India quarterly最新文献

{"title":"Deconstructing the Metanarratives of China’s Engagement with the African Continent: African Agency and Competing Narratives","authors":"Ana Mann","doi":"10.1177/09749284231184619","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231184619","url":null,"abstract":"China’s relationship with the African continent has faced extensive critique over the past few decades, with most explanations broadly falling under the umbrella of three metanarratives: a ‘developing partner’, an ‘economic competitor’ or a ‘hegemonic actor’. 1 Although these labels help to make intelligible the broad intentions of China’s interaction on the continent, they unwittingly gloss over the importance of choice and agency that the African nations continue to hold in deciding their future trajectories. Essentially, deconstructing these narratives to uncover the principal characteristics of China’s approach to the African continent is the central puzzle of this study. The study further questions the extent to which the agency of African nations determines their relationship with China. This article essentially proposes that while each of the three descriptions provides an insight into the various facets of the Sino-African relationship, none of them captures the whole picture, and instead, China’s approach to the African continent is best understood by its pragmatism, which is guided by its political aspirations and economic objectives. Furthermore, the study argues that the agency of each African nation also plays a part in shaping how China’s pragmatic approach further translates into one of the three metanarratives. The article relies on an inductive exploration of its central research question and uses a variety of sources, which include data from international institutions and governments, government releases and secondary literature, amongst others.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"318 - 335"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41639042","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"India–US Strategic Cooperation through the LEMOA Lens","authors":"Imran Khurshid","doi":"10.1177/09749284231183261","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231183261","url":null,"abstract":"Since Narendra Modi took office, India and the United States’ strategic ties have become stronger. It took almost 12 years to sign the ‘Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)’. The LEMOA offers a framework for governing the logistical assistance, supplies and services exchanged between the Indian and US forces on a reciprocal and reimbursable basis. Concerns in India’s strategic elite and political class over the endangerment of India’s strategic autonomy and compromising India’s sovereignty for a long time prevented the execution of this agreement. However, after the BJP government came to power in 2014, it negotiated this agreement with the United States. India has strategically moved closer to the United States by signing this agreement, which will have a lot of positive effects on the development of India’s strategic capabilities and the strengthening of Indian defence forces’ operational capabilities. It will also allow India to expand its strategic influence in the Indo-Pacific region. This study analyses the LEMOA, its implications for India’s strategic autonomy, and its subsequent implications for expanding India’s strategic footprint in the region.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"304 - 317"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47110626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pakistan in 2023: On the Brink of a Full-Blown Crisis","authors":"Saif Ur Rahman, Qasim Jan","doi":"10.1177/09749284231183320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231183320","url":null,"abstract":"Pakistan continues to face multiple sources of internal and external conflicts. Its all-powerful military is engaged in a subterranean battle to maintain its power. Economically, the country persisted in troubled waters as it has been for most of its recent history. In domestic politics, the failed experiment of a hybrid regime under Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan forced the military to part ways with Mr Khan and install a coalition government of 13 political parties through a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022. Mr Khan’s political party is facing a severe crackdown in Pakistan after he accused the powerful military of his ouster from power. At the regional level, a favourable outcome in Afghanistan in the shape of the Taliban’s takeover has not yielded any significant positive results for Pakistan. After concluding the Afghan conflict on a favourable note, paradoxically, the military establishment hints at a desire to shift away from geo-security to geo-economics in its foreign policy goals. At the extra-regional level, the military is walking a tightrope to balance its ties between the USA and China to offset any adverse consequences arising from its strategic partnerships with China over China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In this article, we explain a series of issues confronting Pakistan currently—including a deep economic crisis, political paralysis, and a resurgent terror threat—focusing on the military’s ambitions in the region and beyond.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"44 1","pages":"293 - 303"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91145353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Vanguard Brigade: An Appraisal of the United Nations’ Rapid Deployment Capabilities","authors":"M. Venkataraman, R. Vignesh","doi":"10.1177/09749284231183324","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231183324","url":null,"abstract":"Seventy-six years after its establishment, the United Nations (UN) today stands at a critical juncture where it must undertake radical reforms to remain relevant in the changing face of the twenty-first century. Such reforms are essential to prevent the UN from becoming redundant and being pushed to the sidelines of great power politics in the emerging multipolar world. While there has been much political clamour among the international community calling for the restructuring of the UN Security Council, which is also in the interest of India, an appraisal of the UN’s military capability to intervene in Contemporary Armed Conflicts under Chapter VII of its Charter needs to be assessed. The absence of a standing reserve and the procedural complexities involved in deriving the manpower for peacekeeping operations from the member states have undermined the UN’s capability to swiftly intervene in an escalating armed conflict even after getting approval from the Security Council. At present, a plethora of factors have resulted in the increasing volatility of contemporary armed conflicts. Under these circumstances, the UN’s capacity for swift intervention after the outbreak of a conflict has become even more relevant today than in the past. The creation of a UN Vanguard Brigade based on the recommendations given by the 2015 High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations is a major step in that direction. Using a case analysis of the Rwandan genocide, this article critically examines the challenges of the vanguard brigade to optimise the UN’s capability for rapid deployment of peacekeepers for swift intervention in an escalating Armed Conflict. The article is largely descriptive and analytical, using predominantly secondary sources and UN documents.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"405 - 424"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42132606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Materiality of Space: Infrastructuring the Border Space in Arunachal Pradesh","authors":"J. K. Pattnaik, C. Panda","doi":"10.1177/09749284231183304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231183304","url":null,"abstract":"The materiality of space refers to the material constituents determining the space. The spatial imagination of the borderland, characterised by critical spatiality, is materially constituted. The fact of being materially constituted means to be infrastructurally configured. The infrastructures here include hydro projects, highways, railroads, bridges, tunnels, airports, digital connectivity and other defence-related installations. These projects combine a two-pronged approach: security and development. The security challenges that the border space embodies compel the state to adopt an approach of competitive infrastructure building. The nature of this competition is determined by the competing other’s approach towards the border space. Arunachal Pradesh is a very critical border state that shares its crucial border space of 1,080 km with China, 160 km with Bhutan and 440 km with Myanmar. China’s increasing geopolitical clout in the region intensifies its spatial and material prominence. India under its Act East Policy (AEP) formulation in 2014 has taken up a very determined approach to accelerating infrastructure growth in the northeast and more particularly in Arunachal Pradesh for its border spatiality. Therefore, the border space loses its inferential, conjectural and abstract character and becomes materially determined. This imperative for materiality embodies, on the one hand, development, modernity, capitalist social space and mainstreaming of the neglected and, on the other hand, protectionism and upgradation of security architecture along critical geography known as the border space. Therefore, this study examines the development of materiality, meaning infrastructure, in a complex border space like Arunachal Pradesh. It decodes the economic logic of the systematic development of border space by the Indian nation-state from the point of view of the growth of the region and security urgency. It uses Henri Lefebvre’s theoretical formulations of spatiality to understand the convoluted category of border space and the introduction of material forces to achieve security and developmental objectives.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"387 - 404"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47504690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Soft Power in India’s Act East Policy: A Cambodian Perspective","authors":"Khath Bunthorn","doi":"10.1177/09749284231165110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231165110","url":null,"abstract":"In the contemporary multipolar world order, great powers are on the rise. As they possess coercive hard power, they also tend to have persuasive soft power in international relations. Soft power has become one of the most important dimensions of the foreign policies of great powers. Over the past decades, the use of soft power in the Asian context has gained significant traction. As an emerging power, India has begun to realise the usefulness of its rich culture and ancient civilisation as an indispensable source of soft power in the practice of public diplomacy. Specifically, New Delhi has utilised soft power in its Act East Policy (AEP) towards Southeast Asia, where historical connections and cultural legacy are deep between the two regions. In this context, the article examines the concept of soft power and its implications in India’s AEP. It argues that rather than asserting influence on the recipient country, India’s soft power is instrumental in building its international image as a benign power in international politics. The article looks at Cambodia as a case study to see how India’s international image has been perceived in the Southeast Asian kingdom, given that both countries share strong cultural and civilisational links.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"189 - 208"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44352333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Border Region Railway Development in Sino- Indian Geopolitical Competition","authors":"C. Shrivastva, Stabak Roy, Dhruv Ashok","doi":"10.1177/09749284231165111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231165111","url":null,"abstract":"India and China share about 3,488 km long International Boundary, which has three sectors: Western, Middle and Eastern. The Eastern sector comprises two Northeastern states, that is, Arunachal Pradesh measuring 1,124 kms and Sikkim measuring 219 kms, respectively. Due to recent changes in the geopolitical relationship with China, border management and transport infrastructure development have occupied centre stage. In recent years, the Government of India has taken initiatives to develop railway infrastructure in Northeast India. The study will focus on the role of railway transportation in Sino-Indian geopolitical competition. The study is based on secondary data collected from the office of General Manager, Northeast Frontier Railway, the Census of India and reports of Memorandums of Understanding between India and China. The study reveals that railway infrastructure along the border creates geo-psychological pressures on both countries, influencing the divergent geopolitical relationship between India and China. Railway diplomacy is a tool kit of critical geopolitics which reveals the contours of geopolitical competition in borderlands.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"209 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43562896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book review: Sanjeev Kumar (ed.), China’s BRI in Different Regions of the World: Cooperation, Contradictions and Concerns","authors":"Gunjan Singh","doi":"10.1177/09749284231165075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231165075","url":null,"abstract":"Sanjeev Kumar (ed.), China’s BRI in Different Regions of the World: Cooperation, Contradictions and Concerns. Indian Council of World Affairs and KW Publishers, 2022, pp. 398, ₹1299, ISBN: 978-93-83445-64-6.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"271 - 273"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44214538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Book review: Nutan Kapoor Mahawar and Pragya Pandey (eds.), Roads, Winds, Spices in the Western Indian Ocean: The Memory and Geopolitics of Maritime Heritage","authors":"Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury, Sohini Bose","doi":"10.1177/09749284231165073","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231165073","url":null,"abstract":"Nutan Kapoor Mahawar and Pragya Pandey (eds.), Roads, Winds, Spices in the Western Indian Ocean: The Memory and Geopolitics of Maritime Heritage. Macmillan Publishers India Pvt Ltd and the Indian Council of World Affairs, 2022, pp. 262, ₹1895, ISBN-10: 9354552730, ISBN-13: 978-9354552731.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"275 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43589540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Emerging Powers and Small Island Developing States: Leadership or Co-Option?","authors":"Athar ud Din","doi":"10.1177/09749284231165082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09749284231165082","url":null,"abstract":"Recent developments in climate change-related negotiations indicate that there are emerging conflicts of interest between Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and emerging powers like India and China. Emerging powers have to address their developmental concerns while pursuing aspirations related to leadership in global governance. To take a leadership role in global governance structures relating to climate change, emerging powers need to pursue their interests while accommodating the concerns of their potential followers, which include SIDS. Increased conflict of interests between emerging powers and other sets of vulnerable countries could lead to adverse implications for the North–South divide in international environmental relations, which in turn will impact their leadership aspirations. Using the example of leadership in international relations and the statements made by the SIDS at COP26, this article concludes that the existing situation presents a challenge as well as an opportunity for emerging powers like India to take a leadership role in a reformed new world order.","PeriodicalId":81509,"journal":{"name":"India quarterly","volume":"79 1","pages":"244 - 263"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46199585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}