Suchergebnisse

The democratic peace hypothesis, which is embedded in the neo-Kantian romance of liberal cosmopolitan idealism, was framed in the spatiotemporal context of the Cold War bipolarity. Michael Doyle, who is one of its proponents, invoked the Kantian philosophical abstraction of 'the perpetual peace' by providing an intellectual defence and moral high ground for the values of the Liberal Capitalist world. In the post–Cold War setting, Francis Fukuyama re-casted the hypothesis and portrayed the triumph of liberal international order as 'the end of history'. He attempted to reframe the democratic peace thesis, not only to celebrate liberal values as the normative exemplar for ordering a post–Cold War international system but also to provide an intellectual defence for the newly emerging space for American leadership in a post-hegemonic international system. This intellectual defence of the ethical supremacy of liberal idealism in the world, shaped by the leadership of the USA, was entrenched in the epistemological Imperialism of the West. Besides, it also reflected an exclusionary idea of the history of international relations that was heavily grounded in the chronology of the post-Westphalia international order. Situating ourselves in this framework, this article is an attempt to critique the epistemic foundations of the democratic peace hypothesis, by deconstructing its assertions in the geostrategic context of the regional security architecture in South Asia. The article criticizes the democratic peace thesis, using an analysis of the Kargil conflict (1999) between India and Pakistan, and by placing ourselves in the epistemological framework of the historical turn in international relations.

This article is an attempt to conceptualise and theoretically explain the colonial genealogies of the processes of state-making and state-construction in post-colonial South Asia. In pursuit of this, the article seeks to theorise the colonial ways of providing a sense of fixity of political territoriality, held together by colonially crafted institutions of metropolitan governance, as an independent variable in determining the nature of the processes of state-making and state-construction in the region. On this count, an enquiry into the complex trajectory of these post-colonial political processes, which are the dependent variables for this article, is the fundamental problematic of analysis. This problematic would be decoded with the help of a dual conceptual framework, involving what Samuel Huntington designates as political decay and the legitimation crisis given by Jurgen Habermas. In the context of South Asia, the predicaments of political decay and legitimation crisis, according to this article, manifest as after-effects of engagement on the part of the region's post-colonial polities with the imported values of colonial modernity and neoliberal economic reforms. By drawing instances from two countries of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the article tries to show how these after-effects have played out in the form of a tumultuous political history of the processes of state-making and state-construction. The article, in this way, is an attempt to theorise the inter-sectionalities between the colonial and post-colonial periods of South Asia. This has been done here by problematising such a historical inter-sectionality from the perspective of the two intervening variables—the received values of colonial metropolis and the morals of modernity—mediated through neoliberal economic reforms.

The Islamic State (ISIS) has sought to realign the role of public religion in the modern secular space by proclaiming to contest all forms of apostasy and re-interrogate the conceptual formulations of belief/unbelief in Islam. Through such quests for realignment, it has sought to revive the medieval debate on the question of confessional religious identity which involved definitional disputations concerning true Muslims. The debate surfaced during the formative phase of the Muslim society and led to the engendering of competing sectarian religiosities. For the Islamic State, its urge for reviving this medieval discourse on confessional religious identity of Muslims is embedded in a romantic vision of the abode of pure Islam, to be inhabited only by true Muslims. However, such a geopolitical imaginary is deeply grounded in a sectarian Sunni political ontology coupled with a prejudicial interpretation of jihad. To accomplish its objectives and for enunciating the attributes of the land of pure Islam, the organization has transformed the Qur'an, which is in the intransitive form, into a transitive form so as to theologize the sacred text into a radical instrument of violence. It has also attempted to transfigure the spiritual character of Islam, referred to as the deen (a pluralistic system), into a cult.

"This book examines the complex dynamics of India Pakistan relations, by situating the same in the post-colonial setting of the subcontinent. In pursuit of this, the book analyses the impact of the linkages between the postcolonial processes of state-making and the structuring of political communities, upon the evolution of the problématique of state security in South Asia. For the purpose of undertaking this task, the author deconstructs the countries' colonial history, with an aim to map its impact on the making of the foreign policy of Pakistan. Drawing primarily from colonial discourse theory and historical sociology, the book links the trajectory of Pakistan's international politics, to its domestic politics and 'weak state' inheritances. By doing this, it offers a stimulating treatment of the history of the country's troubled post-colonial relations with India. This has been done in the book, by presenting the modes by which the religio-military and politico-bureaucratic classes that constitute the power elite in Pakistan, tended to have molded an India-centered State security problématique. This book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian security, India-Pakistan relations and the defence and foreign policy of Pakistan"--

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is completing a decade. There have been varied responses to the Initiative from countries and regions besides the emergence of alternative initiatives and narratives. This sets the stage for evaluating the robustness of the Initiative, its implementation as well as its implications from the perspective of individual countries and regions across the globe. This book begins by examining China's domestic, economic, maritime and strategic interests as drivers for the Initiative. BRI has been analysed in country-specific, regional and continental contexts. It brings out the experiences and responses from South Asia, Eurasia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, Latin America, the Caribbean as well as from Europe and Africa. Further, BRI has been studied in the larger context of the US-China competition. The final section explores BRI in the context of the twin challenges of recent times, i.e., the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict. The book concludes with an epilogue which outlines the broad trends related to BRI that have emerged from this study of ICWA.

"This book examines the complex dynamics of India Pakistan relations, by situating the same in the post-colonial setting of the subcontinent. In pursuit of this, the book analyses the impact of the linkages between the postcolonial processes of state-making and the structuring of political communities, upon the evolution of the problématique of state security in South Asia. For the purpose of undertaking this task, the author deconstructs the countries' colonial history, with an aim to map its impact on the making of the foreign policy of Pakistan. Drawing primarily from colonial discourse theory and historical sociology, the book links the trajectory of Pakistan's international politics, to its domestic politics and 'weak state' inheritances. By doing this, it offers a stimulating treatment of the history of the country's troubled post-colonial relations with India. This has been done in the book, by presenting the modes by which the religio-military and politico-bureaucratic classes that constitute the power elite in Pakistan, tended to have molded an India-centered State security problématique. This book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian security, India-Pakistan relations and the defence and foreign policy of Pakistan"--

"The India-Pakistan Sub-conventional War: Democracy and Peace in South Asia argues that it is possible to map the functioning of democracy in South Asia by studying the role of the army in the political processes of Pakistan. In December 1988, Pakistan experienced a transition to democracy. Simultaneously, the military-intelligence complex was also able to take advantage of insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir and intensify the proxy war against India. Considering such a contradictory political situation, this book studies the deepening conflictual trajectory of the India-Pakistan relations since 1989. By analyzing this period of history, it argues that, in South Asia, the process of democratic transition and intensification of the sub-conventional war have happened concurrently. The book further argues that overt nuclear weaponization and the failure of nuclear deterrence allowed the sustenance of the India-Pakistan sub-conventional war. By examining the subcontinental security predicament involving the two nuclear-powered adversaries, the book interrogates the democratic peace thesis. It deconstructs the thesis' arguments in the geo-strategic context of the South Asian regional security architecture"--

Interpretation of the history, foundational scriptures of Islam and the cultural practices of Muslims has been a fundamental influence upon the modes of Western explanation of the reasons for the rise of violent extremism involving Muslims. In this regard, one source that factors deeply in the process of making the Western portrait of Islam and the Muslim world is the emphasis of the Salafi reform movement on adherence to a puritanical form of Islam and the appropriation and subsequent perversion of this discourse by transnational jihadi groups. Such an arrogation of epistemological space of Islam by extremist organizations in a bid to glorify their violent atrocities and terror methodologies has spawned distorted negative images of the religion of Islam. This has subsequently led to a widespread propaganda of the phenomenon of Islamophobia, and it is this very notion of Islamic evil demonology that undergirds the Western imagery of Islam and the Muslims. The present article aims at demystifying such clichéd imagery of Islam in general and Salafism in particular that has been engendered by Western critiques.