In this book, Jeffrey Benner traces the history of the Indian foreign policy bureaucracy from the British period to the present, focusing on the bureaucracy's role in shaping policy. Because the bureaucracy has become an active agent in the policy process, its implementation of policy has often differed significantly from the original policy formulated by top leadership. The book includes a description of the foreign service cadre and a systematic breakdown of the functional and administrative structure of the Ministry of External Affairs, as well as the larger bureaucracy.
Following the end of the Cold War, the economic reforms in the early 1990s, and ensuing impressive growth rates, India has emerged as a leading voice in global affairs, particularly on international economic issues. Its domestic market is fast-growing and India is becoming increasingly important to global geo-strategic calculations, at a time when it has been outperforming many other growing economies, and is the only Asian country with the heft to counterbalance China. Indeed, so much is India defined internationally by its economic performance (and challenges) that other dimensions of its internal situation, notably relevant to security, and of its foreign policy have been relatively neglected in the existing literature. This handbook presents an innovative, high profile volume, providing an authoritative and accessible examination and critique of Indian foreign policy. The handbook brings together essays from a global team of leading experts in the field to provide a comprehensive study of the various dimensions of Indian foreign policy.
In The Absent Dialogue, Anit Mukherjee examines the relations between politicians, bureaucrats, and the military in India and argues that the pattern of civil-military relations in India hampers the effectiveness of the Indian military. Informed by more than a hundred and fifty interviews with high ranking officials, as well as archival material, this book sheds new light on both India's political and military history, as well as democratic civilian control and military effectiveness more generally.
Narendra Modi’s energetic personal diplomacy and promise to make India a ‘leading power’ surprised many analysts. Most had predicted that his government would concentrate on domestic issues, on the growth and development demanded by Indian voters, and that he lacked necessary experience in international relations. Instead, Modi’s first term saw a concerted attempt to reinvent Indian foreign policy by replacing inherited understandings of its place in the world with one drawn largely from Hindu nationalist ideology. Following Modi’s re-election in 2019, this book explores the drivers of this reinvention, arguing it arose from a combination of elite conviction and electoral calculation, and the impact it has had on India’s international relations.
The decade from the 2008 global financial crisis to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has seen a real transformation of the world order. The very nature of international relations and its rules are changing before our eyes. For India, this means optimal relationships with all the major powers to best advance its goals. It also requires a bolder and non-reciprocal approach to its neighbourhood. A global footprint is now in the making that leverages India's greater capability and relevance, as well as its unique diaspora. This era of global upheaval entails greater expectations from India, putting it on the path to becoming a leading power. In The India Way, S. Jaishankar, India's Minister of External Affairs, analyses these challenges and spells out possible policy responses. He places this thinking in the context of history and tradition, appropriate for a civilizational power that seeks to reclaim its place on the world stage.
Including chapters from some of the leading experts in the field this Handbook provides a full overview of the nature and challenges of modern diplomacy and includes a tour d'horizon of the key ways in which the theory and practice of modern diplomacy are evolving in the 21st Century.
India's foreign policy has witnessed a dramatic transformation since the end of the Cold War. Though academic study of Indian foreign policy has also shown a degree of maturity, theoretical developments have been underwhelming. Scholars have introduced new concepts and examined Indian foreign policy through new prisms, but a cohesive research agenda has not yet been charted. This volume intends to fill that void. It brings together new cutting-edge research in the field of Indian foreign policy - both at the theoretical and empirical level - so as to shape the discourse on foreign policy of one of the most important players in global politics. This volume explores key concepts like 'constructivism' and 'territoriality' and analyses their contribution to the academic discourse on Indian foreign policy. Issues such as the 'Indo-Pacific' and the 'responsibility to protect' have also been examined to address the expanding horizons of Indian foreign policy.
Since becoming India's prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi has been a tour de force in foreign policymaking. A vastly experienced administrator who has held key public positions as chief minister of an Indian state for more than a decade, and now as prime minister, he has always seen value in foreign affairs and devoted special attention to it with his unique entrepreneurial flair and coherent set of ideas. Every realm of Indian foreign policy- commercial diplomacy, defence diplomacy, diaspora outreach, cultural diplomacy, geostrategy and soft power- has been transformed by him with a sense of destiny not witnessed in recent memory. Indians and people the world over have noticed his star presence and are asking questions like 'Why is he investing so much time and energy into promoting India's international relations and global image'?; 'What are his vision and goals for India's role in the world'?' 'What kind of distinct techniques define his approach to foreign policy?'; 'How is he changing India's self-understanding and preparing it for world affairs?'. This book provides the answers by delving into the mind and method behind Narendra Modi's avatar as India's diplomat-in-chief. It argues that under his able watch, India is heading toward great power status in the international order.
Modi's World tells the story of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vigorous diplomacy and his aspiration to elevate India's place in the world. It offers insights into Modi's foreign policy inheritance, his efforts to build on the foundations laid by his recent predecessors, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, and set more ambitious international goals of his own for India. The book, based on Raja Mohan's columns for the Express, examines the new opportunities that Modi's energy and intensity have generated for India's relations with the major powers and its neighbours in the subcontinent, Asia and the Indian Ocean. Raja Mohan reviews India's new initiatives under Modi to put diplomacy at the service of economic development, deepen the ties with the diaspora, and develop a new vocabulary for Indian foreign policy. He takes a close look at Modi's attempts to end Delhi's defensiveness on the world stage, inject greater flexibility into India's positions on trade and climate change, discard past slogans like non-alignment, and construct a new framework of pragmatic internationalism. At the same time, Raja Mohan takes a critical look at some of the domestic constraints that could limit Modi's ambition to make India a 'leading power' in the world. Crisply argued and written, Modi's World provides the reader a sharp focus on an area of intense activity.
