IB Diploma Programme Global Politics – Core topic – Framing global politics: stakeholders, actors and systems Study Guide

This study guide teaches the first prescribed topic of the IB Diploma Programme Global Politics core, “Framing global politics”, also titled “Systems and interactions in global politics”. It follows the IB Diploma Programme Global politics guide (first assessment 2026, published February 2024), the course examined from the May 2026 session onwards. The guide does not number its prescribed content, so this page covers the three items listed under that topic: stakeholders and actors, systems (structures and dynamics), and legal frameworks, norms and institutions. The content is common to SL and HL.

Use it with the revision notes and the practice questions. For the whole course, see the Global Politics hub and the printable checklist.

What this unit covers

Prescribed content	What you must be able to do	SL/HL
Stakeholders and actors	Name and describe each actor type the guide lists; tell a stakeholder from an actor; explain how an actor’s role changes with context	SL and HL
Systems – structures and dynamics	Explain how the structure of a system (who holds authority, how decisions are made) and its dynamics (how interactions change) shape what actors can do	SL and HL
Legal frameworks, norms and institutions	Explain how rules, norms and institutions regulate interactions, limit or enable courses of action, and sometimes cause political issues	SL and HL

Why it matters for the exam: Paper 1 (1 hour 15 minutes, 25 marks) is a source-based paper on the core topics, with four compulsory structured questions. Sources will name or show actors, and you must say who they are, what they can do and what constrains them. Paper 2 section B asks integrating questions that draw on the core topics too. This unit gives you the vocabulary for all of that.

1. Stakeholders and actors

The key distinction

An actor is an individual or group that can act – that has the agency and means to exercise power on a political issue. A stakeholder is anyone affected by the issue, whether or not they can act on it. The guide adds “stakeholders” on purpose: many people affected by a decision have no seat at the table. You should still consider them when you analyse an issue.

So every actor is a stakeholder on the issues it acts on, but not every stakeholder is an actor. A child living downstream from a new dam is a stakeholder. The ministry that approved the dam is an actor. A group can move between the two: residents who organise, raise money and bring a court case have turned themselves from stakeholders into actors.

The actor types the guide lists

You need all of these. Learn a one-line description and one example for each.

• States. Sovereign political units with a population, territory and government. The UN has 193 member states. States remain the only actors that can sign most treaties and join most IGOs as full members.
• Subnational and local governments. Regions, provinces, federal states and cities. The Scottish Parliament, a devolved legislature since 1999, is one example. Cities also act across borders: the C40 Cities network links large cities working on climate policy.
• Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Bodies whose members are states, set up by treaty – for example the United Nations (1945), the World Trade Organization, the African Union and ASEAN.
• Organized civil society (including NGOs). Non-profit groups independent of government, such as Amnesty International (human rights) or Médecins Sans Frontières (medical aid). They campaign, deliver services, monitor states and supply expertise.
• Private actors/companies. Firms from local businesses to multinational corporations. They invest, lobby, set technical standards and can control infrastructure that states depend on, such as payment systems or online platforms.
• Social movements. Broad, loosely organised networks of people pursuing change, often through protest. The Fridays for Future school strikes, which began in 2018, are an example.
• Resistance movements. Groups that oppose a ruling authority or occupying power, by armed or unarmed means. The label is contested: the same group may be called resistance fighters by supporters and insurgents or terrorists by the government it opposes. Say who uses which label.
• Political parties. Organisations that compete for office, usually through elections, and govern or form the opposition.
• Interest and pressure groups. Organised groups that try to influence policy without seeking office – for example trade unions, business associations and farmers’ unions.
• Political leaders. Individuals whose position or personal standing lets them shape decisions: heads of state and government, but also party, religious or movement leaders.
• Formal and informal political forums. Formal forums have founding rules and set membership, such as the UN General Assembly. Informal forums, such as the G7 and G20, have no founding treaty or permanent secretariat, which makes them flexible but their decisions non-binding.
• The media. Traditional news organisations and social media platforms. They set the agenda, frame issues and carry the messages of every other actor.
• Other individual and collective actors. Anyone else who shapes an issue: diaspora communities, individual activists, whistleblowers, expert networks, hacker collectives.

Same type, different power

The guide stresses that similar actors can have very different power and legitimacy in different contexts. A private company may be seen as a partner of government in one country and treated with suspicion in another. Organised civil society may be free to campaign in one state and closely restricted in the next. So never assume that an actor’s type tells you its power. Ask: in this system, what can this actor actually do, and who accepts that it should?

2. Systems – structures and dynamics

A political system is a set of actors plus the rules and patterns that govern how they interact. You can study a system at any scale. The guide lists global, international, regional, national, subnational, local and community levels.

Structure is the relatively stable arrangement of the system:

• who holds formal authority, and at what level (unitary or federal state; a regional body with or without powers over its members)
• how decisions are made (majority vote, consensus, veto)
• how power is distributed among actors (for example, whether one state or several dominate the international system)
• whether there is any authority above the actors. The international system has no world government, so states are not ruled by a higher power in the way citizens are ruled by a state.

Dynamics are the ways interactions change over time: cooperation and competition, alliances forming and breaking, new actors entering, rules being tested or reformed, and crises that shift who holds power.

The guide’s central point is that structures and dynamics regulate interactions and limit the courses of action open to actors. Two examples:

• In the UN Security Council, five permanent members hold a veto. That structure means a resolution can fail even with wide support, so other actors often turn to the General Assembly or to regional bodies instead.
• In the WTO dispute settlement system, only member governments can be parties. A company harmed by a trade barrier must persuade its own government to bring the case.

3. Legal frameworks, norms and institutions

Legal frameworks

A legal framework is a body of binding rules. Internationally, the main sources are treaties (written agreements between states) and customary international law (general state practice accepted as law). Domestically, constitutions and statutes set the rules.

Key examples:

• The UN Charter (1945) prohibits the threat or use of force against another state (Article 2(4)) but preserves the right of self-defence (Article 51).
• The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) sets out diplomatic immunity.

Learn the difference between hard law (binding, such as treaties) and soft law (non-binding declarations, guidelines and resolutions). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was adopted as a UN General Assembly resolution, not a treaty, yet it has shaped constitutions and later binding treaties.

Norms

A norm is a shared expectation of how actors should behave. Norms may or may not be written into law. The expectation that states do not use chemical weapons, and the expectation that governments hold regular elections, are norms. Norms work through legitimacy: breaking one brings criticism and loss of standing even where no court can act.

Institutions

The guide uses institutions in two senses, and you should use both:

1. Formal organisations or agencies, such as the UN, a national electoral commission or an international court.
2. Social structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain behaviour, such as sovereignty itself, diplomacy, elections or markets.

How they shape issues

Rules, norms and institutions do three things you can use in an answer:

• Shape approaches – they define which options are available (for example, a formal complaint procedure).
• Limit approaches – they rule some options out (for example, a veto blocks action).
• Cause issues – sometimes the rule is the problem, such as a border agreement that splits a community, or trade rules that one group sees as unfair.

Worked example: mapping a real case

Task. Identify the actors and stakeholders in the negotiation of the Paris Agreement, and explain how the system’s structure shaped the outcome.

Step 1 – Name the issue and scale. Climate change mitigation; global scale, with national and local effects. The Paris Agreement was adopted in December 2015 at COP21 under the UN climate framework and entered into force in November 2016.

Step 2 – List actors by type.

• States: the parties that negotiated and signed.
• IGO: the UN climate secretariat, which ran the process.
• Formal forum: the Conference of the Parties (COP).
• Organized civil society: accredited NGOs observing and lobbying.
• Subnational governments: cities and regions announcing their own pledges.
• Private actors: companies and investors, some pressing for action, some for slower change.
• The media: reporting that raised public attention.

Step 3 – Identify stakeholders with little means to act. People in low-lying coastal areas, future generations, and communities whose jobs depend on fossil fuels. Some states represent vulnerable groups, but many affected people had no direct voice.

Step 4 – Explain the structure. Decisions at the COP are made by consensus, and states guard their sovereignty. The result: each state sets its own nationally determined contribution. States must prepare and report these, but meeting them is not legally binding. The structure made wide agreement possible and weakened enforcement.

Step 5 – Apply norms and law. The Agreement is a treaty (hard law), but its core targets work more like soft law, relying on reporting, peer pressure and reputation.

Conclusion. A consensus-based structure, protective of sovereignty, shaped a treaty with near-universal participation but self-set targets. That is the kind of linked explanation examiners reward.

Common errors

• Treating “stakeholder” and “actor” as the same word. Show that you know the difference.
• Listing actors without explaining what each can do in the specific case.
• Assuming NGOs are always weak or always legitimate. Their power depends on the system.
• Calling a group “terrorists” or “freedom fighters” as fact. Report who uses which label.
• Describing an IGO as if it acts independently of its member states, or as if it has none of its own agency. Both extremes miss the point.
• Using “institution” only for buildings or organisations, and missing the second sense (rules and norms).
• Saying soft law “has no effect”. Explain how it works through legitimacy and pressure.
• Using mostly historical examples. The guide treats “contemporary” as roughly the past two decades.

Next steps

• Condense this with the revision notes.
• Test yourself with the practice questions, which include source-based and essay tasks.
• See how actors appear in the thematic studies: Rights and justice and Peace and conflict.
• Link actors to the key concepts: power, sovereignty, legitimacy and interdependence.
• Check the course structure in the syllabus guide and the papers in exam preparation.

Official syllabus

International Baccalaureate Organization, Diploma Programme Global politics guide, first assessment 2026 (published February 2024). Core topics: Understanding power and global politics – prescribed topic “Framing global politics / Systems and interactions in global politics”.