A Non-Conventional IR Approach to India's Foreign Policy

Paper presentation for the Panel 'India's international relations: empirical and theoretical perspectives'. EISA Pan-Euro Conference in Warsaw, 18 - 21st September, 2013

Abstract

The paper elaborates on a critique of mainstream IR theory - neo-realism and liberal IR - and suggests that an alternative Critical IPE approach (CPE) contributes to a more nuanced understanding of India's foreign policy. In generic terms, shifting governments have a variety of options both in defining and refining what 'national interest' means, how security and threats are perceived, and which factors shape geo-economic and geopolitical relations to other countries.

The CPE approach does not essentialize the state as a pre-constituted entity or a ‘black box’ of “national interests” interacting within anarchical international relations. Rather, CPE seeks to understand ‘forms of states’ as ‘state/society complex’ and asks how the prevailing order has come about and how it is changing. It is the interplay of particular configurations of contending social forces and alliances, including attempts at integration of a variety of class interests that defines “national interests” and characterizes inherent contradictions in the historical structure. The aim then is to explore the boundaries of the state in its current conjunctures, its historical dynamic and the process of social change. In this way, the paper seeks an understanding of the underlying and prevailing tensions between geo-politics and geo-economics in foreign policy. It is important to ask “who defines national interest” and who has the power to change it?