Books for Political Science Optional For UPSC Mains Exam

Political Science is a popular choice among IAS aspirants as it has significant overlap with general studies especially Indian polity and International relations (General awareness). Answer writing practice especially for the conceptual portions of the subject gives experience for answering questions in the general studies papers. It also comes handy while answering current affairs & foreign policy questions in interview.

Books for Political Science Optional For UPSC – English

• A History of Political Thought: Plato To Marx by Mukherjee and Susheela Ramaswamy
• Introduction to Political Theory by O P Gauba
• Political Theory by Rajeev Bhargava
• Indian Government and Politics by B L Fadia
• Politics by Heywood
• Global Politics by Heywood
• International Relations by Khanna
• Foundations of Indian Political Thought by V R Mehta
• Introduction to the Constitution of India by D D Basu
• India’s Struggle For Independence by Bipan Chandra
• Does The Elephant Dance?
• Contemporary India Foreign Policy by Malone

Books for Political Science Optional For UPSC – Hindi

• Rajniti Siddhant Ki Rooprekha by O P Gauba
• Rajneeti Chintan Ke Ruprekha by O P Gauba
• Bharat Mein Rajniti by R Khothari
• Bharat Ka Samvidhan-Ek Parichaya by Basu
• Bharat: Gandhi Ke Baad by Ramchandra Guha
• Bharat Ki Videsh Neeti by TMH
• Ekisvi Shatabdi Mein Antarrashtriya Ambhandh by TMH
• Prashnottri Rajneeti Vigyan (Paper I & II) by Arihant

Why One Should Choose Political Science Optional

• Every year considerable amount of aspirants select this subject as their optional as it is quite safe, scoring and interesting subject.
• Political science is a good optional subject with around 60% syllabus matching with the general studies.
• In Preliminary Exam every year, 8-10 questions are asked from Indian freedom movement and 15 to 20 questions are asked from Indian polity and Governance section
• Anyone who intends to clear prelims can never neglect Indian Polity section. Anyone who takes Political Science as optional would study Indian Polity and Governance along with International Relations and thus saving time for other topics for the preliminary exam.
• Lastly, in interview the subject comes to be extremely handy as a good knowledge of Governance, Polity and IR can result in very good marks and finally scale the gap between getting a recommendation and missing it by a few marks and investing one more year of your life in preparation
• Standard books and materials is easily available in the market