How to write the IB Global Politics IA

The Global Politics IA is the one piece of coursework your Global Politics grade is marked on internally, and it is worth roughly a fifth of your final grade. It is not an essay you write from a desk: it is the engagement project, in which you go out and engage first-hand with a real political issue, and then turn that experience into around 2,000 words of concept-based analysis. Most students who lose marks do so not because they cannot write about politics, but because they choose an issue they can never actually touch, or they describe what they did instead of analysing it. This guide walks you through the whole thing: what the engagement project is, what it rewards, exactly how to build each part, and what separates a top-band project from an average one.

The IB Global Politics IA at a glance

The engagement project asks you to choose a political issue, engage with it directly, and analyse that engagement through the lens of the course. At Standard Level the project is marked out of 24 and written up in roughly 2,000 words. At Higher Level the same engagement is extended with a written recommendation, so the project becomes a little longer and a little more demanding. Either way, the IA is worth about 20% of your final Global Politics grade, which makes it one of the highest-value pieces of work you will produce in the course. The defining feature — the thing that makes it unlike almost any other IA — is that the marks reward something you actually do, not just something you read about.

How the Global Politics IA is marked: what it rewards

The engagement project rewards three things, and a top-band project shows all three. Write your project with each one consciously in view, and keep checking what each one is really asking for.

How to write a Global Politics IA, step by step

1. Choose a political issue you can engage with locally. The single most important decision is the issue itself. It has to be narrow and close enough that you can act on it first-hand — through volunteering, an interview or an event — not a global abstraction you can only read about.
2. Engage first-hand and record it. Carry out genuine, sustained engagement and keep a contemporaneous record: dates, what you did, who you spoke to and what you noticed. This record is the raw material the rest of the project is built on.
3. Link the issue to course concepts. Map your issue onto the concepts that genuinely apply — power, sovereignty, legitimacy, interdependence, human rights, development, peace and conflict — and let those concepts frame your analysis rather than decorate it.
4. Analyse from multiple perspectives. Set out how the different stakeholders see the issue and analyse it through more than one viewpoint, showing why reasonable people disagree.
5. Evaluate the perspectives and your own engagement. Weigh the competing perspectives against one another, and reflect critically on what your first-hand engagement revealed and where it fell short.
6. (HL) Add a reasoned recommendation. At Higher Level, extend the project with a written, justified recommendation that follows logically from your analysis.

Global Politics IA structure: what goes in each section

There is no single mandated layout, but the structure that maps most cleanly onto what the engagement project rewards is:

• The issue & its justification — the political issue, why it matters, and why it is one you can engage with locally.
• The engagement — what you did first-hand (volunteering, interview, event), with a clear account of the experience.
• Concepts — the course concepts the issue connects to, and why each one applies.
• Perspectives — how different stakeholders see the issue, set out fairly.
• Analysis — the issue analysed through the concepts and across those perspectives.
• Evaluation — the perspectives weighed against each other, and a critical reflection on your engagement and its limits.
• (HL) Recommendation — a reasoned recommendation that follows from the analysis.
• References — a consistent citation style throughout.

What a strong vs weak Global Politics IA looks like

The fastest way to lift your marks is to see the difference. Here is the same work done two ways.

Choosing the issue

Concept-based analysis

The evaluation

Common mistakes that cost marks

• An issue you can't actually touch. If the engagement can only be reading, the project cannot reach the top band — choose something local and actionable.
• Token engagement. A single afternoon is not "sustained" — the engagement should be genuine and ongoing.
• Opinion dressed up as analysis. Concepts have to do real work; a concept named once and then dropped is not concept-based analysis.
• One perspective only. Showing the issue from a single viewpoint, usually your own, caps the analysis.
• Recount instead of evaluation. Describing what you did is not the same as weighing the perspectives and reflecting on your engagement.
• (HL) A recommendation that doesn't follow. The recommendation must grow out of the analysis, not arrive from nowhere.
• Drifting past ~2,000 words. The project is meant to be concise — wordiness buries your analysis.

Global Politics IA — frequently asked questions

Guidance written by experienced IB examiners and aligned to the current Global Politics guide. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization.