解释政策漂移——来自世界上人口最多的民主国家的分析模板

IF 1.3
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Situating the Gap between Objectives and Outcomes The book frames its central question as \"why policymakers, consciously responding to systemic incentives, often find their policy initiatives caught up in prolonged and meandering pathways in trying to attain their objectives\" (p. 2). The gap between objectives or intent and subsequent diversionary processes is what Basrur refers to as the phenomenon of \"policy drift.\" In framing its question thusly, the book addresses two long-running debates. Scholars have engaged in ongoing discussions about the particularities of India's emergence as a power, puzzling over the slow or gradualist path the country has taken, the purposefulness and intent behind policy choices, and the strategic thinking of the country's policymakers. At the same time, the book's central question confronts a deep ontological challenge of how to overcome the external-internal distinction that is so often drawn within and between the disciplines of international relations and politics and in the categories of agency and structure. Drawing on neoclassical realism, Basrur analyzes instances where Indian foreign policy outcomes have deviated from realist expectations—not those of theorists, he is careful to point out, but of policymakers. In other words, he demonstrates how policymakers have responded clearly to systemic [End Page 125] incentives, broadly defined as the power differentials between states. This is the case for India, for instance, when opting to improve relations with the United States as a result of the recalibrations caused by the end of the Cold War, in the effort to rebuild relations with Sri Lanka following India's \"intervention\" in the country's civil war, in the long-postponed decision to go overtly nuclear in 1998, and in efforts to manage cross-border threats from neighboring Pakistan. Explaining why these policy shifts took place when they did, and the ways in which implementation was subsequently hampered by domestic politics, is a major part of the book's analysis. However, Basrur seeks to do much more than describe or explain what happened in the past. The additional objective of integrating a moral dimension into the analysis by highlighting the question of responsibility adds a layer of complexity that is thought-provoking but which also leads to several further questions. What Is the Moral of the Story? At the end of the book, Basrur claims that his analytical framework, when applied to cases of Indian policy drift, highlights and integrates both material and nonmaterial factors into an explanation for why suboptimal outcomes occur and persist. He uses the categories of \"involuntary\" and \"voluntary\" policy drift to capture the extent to which material and nonmaterial factors play a role. In the case of involuntary drift, material constraints play a central role, defined largely as the control that decision-makers have over their policy environment. This is relatively easier to pinpoint, for instance, in the number of parliamentary seats the governing party holds and the extent to which it may be beholden to coalition partners. What is less clear are the nonmaterial factors that account for what Basrur describes as \"the abdication of responsibility\" (p. 196). His identified nonmaterial factors include a lack of epistemic rigor and knowledge among the civilian leadership on the issue of nuclear strategy, evidence of leadership incompetence, and sustained neglect across central and state governments to develop a robust security infrastructure and effective policies to prevent and deter terrorist attacks. By foregrounding policymakers and attributing to them a moral responsibility, Basrur is offering a way around...","PeriodicalId":53442,"journal":{"name":"Asia Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Explaining Policy Drift—An Analytical Template Drawn from the World's Most Populous Democracy\",\"authors\":\"\",\"doi\":\"10.1353/asp.2023.a911625\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"Explaining Policy Drift—An Analytical Template Drawn from the World's Most Populous Democracy Jivanta Schottli (bio) Subcontinental Drift: Domestic Politics and India's Foreign Policy was written in response to what Rajesh Basrur describes as three tensions: \\\"a desire to investigate the contradiction between India's quest for power and status and the limitations of its policies and policymakers\\\"; \\\"the gulf between studies on India's external relationships and cutting-edge theory\\\"; and \\\"the materialist/normative divide in academia\\\" (p. xi–xii). 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Scholars have engaged in ongoing discussions about the particularities of India's emergence as a power, puzzling over the slow or gradualist path the country has taken, the purposefulness and intent behind policy choices, and the strategic thinking of the country's policymakers. At the same time, the book's central question confronts a deep ontological challenge of how to overcome the external-internal distinction that is so often drawn within and between the disciplines of international relations and politics and in the categories of agency and structure. Drawing on neoclassical realism, Basrur analyzes instances where Indian foreign policy outcomes have deviated from realist expectations—not those of theorists, he is careful to point out, but of policymakers. In other words, he demonstrates how policymakers have responded clearly to systemic [End Page 125] incentives, broadly defined as the power differentials between states. This is the case for India, for instance, when opting to improve relations with the United States as a result of the recalibrations caused by the end of the Cold War, in the effort to rebuild relations with Sri Lanka following India's \\\"intervention\\\" in the country's civil war, in the long-postponed decision to go overtly nuclear in 1998, and in efforts to manage cross-border threats from neighboring Pakistan. Explaining why these policy shifts took place when they did, and the ways in which implementation was subsequently hampered by domestic politics, is a major part of the book's analysis. However, Basrur seeks to do much more than describe or explain what happened in the past. The additional objective of integrating a moral dimension into the analysis by highlighting the question of responsibility adds a layer of complexity that is thought-provoking but which also leads to several further questions. What Is the Moral of the Story? At the end of the book, Basrur claims that his analytical framework, when applied to cases of Indian policy drift, highlights and integrates both material and nonmaterial factors into an explanation for why suboptimal outcomes occur and persist. He uses the categories of \\\"involuntary\\\" and \\\"voluntary\\\" policy drift to capture the extent to which material and nonmaterial factors play a role. In the case of involuntary drift, material constraints play a central role, defined largely as the control that decision-makers have over their policy environment. This is relatively easier to pinpoint, for instance, in the number of parliamentary seats the governing party holds and the extent to which it may be beholden to coalition partners. What is less clear are the nonmaterial factors that account for what Basrur describes as \\\"the abdication of responsibility\\\" (p. 196). His identified nonmaterial factors include a lack of epistemic rigor and knowledge among the civilian leadership on the issue of nuclear strategy, evidence of leadership incompetence, and sustained neglect across central and state governments to develop a robust security infrastructure and effective policies to prevent and deter terrorist attacks. 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引用次数: 0

摘要

《次大陆漂移:国内政治与印度外交政策》是针对拉杰什·巴斯鲁(Rajesh Basrur)所描述的三种紧张关系而写的:“希望调查印度对权力和地位的追求与政策和决策者的局限性之间的矛盾”;“印度对外关系研究与前沿理论之间的鸿沟”;和“学术界唯物主义/规范的分歧”(第12 - 12页)。Basrur凭借其杰出而独特的职业生涯,在区域研究和国际关系理论之间架起了桥梁,非常适合解决这三个问题。他提供了经验丰富的章节,一个优雅的理论论证,和一个明确的信息。这本书将其核心问题定义为“为什么政策制定者有意识地响应系统激励,经常发现他们的政策举措在试图实现其目标的过程中陷入了漫长而曲折的道路”(第2页)。目标或意图与随后的转移过程之间的差距是Basrur所说的“政策漂移”现象。在这样构建问题的过程中,这本书解决了两个长期存在的争论。学者们对印度崛起为大国的特殊性进行了持续的讨论,对该国所采取的缓慢或渐进的道路、政策选择背后的目的性和意图以及该国决策者的战略思维感到困惑。与此同时,本书的中心问题面临着一个深刻的本体论挑战,即如何克服国际关系和政治学科内部以及机构和结构类别之间经常出现的外部-内部区别。利用新古典现实主义,Basrur分析了印度外交政策结果偏离现实主义预期的例子——他小心翼翼地指出,不是理论家的预期,而是政策制定者的预期。换句话说,他展示了政策制定者是如何对系统性激励(广义上定义为国家之间的权力差异)做出明确回应的。例如,当印度选择改善与美国的关系时,这是冷战结束后重新调整的结果,在印度“干预”斯里兰卡内战后努力重建与斯里兰卡的关系时,在1998年推迟已久的公开核决定中,以及在努力管理来自邻国巴基斯坦的跨境威胁时。解释这些政策转变发生的原因,以及这些政策的实施后来如何受到国内政治的阻碍,是本书分析的主要部分。然而,Basrur试图做的远不止描述或解释过去发生的事情。通过强调责任问题,将道德维度纳入分析的另一个目标增加了一层发人深省的复杂性,但也导致了几个进一步的问题。这个故事的寓意是什么?在书的最后,Basrur声称,当他的分析框架应用于印度政策漂移的案例时,他强调并整合了物质和非物质因素,以解释为什么次优结果会发生并持续下去。他使用“非自愿”和“自愿”政策漂移的分类来捕捉物质因素和非物质因素发挥作用的程度。在非自愿漂移的情况下,物质约束起着核心作用,主要被定义为决策者对其政策环境的控制。这相对来说比较容易确定,例如,执政党在议会中占有的席位数量,以及它对联盟伙伴的亏欠程度。不太清楚的是造成Basrur所说的“放弃责任”的非物质因素(第196页)。他确定的非物质因素包括文职领导层在核战略问题上缺乏严谨的认识和知识,领导层无能的证据,以及中央和州政府持续忽视建立健全的安全基础设施和有效的政策来预防和阻止恐怖袭击。通过把政策制定者放在前台,并赋予他们一种道德责任,Basrur提供了一条解决之道……
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Explaining Policy Drift—An Analytical Template Drawn from the World's Most Populous Democracy
Explaining Policy Drift—An Analytical Template Drawn from the World's Most Populous Democracy Jivanta Schottli (bio) Subcontinental Drift: Domestic Politics and India's Foreign Policy was written in response to what Rajesh Basrur describes as three tensions: "a desire to investigate the contradiction between India's quest for power and status and the limitations of its policies and policymakers"; "the gulf between studies on India's external relationships and cutting-edge theory"; and "the materialist/normative divide in academia" (p. xi–xii). Basrur, drawing on an illustrious and unique career that has bridged area studies and international relations theory, is eminently well placed to address all three. He delivers empirically rich chapters, an elegant theoretical argumentation, and a clear message. Situating the Gap between Objectives and Outcomes The book frames its central question as "why policymakers, consciously responding to systemic incentives, often find their policy initiatives caught up in prolonged and meandering pathways in trying to attain their objectives" (p. 2). The gap between objectives or intent and subsequent diversionary processes is what Basrur refers to as the phenomenon of "policy drift." In framing its question thusly, the book addresses two long-running debates. Scholars have engaged in ongoing discussions about the particularities of India's emergence as a power, puzzling over the slow or gradualist path the country has taken, the purposefulness and intent behind policy choices, and the strategic thinking of the country's policymakers. At the same time, the book's central question confronts a deep ontological challenge of how to overcome the external-internal distinction that is so often drawn within and between the disciplines of international relations and politics and in the categories of agency and structure. Drawing on neoclassical realism, Basrur analyzes instances where Indian foreign policy outcomes have deviated from realist expectations—not those of theorists, he is careful to point out, but of policymakers. In other words, he demonstrates how policymakers have responded clearly to systemic [End Page 125] incentives, broadly defined as the power differentials between states. This is the case for India, for instance, when opting to improve relations with the United States as a result of the recalibrations caused by the end of the Cold War, in the effort to rebuild relations with Sri Lanka following India's "intervention" in the country's civil war, in the long-postponed decision to go overtly nuclear in 1998, and in efforts to manage cross-border threats from neighboring Pakistan. Explaining why these policy shifts took place when they did, and the ways in which implementation was subsequently hampered by domestic politics, is a major part of the book's analysis. However, Basrur seeks to do much more than describe or explain what happened in the past. The additional objective of integrating a moral dimension into the analysis by highlighting the question of responsibility adds a layer of complexity that is thought-provoking but which also leads to several further questions. What Is the Moral of the Story? At the end of the book, Basrur claims that his analytical framework, when applied to cases of Indian policy drift, highlights and integrates both material and nonmaterial factors into an explanation for why suboptimal outcomes occur and persist. He uses the categories of "involuntary" and "voluntary" policy drift to capture the extent to which material and nonmaterial factors play a role. In the case of involuntary drift, material constraints play a central role, defined largely as the control that decision-makers have over their policy environment. This is relatively easier to pinpoint, for instance, in the number of parliamentary seats the governing party holds and the extent to which it may be beholden to coalition partners. What is less clear are the nonmaterial factors that account for what Basrur describes as "the abdication of responsibility" (p. 196). His identified nonmaterial factors include a lack of epistemic rigor and knowledge among the civilian leadership on the issue of nuclear strategy, evidence of leadership incompetence, and sustained neglect across central and state governments to develop a robust security infrastructure and effective policies to prevent and deter terrorist attacks. By foregrounding policymakers and attributing to them a moral responsibility, Basrur is offering a way around...
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来源期刊
Asia Policy
Asia Policy Arts and Humanities-History
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
0.00%
发文量
55
期刊介绍: Asia Policy is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal presenting policy-relevant academic research on the Asia-Pacific that draws clear and concise conclusions useful to today’s policymakers.
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