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- Convenor:
-
Chris Ogden
(University of St Andrews)
- Location:
- Room 207
- Start time:
- 29 July, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/Warsaw
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel investigates India's increasingly complex foreign policy dynamics as her political, economic & geo-strategic importance increases. Employing a variety of contemporary & historical perspectives, its contributors assess India's current significance & future prominence.
Long Abstract:
This panel investigates India's increasingly complex foreign policy dynamics and relations as her political, economic and geo-strategic importance increases. Through a range of analysis carried out across several key dimensions (including economic and military strength, multilateral engagement and soft power, and peripheral relations and strategic culture), its papers will investigate how South Asia's largest state is rising to prominence in the international system. Employing a variety of contemporary and historical perspectives, the panel's contributors will assess India's current significance and her global importance. Via an improved understanding of her core interests and intensifying international interaction; what impact will India's international rise have on South Asia and the world as a whole?
Underpinning these aims, the panel will draw together different theoretical and empirical perspectives, so as to provide structural and actor based explanations of India's international rise. The organisers welcome papers that reflect a plurality of relevant theoretical and historical perspectives, including (but not exclusive to) realist, liberalist and constructivist accounts in International Relations (IR) theory. By combining together such diverse perspectives, the panel will produce an engaging and dynamic forum for the discussion of the precedents, present orientation and possible future trajectories of Indian foreign policy. The panel aims to produce a comprehensive assessment of India's (and South Asia's) mounting contemporary significance and future global importance. It will also highlight the various challenges and obstacles that stand between India and her emergence as a great power in the 21st century.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The benign Indian Soft Power is deliberately formulated through norms interaction; however, its implementation varies based on India's mutual understanding with another country. India's relations with Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam emphasise economic, cultural and political entities, respectively.
Paper long abstract:
Rising internationally, Indian Soft Power has been deliberately formulated through the interaction of norms, idea and thought. In general, Indian core values bring about the benign and non-aggressive foreign policies; however, the mutual understanding in bilateral relations differently shapes the implementation of her foreign policy towards a particular state. This paper uses the constructivist approach to comparatively scrutinise and differentiate specific norms and diplomatic mechanism in Indian Soft Power towards Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam from 1947 until now. The study is conducted during the filed research in Southeast Asia with documentary research and interviews with key informants; diplomats, scholars, officials and diaspora. It shows that India generally engages and cultivates with these countries based on thousands years of civilisational entities, especially Buddhism and Hinduism. Art and performance troops have been dispatched for cultural exchange. Educational scholarships and human resources' capacity building programs have been offered to strengthen people-to-people contact. Particularly, Indian relationships with Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia are implemented differently based on norms and soft power. Regarding Thailand, facilitating a better environment with physical (maritime-land links) and intellectual (Gandhi-King Bhumibol) connectivities enforces their economic cooperation. In case of Vietnam, anti-colonialism during the struggle for independence and the Ho Chi Minh - Nehru goodwill lay down the foundation of friendship between two nations and improve their political strategic partnership. For Cambodia, the cultural aspect has been emphasised through the restoration of Indian influenced-Khmer civilisation supporting Cambodia local tourism industries.
Paper short abstract:
Economics has emerged as the powerful locomotive of India’s foreign policy calculus and there exists a symbiotic relationship between foreign policy strategy and domestic economic development.
Paper long abstract:
For the first time in the history of independent India, a non-congress party who believes in Hindu cultural nationalism has come to power with a decisive mandate under the strong leadership of Narendra Modi. The BJP and its Prime Minister is expected to integrate the Indian economy fully into the global economy as the present government has not been crippled by the pulls and pressures of coalition politics. The economic pronouncements of Modi indicates that he would continue,on a fast pace, with the reforms that was initiated in 1991. Again, we can notice in Modi's approach of 'strategic interconnectedness' or 'multi- vectored engagement' a striking similarity with the Nehruvian non-alignment and strategic autonomy. At the dawn of independence, such an approach facilitated liberal capitalist economic development with socialist flavours on an upward trajectory. It shows that there existed symbiotic relationship between foreign policy strategy and domestic economic development. It seems that Modi's Make in India project would try to draw its nourishment from monopoly capitalism, and the politico-strategic doctrine will be constructed on the plank of multi alignment. Does Modi government have the flexibility to play this flying trapeze game of subordination of the domestic economy to monopoly capitalism on the one hand and to embrace multi-alignment on the other? The social structure of accumulation associated with monopoly capitalism does not offer such a flexibility to Modi as that was available to Nehru during the period of liberal capitalism.