Rahul Mukherji | Universität Heidelberg (original) (raw)

Papers by Rahul Mukherji

Asian Economic Policy Review, Dec 1, 2008

This paper analyzes the history of the relationship between the state and the private sector in I... more This paper analyzes the history of the relationship between the state and the private sector in India. It concludes that India's economic reforms, which made development policy more dependent on international trade and private initiative, depended on the evolution of technocratic and political conviction. Reformers needed the support of financial crises for overcoming the powerful vested interests opposed to reforms. Successful reforms involved largely homegrown strategies of policy and institutional change. They have produced impressive growth rates and have benefited the rich and the middle class. The challenge for development and sustainable reforms is to make it more inclusive for poor farmers and unorganized workers.

Asia Policy, 2012

ABSTRACT We deeply appreciate the thoughtful and informed assessments of our book, India Since 19... more ABSTRACT We deeply appreciate the thoughtful and informed assessments of our book, India Since 1980. In a spirit of intellectual engagement, we seek to respond to some of the salient aspects of the commentaries on our work. To that end, we will expand on some of the issues that the various respondents have highlighted, question some of their claims, and address the possible avenues of further research that they have outlined. At the outset we agree with C. Raja Mohan's pertinent comment that "many traditional tendencies in India's worldview seem to be re-emerging." He correctly underscores the recent discussions that seek to resurrect the concept of nonalignment and the renewed emphasis on strategic autonomy. His assessment is certainly on the mark when he suggests that this attempt to resuscitate what is a moribund doctrine is clearly paradoxical at a time when India may be poised to assume a far greater standing in global affairs, a position that New Delhi has long sought. That said, we feel compelled to quibble with at least two of Mohan's key assertions. First, we believe that India's economic transformation in the early 1990s cannot be separated from the Cold War's end. In the absence of the Soviet collapse, along with its model of state-led development, India's policymakers would have found it much harder to finally bid adieu to the state-led, autarchic model of economic development that had neither generated significant economic growth nor substantially reduced poverty. The two issues may be analytically separated, but as a practical matter, they took place in tandem. Second, contrary to Mohan's claim, we do not agree that India's decision to test nuclear weapons was "an assertion of Hindu nationalism." As one of the two authors, Sumit Ganguly, has argued in his other scholarship, a combination of long-term threats from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the emergence of Pakistan as a strategic surrogate for the PRC in South Asia in the late 1980s, and inexorable U.S. pressures on India to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), among other matters, led to the Indian nuclear weapons tests of 1998. Like Mohan, Teresita Schaffer emphasizes the significance of India's economic policies in the transformation of its foreign policy. We have, for the most part, little quarrel with Schaffer's assessment of our work, with the exception of her parting comment that, "at multiple points in the book, there are references that would be obscure to anyone but an India hand." We genuinely believe that we made every effort to avoid obscure references and have sought to make the book understandable to the curious but nonspecialist reader. In the absence of a specific example of such recondite references, we are at a loss to address this criticism. We are grateful to Harsh Pant for his favorable discussion of the foreign policy section of our book. One issue that he focuses on deserves further comment. We agree that the "inability to think strategically remains India's foreign policy's major vulnerability." However, we also believe that this lack of careful strategic analysis cannot be separated from the many infirmities and shortcomings of India's institutional capacity. As early as 1981, in a rather vigorous (if somewhat overstated) critique of India's foreign policy choices under Indira Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor, who is currently a Congress member of Parliament, trenchantly argued that India had paid dearly for an under-institutionalized foreign policy. His critique, which was especially relevant to the period that he had examined, continues to dog India's foreign and security policymaking apparatus. The size of India's foreign policy bureaucracy remains woefully inadequate, the training imparted to the entrants into the Indian Foreign Service remains antiquated, and knowledge of specialized subjects and regions continues to be extremely limited. Given these striking institutional drawbacks, it is indeed remarkable that India was actually able to make significant adjustments in its foreign and security policies at the Cold War's end. However, without addressing these critical lacunae it remains unclear if the country can negotiate a pathway to the great-power status that New Delhi so ardently seeks. As...

, and of a public lecture delivered at the centre for Economic and Social Sciences in Hyderabad. ... more , and of a public lecture delivered at the centre for Economic and Social Sciences in Hyderabad. It presents a view regarding state capacity in India after discussing the extensive literature on clientelism. It proposes that state capacity in India has much to do with the way in which the central and sub-national states cogitate about policy goals and the means to achieve them. For example, is import substitution or export promotion the way to grow? Will growth trickle down to the poor or is nonmarket redistribution the way to alleviate poverty? These issues are debated between puzzling bureaucrats and powering politicians, and when they reach a tipping point, we see that the state finds capacity to deliver even in a liberal democracy like India. The paper proposes a tipping point model for understanding state capacity in the Indian liberal democracy. It suggests a way for liberal democracies to fight clientelism and develop the capacity to pursue their goals, even though these goals are often unrealized.

Journal of Democracy, 2020

Review of International Political Economy, Apr 1, 2013

This paper makes the case for a 'tipping point' model for understanding economic change in India.... more This paper makes the case for a 'tipping point' model for understanding economic change in India. This gradual and largely endogenously driven path calls for the simultaneous consideration of ideas and politics. Exogenous shocks affected economic policy, but did not determine the course of economic history in India. India's developmental model evolved out of new ideas Indian technocrats developed based on events they observed in India and other parts of the world. A historical case for the 'tipping point' model is made by comparing two severe balance of payments crises India faced in 1966 and 1991. In 1966, when the weight of ideas and politics in India favored state-led import substitution, Washington could not coerce New Delhi to accept deregulation and globalization. In 1991, on the other hand, when Indian technocrats' ideas favoured deregulation and globalization, the executive-technocratic team engineered a silent revolution in the policy paradigm. New Delhi engaged constructively with Washington, making a virtue of the necessity of IMF conditions, and implemented a home-grown reform program that laid the foundations for rapid economic growth in world's most populous and tumultuous democracy.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2011

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2011

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2014

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 9, 2002

The paper highlights the challenges for international taxation due to digitized trade. Digitizati... more The paper highlights the challenges for international taxation due to digitized trade. Digitization makes it easy to penetrate foreign markets without the need for physical presence in the buyer's country. This phenomenon has generated debates on the salience of source versus residence-based taxation, the definition of permanent establishment, and, the administration of consumption taxes. The WTO has not been able to engage effectively in this area. The paper notes both the inadequacy of unilateral approaches and the need for an international organization for setting and monitoring global standards. It commends the vitality of source-based principles and the traditional conception of permanent establishment. It pleads for increased international cooperation for administering consumption taxes. Digitized trade without globally acceptable standards is likely to lead to double taxation or tax evasion or both.

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2007

Abstract: This reader, the third in the Critical Issues in Indian Politics series, discusses the ... more Abstract: This reader, the third in the Critical Issues in Indian Politics series, discusses the politics and economics behind liberalization, and the impact of reforms on the political economy of India. In a crisp yet comprehensive introduction, the editor analyses statemarket relations ...

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

The Journal of Asian Studies, Aug 1, 2004

UMI Dissertation Service eBooks, 1999

This paper will examine the impact of security relations and the development of a paradigm emphas... more This paper will examine the impact of security relations and the development of a paradigm emphasizing interdependence on pre and post-Cold War trade relations among states of South Asia and between states of South and Southeast Asia. The paper is Indo-centric by virtue of the fact that India is the largest South Asian trader with the ability to pull the weight of South Asian trade in a particular direction. II. TWO PROPOSITIONS ON TRADE Proposition 1: The Nature of the Security Relationship Affects Trade The realist logic of international economic relations is pessimistic about trade. States, according to this view, live in an environment of self-help in the absence of a supra-national sovereign. The relative economic gains of one state in relation to another can easily convert to relative military power. It is for this reason that the USA would not wish prosperity for the USSR during the Cold War. 2 A second reason for trade pessimism is vulnerability. Economic gains from trade could also lead to economic dependence. Small country-large country trade is often characterized by a situation where a large country is far less dependent on the small country for its trade than the small country is on a large country. 3 The USA depends far less on India than India does on the USA. The threat of trade withdrawal through sanctions is likely to hurt the smaller country more than a weaker country. India's sanctions on Nepal caused economic injury to Nepal in the mid-2 For a good account of the realist logic based on relative gains see, Waltz (1979) Chapter 7 and Grieco (1993), pp. 116-139. 3 Vulnerability would be less if the smaller country could easily substitute its trade with a larger country. Smaller countries should generally prefer multilateral frameworks to bilateral ones. On vulnerability see Hirschman, 1980;

Asian Economic Policy Review, Dec 1, 2008

This paper analyzes the history of the relationship between the state and the private sector in I... more This paper analyzes the history of the relationship between the state and the private sector in India. It concludes that India's economic reforms, which made development policy more dependent on international trade and private initiative, depended on the evolution of technocratic and political conviction. Reformers needed the support of financial crises for overcoming the powerful vested interests opposed to reforms. Successful reforms involved largely homegrown strategies of policy and institutional change. They have produced impressive growth rates and have benefited the rich and the middle class. The challenge for development and sustainable reforms is to make it more inclusive for poor farmers and unorganized workers.

Asia Policy, 2012

ABSTRACT We deeply appreciate the thoughtful and informed assessments of our book, India Since 19... more ABSTRACT We deeply appreciate the thoughtful and informed assessments of our book, India Since 1980. In a spirit of intellectual engagement, we seek to respond to some of the salient aspects of the commentaries on our work. To that end, we will expand on some of the issues that the various respondents have highlighted, question some of their claims, and address the possible avenues of further research that they have outlined. At the outset we agree with C. Raja Mohan's pertinent comment that "many traditional tendencies in India's worldview seem to be re-emerging." He correctly underscores the recent discussions that seek to resurrect the concept of nonalignment and the renewed emphasis on strategic autonomy. His assessment is certainly on the mark when he suggests that this attempt to resuscitate what is a moribund doctrine is clearly paradoxical at a time when India may be poised to assume a far greater standing in global affairs, a position that New Delhi has long sought. That said, we feel compelled to quibble with at least two of Mohan's key assertions. First, we believe that India's economic transformation in the early 1990s cannot be separated from the Cold War's end. In the absence of the Soviet collapse, along with its model of state-led development, India's policymakers would have found it much harder to finally bid adieu to the state-led, autarchic model of economic development that had neither generated significant economic growth nor substantially reduced poverty. The two issues may be analytically separated, but as a practical matter, they took place in tandem. Second, contrary to Mohan's claim, we do not agree that India's decision to test nuclear weapons was "an assertion of Hindu nationalism." As one of the two authors, Sumit Ganguly, has argued in his other scholarship, a combination of long-term threats from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the emergence of Pakistan as a strategic surrogate for the PRC in South Asia in the late 1980s, and inexorable U.S. pressures on India to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), among other matters, led to the Indian nuclear weapons tests of 1998. Like Mohan, Teresita Schaffer emphasizes the significance of India's economic policies in the transformation of its foreign policy. We have, for the most part, little quarrel with Schaffer's assessment of our work, with the exception of her parting comment that, "at multiple points in the book, there are references that would be obscure to anyone but an India hand." We genuinely believe that we made every effort to avoid obscure references and have sought to make the book understandable to the curious but nonspecialist reader. In the absence of a specific example of such recondite references, we are at a loss to address this criticism. We are grateful to Harsh Pant for his favorable discussion of the foreign policy section of our book. One issue that he focuses on deserves further comment. We agree that the "inability to think strategically remains India's foreign policy's major vulnerability." However, we also believe that this lack of careful strategic analysis cannot be separated from the many infirmities and shortcomings of India's institutional capacity. As early as 1981, in a rather vigorous (if somewhat overstated) critique of India's foreign policy choices under Indira Gandhi, Shashi Tharoor, who is currently a Congress member of Parliament, trenchantly argued that India had paid dearly for an under-institutionalized foreign policy. His critique, which was especially relevant to the period that he had examined, continues to dog India's foreign and security policymaking apparatus. The size of India's foreign policy bureaucracy remains woefully inadequate, the training imparted to the entrants into the Indian Foreign Service remains antiquated, and knowledge of specialized subjects and regions continues to be extremely limited. Given these striking institutional drawbacks, it is indeed remarkable that India was actually able to make significant adjustments in its foreign and security policies at the Cold War's end. However, without addressing these critical lacunae it remains unclear if the country can negotiate a pathway to the great-power status that New Delhi so ardently seeks. As...

, and of a public lecture delivered at the centre for Economic and Social Sciences in Hyderabad. ... more , and of a public lecture delivered at the centre for Economic and Social Sciences in Hyderabad. It presents a view regarding state capacity in India after discussing the extensive literature on clientelism. It proposes that state capacity in India has much to do with the way in which the central and sub-national states cogitate about policy goals and the means to achieve them. For example, is import substitution or export promotion the way to grow? Will growth trickle down to the poor or is nonmarket redistribution the way to alleviate poverty? These issues are debated between puzzling bureaucrats and powering politicians, and when they reach a tipping point, we see that the state finds capacity to deliver even in a liberal democracy like India. The paper proposes a tipping point model for understanding state capacity in the Indian liberal democracy. It suggests a way for liberal democracies to fight clientelism and develop the capacity to pursue their goals, even though these goals are often unrealized.

Journal of Democracy, 2020

Review of International Political Economy, Apr 1, 2013

This paper makes the case for a 'tipping point' model for understanding economic change in India.... more This paper makes the case for a 'tipping point' model for understanding economic change in India. This gradual and largely endogenously driven path calls for the simultaneous consideration of ideas and politics. Exogenous shocks affected economic policy, but did not determine the course of economic history in India. India's developmental model evolved out of new ideas Indian technocrats developed based on events they observed in India and other parts of the world. A historical case for the 'tipping point' model is made by comparing two severe balance of payments crises India faced in 1966 and 1991. In 1966, when the weight of ideas and politics in India favored state-led import substitution, Washington could not coerce New Delhi to accept deregulation and globalization. In 1991, on the other hand, when Indian technocrats' ideas favoured deregulation and globalization, the executive-technocratic team engineered a silent revolution in the policy paradigm. New Delhi engaged constructively with Washington, making a virtue of the necessity of IMF conditions, and implemented a home-grown reform program that laid the foundations for rapid economic growth in world's most populous and tumultuous democracy.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2011

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Aug 1, 2011

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2014

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, Sep 9, 2002

The paper highlights the challenges for international taxation due to digitized trade. Digitizati... more The paper highlights the challenges for international taxation due to digitized trade. Digitization makes it easy to penetrate foreign markets without the need for physical presence in the buyer's country. This phenomenon has generated debates on the salience of source versus residence-based taxation, the definition of permanent establishment, and, the administration of consumption taxes. The WTO has not been able to engage effectively in this area. The paper notes both the inadequacy of unilateral approaches and the need for an international organization for setting and monitoring global standards. It commends the vitality of source-based principles and the traditional conception of permanent establishment. It pleads for increased international cooperation for administering consumption taxes. Digitized trade without globally acceptable standards is likely to lead to double taxation or tax evasion or both.

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2007

Abstract: This reader, the third in the Critical Issues in Indian Politics series, discusses the ... more Abstract: This reader, the third in the Critical Issues in Indian Politics series, discusses the politics and economics behind liberalization, and the impact of reforms on the political economy of India. In a crisp yet comprehensive introduction, the editor analyses statemarket relations ...

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

Oxford University Press eBooks, May 22, 2014

The Journal of Asian Studies, Aug 1, 2004

UMI Dissertation Service eBooks, 1999

This paper will examine the impact of security relations and the development of a paradigm emphas... more This paper will examine the impact of security relations and the development of a paradigm emphasizing interdependence on pre and post-Cold War trade relations among states of South Asia and between states of South and Southeast Asia. The paper is Indo-centric by virtue of the fact that India is the largest South Asian trader with the ability to pull the weight of South Asian trade in a particular direction. II. TWO PROPOSITIONS ON TRADE Proposition 1: The Nature of the Security Relationship Affects Trade The realist logic of international economic relations is pessimistic about trade. States, according to this view, live in an environment of self-help in the absence of a supra-national sovereign. The relative economic gains of one state in relation to another can easily convert to relative military power. It is for this reason that the USA would not wish prosperity for the USSR during the Cold War. 2 A second reason for trade pessimism is vulnerability. Economic gains from trade could also lead to economic dependence. Small country-large country trade is often characterized by a situation where a large country is far less dependent on the small country for its trade than the small country is on a large country. 3 The USA depends far less on India than India does on the USA. The threat of trade withdrawal through sanctions is likely to hurt the smaller country more than a weaker country. India's sanctions on Nepal caused economic injury to Nepal in the mid-2 For a good account of the realist logic based on relative gains see, Waltz (1979) Chapter 7 and Grieco (1993), pp. 116-139. 3 Vulnerability would be less if the smaller country could easily substitute its trade with a larger country. Smaller countries should generally prefer multilateral frameworks to bilateral ones. On vulnerability see Hirschman, 1980;