Suchergebnisse

Michael O. Slobodchikoff and Aakriti A. Tandon, India as a Kingmaker: Status Quo or Revisionist Power (Ann Abor: University of Michigan Press, 2022), XIV+164 pp. $29.95, ISBN: 978-0-472-05566-1 (Paperback).

India has been alleged for adopting a reluctant approach to the doctrine of responsibility to protect (R2P). In light of this allegation, this article explains India's approach to R2P and attempts to answer why India has adopted a cautious and reluctant approach. To give a comprehensive picture and provide a compelling account of India's cautiousness and reluctance, this article uses an eclectic approach. The systemic and domestic variables, along with normative and materialistic factors, have been taken simultaneously into account. It points out that India's approach to R2P is shaped by a set of six variables—historical legacies, especially India's colonial experience and its applications for its attitude towards the principles of non-intervention and state sovereignty; domestic compulsions such as failure of India to deliver inclusive and equitable development and ensuring human rights and citizen's dignity in remote areas; the intentions of the great powers; security concerns like insurgency in various parts, including Kashmir; its approach to the doctrine per se; and unintended consequences of conflict escalation and its implication for India—have been a linchpin in shaping India's approach. It demonstrates how these factors have cumulatively shaped India to neither vote in favor of intervention nor stand up with the governments that fail to protect their citizens, and thus fall in fulfilling their obligations under the first principle of the doctrine of R2P.

Mischa Hansel, Raphaëlle Khan, and Mélissa Levaillant (Eds), Theorizing Indian Foreign Policy. New York: Routledge, 2017, pp. x + 225, £29.99 (Paperback). ISBN 978147246238 (hardback), ISBN 9781315551197 (e-book).

This article illustrates China's counter-terrorism strategy at the United Nations (UN), analyses its cornerstones and underscores changing patterns. On this basis, it also seeks to make some broader observations about how rising powers behave in international organisations and to highlight their attitudes towards the liberal international order. It considers Chinese positions in the debates in the General Assembly (1972–2018), its Sixth Committee and the Security Council (since the early 1990s) and identifies four pillars of China's counter-terrorism strategy. These include norm entrepreneurship, diplomatic measures, promotion of international cooperation and domestic measures to fulfil obligations emanating from UN resolutions, conventions and declarations. It shows how China has shaped the discourse on terrorism at the UN and how its counter-terror narratives and advocacy have been and are being shaped by the discourse among states and competing blocs like the Organization of Islamic Conference over this period. It concludes with the observation that, despite changes in its strategy in recent years, the defining principles of China's counter-terrorism strategy, such as respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, have not eroded. Changes like accepting that the UN must play a 'central coordination role' in international counter-terrorism should be regarded as a further extension of China's zeal to maintain the international order because the UN is a defining pillar of the present international order.

This article examines continuity and change in Indian foreign policy since Narendra Modi took office. It proceeds with analyzing six issues that dominated India's foreign engagement between the prime ministerial regimes of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh as a reference point. To evaluate the level of change, it defines major change as a major shift in the goals and strategies of a state's foreign policy and argues that most often a major change in foreign policy is a result of changes in the systemic variables followed by a change in either state- or individual-level variables. Indian foreign policy under Modi is witnessing a proactive turn infused by a strong leadership. The new government has redefined India's foreign policy priorities, and the level of external engagement has also gone up. However, areas like democracy promotion have not upheld their momentum, and the government's regional policy has failed to utilize the opportunities that were available to it when it began its tenure. Also, foreign policy changes under the new government cannot be regarded as a major change because the goals and strategies of Indian foreign policy have not changed.