India’s Dilemma in the Arab Spring (original) (raw)
Related papers
Reading the Silence: India and the Arab Spring
2012
High political, economic, and energy stakes conditioned India’s nuanced response to the Arab Spring. Proud of its diversity, India’s foreign policy agenda has never been democracy promotion, and India was prepared to accept the choice of the Arab people to determine their leaders and political system within the norms of their respective societies. The geographically proximate region, especially the Persian Gulf, is vital for India. Hence, other than evacuation of its nationals, India’s reactions to the Arab Spring have been few and far between. And even these responses have been measured, underscoring Indian reluctance to take any stand. India has been extremely cautious about the developments in the Persian Gulf, hoping that the ruling regimes would survive. Given the presence of about six million Indian expatriate workers in the Gulf countries, India’s studied silence—rather than being a sign of indifference towards popular sentiments or an endorsement of the authoritarian regimes—was the only option available for India. It was a reflection both of its crucial interests in the region and of its preference for stable and internally viable political states in the region. Thus, economic interests, more than political calculations, have determined India’s post-Cold War Middle East policies—a fact visibly demonstrated following the Arab Spring. India’s traditional reluctance to make democracy promotion a principal foreign policy objective also played into this relegation of political considerations. The muted and calibrated Indian reactions to the Arab Spring challenge the hopes for an assertive India in the international scene. At a macro level, India’s calculated and interest-driven positions during the Arab Spring are also a sign that its aspirations for great power status will be through consensus and accommodation rather than by taking a leadership role—that is, through measured steps, not aggressive public statements. This is the irony of the "self-appointed frontrunner for the UNSC.”
Straddling Faultlines : India's Foreign Policy Toward The Great Middle East
2009
India's foreign policy has had an anomalous quality since the time Jawaharlal Nehru resolutely attempted to steer clear of Cold War alliances. This continues to be so given India's unique situation of establishing "strategic relations" with both Israel and Iran, as part of its Greater Middle East policy. A study of this paradox assumes significance for various reasons. One, it offers a glimpse into the way India is reordering its foreign policy in the post Cold War, as part of its clamour for Great Power status, thus presenting a westward complement to its familiar 'Look East policy' which seeks to engage regions beyond South Asia. It also provides a view of the complexities involved in endorsing the American agenda in a geopolitical neighbourhood, transformed by the September 11 attacks, and yet, one that affects India's security because of its energy reserves and Islamist ferment. To this end, this study analyses India's foreign policy toward the Middle East and Central Asia since the late 1990s, with a specific focus on its relations with Israel, Iran and Iraq that reviews the way it reconciles immediate security needs with competing realities of economic interdependence and political sensitivities.
A country relation with other countries of the world is known as her external relations. The external relations of a country are based on certain principles and policies. They are collectively called foreign policy. Thus foreign policy is the totality of actions of a state in dealing with external environment consisting of national, international and regional actors. In other words, foreign policy is the sum total of a country's relationship with these actors; while pursuing its received goals and objectives through the process of foreign policy a state translates its goals and interests into specific courses of action. India's foreign policy is shaped by several factors including its history, culture, geography and economy. Our PM, Jawaharlal Nehru gave a definite shape to the country's foreign policy. Indian ideology in the international affairs is based on the five principles of India's foreign Policy under leaders like Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. These are a belief in friendly relations with all countries of the world. The resolution of conflicts by peaceful means, the sovereign equality of all states, independent of through and action as manifested in the principles of non – alignment and equity in the conduct of international relations. Promotion of democratic values is high on India's international relations. Another bench mark of India's official ideology is secular nationalism. India is the home for peoples from various religions and cultures. India promotes secular values and freedom to follow any religion or culture. India's Foreign Policy after se became independent in 1947. It was in September 1946 that Jawaharlal Nehru formulated the independent policy which has been followed ever since. Successive Prime Ministers have endorsed that policy and parliament has approved it. The essence of the independent foreign policy is non-alignment i.e., India refused to join either the communist bloc or the Western bloc into which most of the nations were grouped during the days of the cold war. She preferred to remain outside the contest. Two other features of this policy have been (1) an emphasis on peaceful negotiation as a means to resolving conflicts, the temper of peace as Nehru put it and (2) a deliberate effort to seek the friendship of all nations including the nations of the communist bloc as well as the western bloc. In formulation of a foreign policy, both domestic and external factors are taken into account. If we look at the way the formulation of foreign policy in democratic and non-democratic countries, they mobilize national power, define their national interests, and peruse effective policies play military strategy in the light of balance of power – which is one of the basic principles of power politics game that acts to control interstate relations. However, the formulation of foreign policy is the result of its leaders' capacity which gains people's support in implementing that foreign policy .
India as a Foreign Policy Actor - Normative Redux
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
This paper analyses India's behaviour as a foreign policy actor by looking at India's changing relations over the past decade with the EU, US, China, Japan, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal and, in a historical departure, the former princely state of Sikkim. It argues that though India has almost always been a normative actor, Indian foreign policy is today transiting from abstract, and frequently 'unrealpolitik,' views of what constitutes normative behaviour. India's 'Look East' policy has been the cornerstone of this transition, indicating that economic growth, maritime capability and peace and stability in its neighbourhood are key goals of India's present behaviour as a normative foreign policy actor. CEPS Working Documents are intended to give an indication of work being conducted within CEPS research programmes and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the author in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which s/he is associated.
Rising India’s Foreign Policy: A Partial Introduction
in D. Suba Chandran and Jabin T. Jacob (eds), India’s Foreign Policy: Old Problems, New Challenges (New Delhi: Macmillan, 2011), pp. 1-22.
Current Indian foreign policy is informed by a realization that a combination of economic reforms and the end of the Cold War has steered India into a position of some influence in the post-9/11 world. This is influence of a kind that India did not have in the years following Independence. What India had then was a moral standing which it could make little use of, boxed in as it was by the contingencies of a Cold War division of the world. This division allowed very little leeway for the Indian policy of non-alignment, which ended up being not so much an alternative as a means of holding the line, until India could find itself in a more favourable geopolitical situation. Further, unlike in the post-Independence phase, India today often appears reluctant to exercise what influence it has outside South Asia and sometimes even within the region, keenly aware of the several continuing limits on its capabilities and having suffered from blowback on the few occasions it did. Even as some old problems continue to keep India off-balance in international affairs, the world has also not stood still and new problems – both traditional and non-traditional – have emerged that have required India to step up and take a position on. And all this, even as the Indian foreign policy establishment remains woefully ill-equipped and understaffed to meet these challenges. What then are the patterns of Indian foreign policy behavior in the new century?
Opening the black box – The making of India’s foreign policy
India Review, 2019
Most studies looking at India's external policies continue to "black-box" the actual process of how Indian foreign policy is made. More specifically, most studies generally overlook how India's complex domestic polity and bureaucratic apparatus shape India's foreign policy outlook. Unlike works on India's security policy which have built from and contributed to broader academic debates, studies on India's foreign policy have failed to directly engage with concepts and theories developed by the sub-discipline of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). Why have these concepts and approaches not been consistently applied to the Indian context? There are various reasons for this, ranging from these disciplines' excessive reliance on Western case studies, or the lack of interest in mainstream International Relations scholarship by South Asianists (in contrast to disciplines such as economics, political theory, and developmental studies, all of which have benefited from the Indian experience). This special issue is a step towards bridging this gap and to encourage a greater dialogue between FPA and the systematic study of Indian foreign policy. Through the careful analysis of specific case studies, the different papers offer a conceptually grounded and empirically innovative reading of India's foreign policy across time, space, and themes.
Continuity and Change in India's Foreign Policy
Benny Teh Cheng Guan (ed.), Security and Foreign Policy in Asia (Singapore: World Scientific), 2014
A country of 1.2 billion people with the third largest economy and third largest military in the world, India has begun to make its mark on world politics. Though the journey is incomplete, the path traveled thus far has been impressive. Starting from an extremely disadvantageous position, India has in the span of six decades rapidly ascended global power rankings to become a major regional power in Asia and a potential great power in the future. How has this transition come about? What are the contemporary challenges and opportunities facing India’s security and diplomacy? This chapter traces the evolution of India’s security and foreign policies with an emphasis on four relationships vital for India’s future—the United States, China, South Asia, and the United Nations Security Council respectively. In doing so, it outlines the fundamentals of Indian foreign policy and four major transitions that it has experienced over the years—from idealism to pragmatism; the rise of economic diplomacy; the growing importance of domestic politics; and an increasingly complex relationship with the international order.
Foreign Policy, Ideas and State-Building: India and the Politics of International Intervention
The rise of new powers has sparked greater interest in their foreign policy ideas and debates, given their potential to reshape international order. The existing literature, however, has shortcomings in understanding the dynamics of change and continuity in foreign policy ideas and practices, which in turn leads to a poor understanding of the changing foreign policy behaviour of rising powers. For instance, it is often claimed that India’s colonial history has given it an attachment to ‘Westphalian’ forms of sovereignty and an aversion to interventionist policies. This article argues shows, however, that India’s intervention behaviour has varied considerably. Specifically, India was supportive of multilateral intervention in the 1950s and 1960s, it turned to unilateral interventionism in the late 1970s and became non-interventionist in the 1990s. Yet, these changes constituted significant but not radical changes in foreign policy because foundational ideas about what constitutes legitimate state-building continued to resonate, thereby constraining and shaping the nature of India’s interventionism and non-interventionism. To make this argument, the paper advances a framework that draws on cultural political economy and constructivist approaches to foreign policy analysis. This framework helps to elucidate how shifts in state-society relations, and the domestic and international political and economic contexts in which these shifts occur, shape ideational change and continuity in foreign policy.
The new Dynamics of Indian Foreign Policy and its Ambiguities
Irish Studies in International Affairs, 2007
Thanks to the cumulative effects of high economic growth, steady integration with the international market economy, rapid strides in business processing, successful introduction of new technologies of communication and the induction of nuclear weapons and delivery capacity to national defence strategies, the international status of India has altered radically over the past decade. Increasingly, in the domestic political arena, India's leaders see their country as a global player, rather than as a low-income country with poor infrastructure and mass poverty. Suddenly, India is 'everywhere'; but what does it amount to in terms of foreign policy, particularly in terms of the contradictions that underpin it? This article examines the anomalies and missing elements of India's foreign policy, which sometimes create a sense of vagueness and incoherence about her intentions on, and likely reactions to, issues affecting her vital interests. The article illustrates this argument on the basis of an analysis of some core concerns of India's foreign policy, such as nuclearisation, Kashmir, terrorism and India's position in South Asia.