CIAO DATE: 04/2013
March 2013
Institute for Development and Peace
India is an emerging power and its influence as well as the government’s aspirations in global politics has steadily been growing in recent years. The economy has experienced impressive growth but India’s political, social and economic development has neither been coherent nor smooth and millions of Indians still suffer from inequalities and poverty. The study looks at recent developments in India’s global aspirations, at the history of India’s foreign policy — with its shifts and changes — and at the ideological foundation s of these different foreign affairs notions, namely idealism, realism and geopolitics, Hindu nationalism and the now predominant liberalisation and internationalisation concepts. In this report, the debate in India is reconstructed against the background of existing international relations theories. India has a great, but still largely untapped soft power potential and the capacity of integrating tradition and modernity, resulting in the creation of resilient institutions, a functioning federalism and an i nteresting amorphous character of the society with an aptitude for vagueness and improvisation to make things work. The report arrives at the conclusion that the Indian government is trying to play a greater role in global rule - making but does not want to change these rules fundamentally; it rather wants to enhance its status within the existing nation state oriented global governance system.
Resource link: India's Aspirations in Global Politics: Competing Ideas and Amorphous Practices [PDF]