Suchergebnisse

Looks at the progress of democracy on the Indian subcontinent. Elections postponed in Bangladesh, growing doubts about plans for polling in Pakistan, yet India boasts it is the world's biggest democracy. Sixty years on from independence, what explains the divergence? Adapted from the source document.

Regional cooperation worldwide has not only succeeded, but also is irreversible. It is a part of globalisation, though there are limits beyond which it cannot go. So, there is a general acceptance of the present state system that disputes will not ordinarily be settled by force, that borders will not be changed, and commitment to greater integration will increase. In South Asia, regional cooperation has been a non-starter and is confined to summits and declarations. But public demand for cooperation and an expansion of contacts is growing. In response, the smaller neighbours of India do not want to open up while India itself has followed a negative policy. Relations with Bhutan and the Maldives, and now increasingly Sri Lanka, are exceptions. Even in terms of India-Pakistan relations, which are on a different plane, there are promising developments.

The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of many new nation-states on the Asian geopolitical map and a simultaneous attempt by these states to claim the agency of nationhood and to create an aura of a homogenous national identity. Textbooks have been the most potent tools used by nations to inject an idea of a national memory - in many instances with utter disregard for fundamental contradictions within the socio-political milieu. In South Asia, political sensitivity towards transmission of the past is reflected in the attempts of these states to revise or rewrite versions which are most consonant with the ideology of dominant players (political parties, religious organizations, ministries of education, publishing houses, NGOs, etc.) concerning the nature of the state and the identity of its citizens. This paper highlights the fundamental fault lines in the project of nation-building in states in South Asia by locating instances of the revision or rewriting of dominant interpretations of the past. By providing an overview of various revisionist exercises in South Asia, an attempt will be made to highlight important issues that are fundamental to the construction of identities in this diverse continent.

The problems and prospects of democratic peace have attracted both scholars of international relations and policy makers in recent years. The main argument is that the promotion of democracy will lower the probability of war because democracies have not yet gone to war against each other. The promotion of democratic governance therefore became one of the cornerstones of the foreign policies in both the U.S. and the member countries of the European Union (EU) in the 1990s. South Asia can surely be regarded as a region where the benefits of democratic peace would be more than desirable. South Asia's image as a region of chronic instability was only to be seconded by U.S. President Clinton's remarks in March 2000 that the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir is the 'most dangerous place in the world'. The events following September 11 and the growing tensions between India and Pakistan after the attacks of Islamic militants on the Indian parliament in December 2001 have again increased the probability of a nuclear war in this part of the world. But the overall picture of the region is more complex. Besides the well-known conventional and nuclear security risks, South Asia is also among the poorest and least developed regions in the world according to international social and economic indicators. Despite these developments there are remarkable traditions of democratic rule at the same time. During most of the 1990s, South Asia was the biggest democratic region after the transition from authoritarian rule in Pakistan (1988), Nepal (1990) and Bangladesh (1990). Moreover, South Asia is the only region where western political institutions go hand in hand with a variety of non-western civilisations and where religion plays an active role in current politics. The only forms of Hindu and Islamic democracies are to be found in Nepal and Bangladesh, and Buddhism received a foremost place in the Sri Lanka constitution. In contrast to other Asian regions there is a strong commitment by South Asian countries to follow the development model that is included in the democratic peace debate. There is a great consensus for democracy and economic liberalisation. The constitutions of South Asian countries promote individual rights in contrast to community rights that created the debate on "Asian values" in parts of East and Southeast Asia some years ago. The ambivalent picture of conflict, poverty, and democracy offers an interesting test case for the theoretical assumptions of the democratic peace debate. In how far have periods of democratic governance on the domestic level as well as on the bilateral level brought about greater periods of peace as suggested by the theoretical debate? Will widespread democratisation and economic interdependence improve the prospects for peace and stability in the region? In order to address the problems and prospects of the democratic peace argument in South Asia, I will first give a short overview about the theoretical argument. In the second part, I will look at the domestic situation, the bilateral relations at the regional level and the role of economic interdependence and international institutions. Finally, I will draw conclusions about the applicability of the democratic peace argument for South Asia.

Marxism is not just a Euro-American preoccupation. It has had vibrant articulations around the world, particularly in Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, and amongst Black diasporas. But South Asia has been relatively neglected in efforts to register the revolutionary theoretical traditions of the Global South. Reinvigorating the study of Marxism within the South Asian context, this volume of Political Power and Social Theory highlights lesser-known thinkers to unsettle the propensity within the Marxist cannon to disproportionately fixate on white male theorists. Forging an anti-imperialist Marxism through dialectical and historical approaches, chapters demonstrate how the South Asian facet of this revolutionary tradition can contribute to and even reenergize global Marxist theory.