Indian foreign policy and contemporary security challenges

India is fast emerging as an important player in regional and international arenas. However, it continues to be beset by a number of security challenges, both internally and externally. On the assumption that India's foreign policy has evolved in step with its domestic politics, this article briefly surveys the evolution of Indian domestic politics and foreign policy before discussing some of the domestic and international (including regional) security challenges India faces today. The article concludes that although economic diplomacy does at present serve India well in projecting power internationally, achieving great power status in the future will rest on the resolution of key political and security challenges.     

Does size matter? Foreign aid in Taiwan's diplomatic strategy, 2000–8

This article is the first systematic attempt at estimating the size of Taiwanese foreign aid and, thus, the cost of Taiwan's aid diplomacy. It questions the Republic of China (ROC) President Ma Ying-jeou's justification of his ‘diplomatic truce’ with China as necessitated by an ineffectiveness of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian's costly aid diplomacy. Deriving its evidence from the ROC governmental budgets, local media reports and interviews with Taiwanese officials involved in foreign aid implementation, the article argues that President Chen did not engage in ‘generous financial aid’ and proposes that this parsimony, rather than futility of aid diplomacy as a strategy to expand Taiwan's international space, should be considered as contributing to Taipei's diplomatic failures from 2000 to 2008.     

现代大众政治的兴起与其欧洲国际政治效应

以选民范围急剧扩大为主要的直接由来,中、西欧国家政治在19世纪末至20世纪初年普遍转变为现代大众政治。与此相伴,公众舆论对国家对外政策的影响变得显和频繁;各类(特别是殖民、经济和军事三类)利益集团积极干预甚至操纵对外政策的形成;很大程度上植根于大众非理性情感、并且多半由大众传媒表述和助长的极端民族主义和帝国主义则构成欧洲及世界政治中的一大恶性力量。总之,现代大众政治的兴起是欧洲传统外交和国际政治变更的一项重要原因。     

Australia and the promise and the perils of humanitarian diplomacy

ABSTRACT

Humanitarian diplomacy has always been a crucial element of humanitarianism, however it is now becoming a more prominent element of states’ foreign policies. It holds many attractions and much promise. It provides states with a way of expressing important qualities of international empathy and solidarity and can also enhance a state’s international reputation and provide valuable means for building relationship of trust and cooperation. This can in turn can be conducive to a state’s broader foreign policy objectives. However, there are also perils to the incorporation of humanitarian diplomacy into a state’s foreign policy. It can generate ambiguity and even conflict within a state’s diplomatic endeavours due to tensions between humanitarian and broader national interests. In exploring these issues it is useful to distinguish between humanitarian diplomacy and humanitarianism as diplomacy. This article explores these issues in relations to Australia’s diplomacy. It argues that Australia has actively engaged in humanitarian diplomacy and humanitarianism as diplomacy. Whilst the two are often complementary, there are areas in which they have been in tension and even at odds. This has implications for Australia’s international reputation but also for its capacity to undertake genuine and effective humanitarian action.     

Japan's Sporting Diplomacy: The 1964 Tokyo Olympiad

At a time when Japanese foreign policy was constrained by the legacies of war and the exigencies of the Cold War, hosting the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was conceived as an alternative means of engagement with the international community. The sporting diplomacy of the Tokyo Olympics centered around elevating Japan’s international position by engaging the people of the world on a grassroots level. The pervasive notion that sports are separate from politics helped smooth Japan’s return to the international community, while concerns about the image presented to foreign audiences motivated efforts to internationalize Japan, in terms of both the physical infrastructure of the capital and attitudes of the people. The development of infrastructure for the Games—including new buildings, roads, and trains, and even a satellite to facilitate live international broadcast—all contributed to making Japan more “international.” The event was a great success for Japan, both athletically and diplomatically, and sports diplomacy became a lasting component of Japan’s foreign policy, still used today to promote international connections and develop greater knowledge and understanding of Japan. At the same time, this build-up of soft power also cleared the way for the development of greater hard power by Japan.     

Walking the Thin Line: India's Anti-Racist Diplomatic Practice in South Africa,Canada, and Australia, 1946–55

Historians of India's foreign policy have often failed to see beyond the ‘Great man’ Jawaharlal Nehru. This Nehru-centric vision is not only misleading, but also unfair to Nehru. Here, we seek to take the gaze off Nehru and New Delhi so as to view Indian foreign policy from different locations. We examine the ways in which India's diplomats in Australia, Canada, and South Africa resisted racial discrimination. India's anti-racist diplomacy has most often been viewed as pointless moralistic ranting: the domain of the ‘hypersensitive, emotional’ Indian. We argue, however, based on largely unexamined archival material and an emphasis on the practice of Indian diplomacy, that India's diplomats in these bastions of settler-colonial racism were tactful, strategic, and effective in challenging racist, colonial practices and bringing an anti-racist discourse to international politics. Nehruvian foreign-policy discourse, and its goal of an anti-racist world order, then, was tempered by its diplomatic practices. In particular, this occurred outside of New Delhi in places where India's hopes for productive international relationships clashed with its Nehruvian worldview.     

‘An enemy at the gates’ or ‘from victory to victory’? Russian foreign policy

Russian foreign policy reflects an evolving balance between vulnerability and opportunity. For much of President Putin's second term, Russia has been on the defensive. Despite increasing economic strength, observed in greater activity and an apparently more confident rhetorical stance, Russian diplomacy reflected a sense of vulnerability in Moscow. Indeed, diplomacy was largely inward looking: on the one hand it was a tool with which to unite and mobilize the Russian population rather than confront the West; on the other hand, it was a means of preventing external interference in Russian domestic affairs. On another level, Moscow sees an international situation destabilized by the unilateral actions of the US and an attempt by the ‘western alliance’ to assert and export its value system. But Moscow also believes that the international situation has reached a moment of transition, one which presents an opportunity for a Russia that lays claim to a global role. Russian foreign policy reflects a broad consensus in Moscow that asserts Russia's status as a leading power with legitimate interests. This moment of opportunity coincides with Moscow's desire to rethink the results of the post‐Cold War period and to establish Russia as a valid international player. Continuing constraints and recognition that its domestic priorities proscribe Moscow from seeking confrontation with the West, which it cannot afford. Nonetheless, the attempt to establish the legitimacy of sovereign democracy as an international model of development appears to represent an important development in how Russia will approach wider European politics.     

Do we need more economics in Australian economic diplomacy?

ABSTRACT

Economic diplomacy—that is, informal and formal processes and links between states and non-state actors on international economic issues—is a current focus of Australian foreign policy. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s stated economy diplomacy aims are liberalising trade, boosting economic growth, encouraging investment and assisting business. If Australia is to embrace a genuine and effective notion of economic diplomacy there are two problems to be overcome. First, DFAT’s economic diplomacy framework is incomplete and misses the bigger economic picture, particularly the role of Australia’s key economic agencies, Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia. Second, DFAT does not consistently apply economic principles to foreign affairs issues including trade, foreign aid and the global investment agenda. Going forward, Australia should abandon the focus on the four narrow pillars and instead focus on developing a clear, coordinated international economic strategy that articulates Australia’s core international economic objectives and priorities.     

Heritage diplomacy

This paper explores the concept of heritage diplomacy. To date much of the analysis regarding the politics of heritage has focused on contestation, dissonance and conflict. Heritage diplomacy seeks to address this imbalance by critically examining themes such as cooperation, cultural aid and hard power, and the ascendency of intergovernmental and non-governmental actors as mediators of the dance between nationalism and internationalism. The paper situates heritage diplomacy within broader histories of international governance and diplomacy itself. These are offered to interpret the interplay between the shifting forces and structures, which, together, have shaped the production, governance and international mobilisation of heritage in the modern era. A distinction between heritage as diplomacy and in diplomacy is outlined in order to reframe some of the ways in which heritage has acted as a constituent of cultural nationalisms, international relations and globalisation. In mapping out directions for further enquiry, I argue the complexities of the international ordering of heritage governance have yet to be teased out. A framework of heritage diplomacy is thus offered in the hope that it can do some important analytical work in the field of critical heritage theory, opening up some important but under theorised aspects of heritage analysis.     

Apartheid cartography: the political anthropology and spatial effects of international diplomacy in Bosnia

International diplomacy has been one of a number of practices which have performatively constituted “Bosnia” as a particular place with specific people, so that it could be rendered as a problem requiring a particular solution. Even when, as in the case of the Dayton accords, negotiators claim they have desired the reintegration of Bosnia, their reliance on a powerful set of assumptions about identity, territoriality and politics—a particular political anthropology—has meant the ethnic partition of a complex and heterogeneous society is the common product of the international community's efforts. Paying attention to the role of cartography, this paper explores the apartheid-like logic of international diplomacy's political anthropology, the way this logic overrode non-nationalist options and legitimised exclusivist projects during the war, and considers the conundrum this bequeaths Bosnia in the post-Dayton period as a number of significant local forces seek to overcome division.This article is accompanied by a web-site which presents the relevant maps from the periods of international diplomacy discussed here, along with a further commentary. Referred to in the article as Campbell (1999), this web-site can be accessed at http://www.newcastle.ac.uk/~npol/maps/bosnia     

国际战略与中国外交

新中国的领导者虽然针对不同的对象使用不同的战略概念,但多半是选择国际战略概念表达其对外交政策方针的思考。在学术界,使用国际战略概念研究中国外交也已成为主流。因此,在新中国外交史的演变中把握中国国际战略的历史阶段,在梳理新中国政治话语中的战略语义和语境的基础上体会国际战略概念,有助于推进中国国际战略理论研究的规范化和新中国外交研究的系统化,增强中国的外交研究和国际政治研究的思想深度。     

Engagement or empire? American power and the international order

Three recent surveys of American foreign relations lie at the intersection of topical academic and policy debates. Robert Lieber's Eagle rules? makes a case for American primacy as a precondition for global stability, and in so doing reflects an agenda for US foreign policy that is broadly associated with the current Bush administration. By contrast, Joseph Nye's The paradox of American power argues against US unilateralism, and may be read as an implicit critique of the apparent recent shift in American strategy. Nevertheless, both Lieber and Nye make a case for extensive American engagement with the world as a basis for international stability. By contrast, Chalmers Johnson's Blowback views America's global ‘engagement’ as a thinly disguised diplomatic veil for imperialism. Although they make very different arguments, these three books are usefully considered together. Nye's stress on the importance of soft power, multilateral diplomacy and wider structural changes in the nature of world politics is a useful corrective to Lieber's emphasis on US primacy. But Johnson is right to criticize the excessive and ultimately counter‐productive level of military involvement of the United States around the world. In the absence of a more effective global balance of power, the preconditions for a robust system of international diplomacy as well as the management of globalization will not be satisfied.     

Realising Australia's international education as public diplomacy

Australia's international education serves as public diplomacy, essentially engaging and influencing public audiences in ways that progress Australian foreign policy priorities and national interests. The multidimensional and increasingly globalised nature of international education presents enormous opportunity for vital exchange and interactions between and with students, academics and communities via onshore and offshore modes of delivery. Positive experiences of student mobility and the development of intellectual, commercial and social relationships can build upon a nation's reputation, and enhance the ability of that nation to participate in and influence regional or global outcomes. This is ultimately the essence of soft power. While Australia has made significant commercial gains through international education, it has fallen short of realising the soft power potential inherent in the volume and depth of interactions, relationships and achievements resulting from it, particularly in the Asian region, where Australia's international education sector continues to be most active. This article argues that there is a soft power benefit in recognising international education as public diplomacy, though acknowledges that challenges exist in connecting the soft power aspirations to reality. Findings suggest that there is room for more coherent public diplomacy leadership and inter-agency coordination, improved evaluation and expanded dialogue both within the sector and the broader community.     

Bending the body for China: the uses of acrobatics in Sino-US diplomacy during the Cold War

This paper examines how acrobatics was imbued with multiple meanings through the practices of nation-state building and international diplomacy. More specifically, the author discusses why the Chinese government chose acrobatics to facilitate the Sino-US rapprochement and the implications of this cultural diplomacy for the governments as well as the acrobats. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival data, this study demonstrates how the relationship between acrobatics and the ideas of ‘Chinese revolution’ was established, strengthened, disrupted, and finally re-modified to facilitate China’s relations with the West. This historical investigation advances the literature on performing arts and politics by exposing the political logics in the North-South exchange. As important, the analysis of acrobats’ engagement with Cold War politics evades state-centric narratives and contributes to an understanding of international diplomacy from a bottom-up perspective.     

The Penitentiary as a Well of Grace in the Late Middle Ages: The Example of Uppsala 1448-1527

This paper offers an introduction to the following papers, which represent the results of a round table at the Nordiska Historikermöte 2004 in Stockholm. It discusses the renewed interest in the study of diplomacy and international politics. This revival during the past few decades is sometimes not more than a reinvention of the old diplomatic history. However, it is also influenced by the history of ideas, as elaborated by Anglo‐American historians, and modern cultural sociology. The history of diplomacy seen from the perspective of cultural transfer offers new insights into early modern diplomacy based on a new reading of well‐known material.     

Going Global: Assessing Presidential Foreign Travel

Abstract

Since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke the “Ironclad Custom”—and especially following World War II—presidents have routinely traveled outside of the United States to visit other countries and meet foreign leaders and publics. Presidents are expected to engage in face-to-face diplomacy, but they must also be present and active in domestic politics. To balance these pressures, presidents need to be strategic and mindful of their limited political resources and the opportunities the political environment creates. How, then, do international and domestic political resources and opportunities affect the extent and frequency of foreign travel? To examine this question, we collected and analyzed a dataset of presidential foreign travel—number of trips, countries visited and days spent abroad—during the post-World War II period (1953–2016) and estimated the frequency of travel with a set of explanatory variables that capture U.S. foreign involvement as well as the domestic policy agenda and political incentives that affected presidents from Eisenhower to Obama. Our findings demonstrate that domestic policy and political incentives are strong determinants of presidential foreign travel.     

The International Character of a Trimmer: Interest,Reason of State,and Balance of Power in Halifax's Political Thought

This article argues that George Savile's thought casts light on international relations in the seventeenth century. Halifax's life and works concern not only England's domestic politics, but also its foreign affairs. Indeed, he develops a clear vision of international politics. This article analyses Halifax's international thought, in particular three concepts that are closely related to one another: ‘interest’, ‘reason of state’, and ‘balance of power’. Through the study of these ideas, this article will try to point out both the novelty of Halifax's thought compared with that of his contemporaries, and to reverse the stereotypical understanding of his intellectual legacy and political behaviour. The ‘trimmer’ contrasts with Louis XIV's attempt to establish a universal monarchy across Europe, outlining a doctrine of moderation that seeks to ensure liberty, security, and restraint in international relations.     

The Movement, modernity and new International Relations writing in South Africa

Books reviewed in this article:
Korwa Gombe Adar and Rok Ajulu, Globalization and emerging trends in African states' foreign policymaking processes: a comparative perspective of Southern Africa.
Patrick Bond, Against global apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and international finance.
Greg Mills, The wired world: South Africa, foreign policy and globalization.
Philip Nel, Ian Taylor and Janis van der Westhuizen, South Africa's multilateral diplomacy and global change: the limits of reformism.
Ian Taylor, Stuck in middle GEAR: South Africa's post–apartheid foreign relations.     

Towards a political geography of hotels: Southern Rhodesia, 1958–1962

This article sets out the case for taking account of hotels in political geography. It argues that hotels, as key spaces of welcome, association, and entertainment between public and private, are important political sites. They provide space for the performance of political ideologies and identities, where political campaigns can be made visible, where political relations can be illuminated and translated for international audiences, and where the ‘little things’ (Thrift, 2000, Thrift, 2004) that construct political geographies can be examined. Drawing on theoretical discussions of hospitality, as well as work in political geography, it explores the politics of multi-racial hospitality in the hotels of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, between 1958 and 1962 in order to understand late colonial politics in Southern Africa. Considering three individual hotels, the paper elaborates their role as keys spaces in the landscape of exclusive ‘European’ sociability; as crucial sites in the enactment of and resistance to the colour bar; and as vantage points on Southern Rhodesian racial politics for international guests. The papers shows that far from being peripheral to the ‘real’ politics of diplomacy and government, hotels and the hospitable practises within them can be seen as crucial elements in the construction of local, national and international politics.     

Peculiar chauvinism or strategic calculation? Explaining the negotiating strategy of a rising India

India is finally on the rise. It is increasingly recognized as an 'emerging power' and a 'pivotal state', and receives invitations to the major fora for international negotiations (such as the G8, or small group consultations within the WTO) that are commensurate with this recognition. Interesting, however, belying all predictions and often at considerable cost to itself, even the rising India continues to adhere to features of its old, Third Worldist, defensive style of diplomacy. This article examines the reasons why Indian negotiators show such willingness to 'Just Say No' across international negotiations. It focuses on India's negotiation strategies in the regimes of trade and nuclear non-proliferation. The article argues that the sources of India's nay-saying have deeper roots than accounts of bureaucratic politics and domestic interest groups would suggest. It also analyzes some recent changes in India's negotiating positions, and argues that it is still too early to speculate on how meaningful or longlasting these changes might be. Finally, the article identifies the conditions under which India's negotiating strategies might change from its traditional nay-saying to a more proactive and easier engagement with the developed world.