"Five out of the eight South Asian countries have direct access to the Indian ocean, yet research tends to focus instead on the region's landmass. Much less attention is paid to the extensive maritime space that links South Asian countries, provides their populations with vital access to resources, connects their economies to global trade networks and perhaps most importantly, contributes to law and order at sea. At a time when the Indian Ocean has gained great interest and relevance for many global actors, the role and location of South Asia will have critical implications for strategic calculation and alignment. Furthermore, if trade imbalances are to be tackled and economic globalization to regain steam, enhancing South Asia's ability to export and import through the oceans is essential. Finally, climate change is projected to impact South Asia massively. Coping with humanitarian crises and natural disasters will need critical investments in maritime capacities and cooperation. This edited volume brings together multiple perspectives on contemporary maritime governance in South Asia, from practitioners, policy-makers and academics around the world. They examine India's role as South Asia's leading naval and economic power and the capacity of key actors to shape maritime order in the Indian Ocean."--
This special issue of Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics is the result of a two-day colloquium that took place in Heidelberg at the Internationales Wissenschafts Haus during October 2009. Thanks to funding through the project, Citizenship as Conceptual Flow : Asia in Comparative Perspective, part of the Heidelberg University, Cluster of Excellence, Asia and Europe in a Global Context, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral scholars were invited from universities across Germany and France to present and discuss papers and on-going research. A few core questions were posed as a basis for the proceedings, linking the three common themes of democracy, governance and citizenship: Do definitions and perceptions of democracy vary according to context and historical experience? Can governance be compared across time and space? How has the concept of citizenship 'travelled'? The papers that were presented, amended and submitted have been divided into four sections. The first, "Religion and the State: implications for democracy, governance and citizenship" contains two articles that discuss the nature of secularism in Western Europe, emerging as it did within a historical context of state and nation-building projects. Both highlight challenges to western understandings and practices of secularism. In the second section titled, "Governance in post-conflict and post-colonial states", each of the three papers examines conceptual and institutional arrangements developed to cope with conflict and transition. Section three, "Managing Diversity: legal and institutional arrangements" approaches the subject from a theoretical and empirical angle. The final section, "Exporting Institutions: democracy promotion and regional integration" consists of two papers that explore the degree to which European institutions can be transferred, either as deliberate policy (democracy promotion) or through processes of emulation (regional integration). While most of the papers in this collection are one-country studies or ...
This special issue of Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics is the result of a two-day colloquium that took place in Heidelberg at the Internationales Wissenschafts Haus during October 2009. Thanks to funding through the project, Citizenship as Conceptual Flow : Asia in Comparative Perspective, part of the Heidelberg University, Cluster of Excellence, Asia and Europe in a Global Context, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral scholars were invited from universities across Germany and France to present and discuss papers and on-going research. A few core questions were posed as a basis for the proceedings, linking the three common themes of democracy, governance and citizenship: Do definitions and perceptions of democracy vary according to context and historical experience? Can governance be compared across time and space? How has the concept of citizenship 'travelled'? The papers that were presented, amended and submitted have been divided into four sections. The first, "Religion and the State: implications for democracy, governance and citizenship" contains two articles that discuss the nature of secularism in Western Europe, emerging as it did within a historical context of state and nation-building projects. Both highlight challenges to western understandings and practices of secularism. In the second section titled, "Governance in post-conflict and post-colonial states", each of the three papers examines conceptual and institutional arrangements developed to cope with conflict and transition. Section three, "Managing Diversity: legal and institutional arrangements" approaches the subject from a theoretical and empirical angle. The final section, "Exporting Institutions: democracy promotion and regional integration" consists of two papers that explore the degree to which European institutions can be transferred, either as deliberate policy (democracy promotion) or through processes of emulation (regional integration). While most of the papers in this collection are one-country studies or region-focused, there are strong comparative insights into processes of democratisation and transition that cut across time and space. Each of these studies allude to the importance of transfers between Europe and Asia, Europe and Africa, Europe and Latin America, the counter-flow between them, and perhaps increasingly, a dispersion of flow, as African countries, for example, begin to look to Asian counter-parts rather than Europe for institutional innovations. Furthermore, the contributions, either explicitly or implicitly, address the methodological and theoretical challenges of how to study and analyse hybrid forms of governance and innovative methods of citizen-making, such as the role that reconverted ex-combatants in Sierra Leone play. By bringing together a wide range of region and country-specialists, these papers reveal that divergent historical experiences, widely varied socio-economic and political contexts nevertheless yield common concerns relating to the designing of resilient institutions.
In power from 1947 to 1964, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru is regarded as one of the key founding fathers of the modern Indian nation-state. However, a literature survey reveals that there is little systematic analysis of his policies which, it is argued, were crucial in moulding India's modern politics. A reluctance to analyse Nehru as a politician concerned with power politics, seems to pervade existing scholarship. This work argues that policies are a window into the politics of the time and need to be analysed both in terms of their historical, institutional lineage as well as representing a compendium of values and interests. The 1950s in India were a crucial transition period when the legacy and institutions of British rule had to be transformed to fit the needs of a post-colonial state. The work selects three policy choices, the setting up of the Planning Commission in 1950, the signing of the Sino- Indian Panchasheela Agreement in 1954 and the passing of four legislative bills that compiled the Hindu Code in 1955 and 1956. It is posited that these policies correspond to the pillars of Nehru's vision for a modern, independent India which encapsulated socialism, nonalignment and secularism. Applying insights from rational choice and new institutionalist theory, an attempt is made to understand the origins, composition and impact of the three policies. A comparative analysis generates findings that have particular relevance for the study of policy-making under conditions of transition.
