HL Extensions
This will be a stimulus-based paper based on global political challenges. The questions relate to a particular item or topic presented through the stimulus; students support their responses with evidence from their previously researched case studies. While these case studies were discussed throughout the course, the information provided here can help you be better prepared for success on Paper 3.
Adapted from IBDP Global Politics Guide, p. 16
Borders
This paper shows why the Northern Ireland/Ireland border moved from a marginal to a core concern in the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (‘Brexit’). Drawing on longitudinal research on the impact of the EU on the Irish border, and contemporaneous research on the Phase 1 of negotiations of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, it explains this case study through three broad themes. First, the impact of EU membership on the transformation of the border and, secondly, the challenges posed by Brexit to the border in practical and symbolic terms. Finally, it analyses how these have been addressed in the call for ‘specific solutions’ to meet the UK’s ambition of ‘avoiding a hard border’ after withdrawal. In so doing, it explores the ways in which the multi-layered complexities of a small, peripheral geographical region came to influence the course of the UK’s most important set of international negotiations for half a century.
Environment
On 12 December 2015, more than 190 countries made pledges to cut emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), covering 94 per cent of the world’s GHG emissions. They also adopted language calling for efforts towards a 1.5 degree limit to global warming—the upper boundary of safety for many fragile island states and Least Developed Countries. After twenty-one years of hard negotiations and six years after the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks ended in disarray, this was a remarkable turnaround. How did it happen? This short case study uses the various chapters and themes in this book to unpack the story of Paris