How Indian foreign policy negotiates federalism: a case study of the role of the constituent states
Journal Title: Stosunki Międzynarodowe – International Relations - Year 2023, Vol 2, Issue 13
Abstract
India’s centre-heavy federalism suffered dual downturns in the 1990s, with the tides of globalization and economic liberalization challenging the sanctity of borders and the incidence of coalition politics increasing the salience of regional equations and demands. But Indian foreign policy in the 1990s remained the almost exclusive preserve of the Centre, ruled by several coalitions of political parties like the National Front (1989-1996), United Front (1996-1998). As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popular yet controversial regime is poised at the middle of its second term in 2022 (beginning in 2019), the continued showcasing of the Centre’s leadership in foreign policy decisions, high-profile bilateral and multilateral engagements, bold collisions with uneasy neighbours, are only matched with the unilateralism exhibited within the borders. Given the oft-reported instances of acute voices of assertions by the states on various issues ranging from illegal and forced migration, resource-sharing, or economic development involving neighbouring countries, a stock-taking is needed, to explore how genuinely federal is India’s foreign policy. In other words, the role of the constituent states in leveraging influence and bargaining for their due share of active involvement as stakeholders, merits critical academic intervention. When tested against real cases, two observations can be made. The dynamics shaping federalism and foreign policy may not just involve the Centre and the states but involve local/regional factors and influences from across international borders as well. Second, there is no causal link between the nature of the government in power at the Centre, Union-state political equations, and the imperatives across the borders between provinces and neighbouring countries. This study examines three case studies; West Bengal, Assam, and the Northeast, to reveal that foreign policy operates within the constitutionally designed structures of federalism in India by negotiating recurrent complexities of politics and deceives regional stakeholders or states with narratives of inclusiveness.
Authors and Affiliations
Shibashis Chatterjee, Sreya Maitra
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP740621
- DOI 10.12688/stomiedintrelat.17417.2
- Views 20
- Downloads 2
Cyber Technology and the European Union’s Gestaltian Approach to China
Contemporary European Union (EU) and China relations are marked by a simultaneously beneficial, conflictual and competitive partnership. This is aptly evident in the cyber technology realm. This paper contends that the E...
The rise and fall of China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’: Implications for US-China geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific
Strategic competition and rivalry between the United States and China has become a paradigm of international relations in the past decade. Central to this growing strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing is the...
The shape of the international order: the case study of AUKUS
This article argues that in the 21st century, international order has not only become unstable but also short-term in nature and issue-based, which has led to the emergence of a number of alliances whose functionality ca...
Foreign policy towards civilization megatrends in world politics
The aim of this article is to indicate and analyze three selected civilization and culture megatrends that can be observed in the contemporary global policy which are important not only to a state’s foreign policy, but a...
The fog of enlargement and the agony of accession: the European Union and Serbia in the light of a reform document
The 2009 public debt crisis onset triggered a fundamental constitutional transformation of the European Union (EU). What is the link between this transformation and the enlargement policy? The authors of the article seek...