nuclear weapons never seem to come up with terrorism in section A.

Reply 10

ABR98

Hi- Do you think it is possible they will ask a 45 like this: 'Conflict between the West and Islam is unavoidable' discuss.?
Or something along those line. A lot of people have been suggesting it will be clash of civilisations based but is that more about its relevance and pros and cons of?
Thanks

Reply 11

collans

Hi, can you tell me what 45 mark and 15 mark questions came up? From Twitter I was able to find that there were two 45 questions on: The international community has failed to make sufficient progress to tackle climate change.
Another one was - To what extent have the IMF/World Bank failed the world's poor.

What was the other 45 mark question?

I'm a teacher but haven't been able to see the paper yet.

Reply 12

imansu

I can't recall what the question exactly was, but it was based upon international courts and how effectively they protect rights. I think it's a question very similar to the Jan13 where it states "To what extent are international courts and tribunal effective in upholding human rights?".