India and Global Governance

A Rising Power and Its Discontents

Harsh V Pant, Harsh V Pant

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000552294
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Relazioni internazionali

This volume explores India's role in the global governance architecture post–Cold War. It shows how, with a rise in India's capabilities, there is an expectation from its external interlocutors that New Delhi ought to play a larger global role. As Indian policymakers redefine their engagements in the global policy matrix, the chapters in the volume analyse India's role as a challenger and a stakeholder in world politics; its uneasy relationship with Western liberal democracies; and its role in shaping new structures of global governance. The volume focuses on a host of critical issues, including nuclear policy, climate action politics, India's bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, humanitarian interventions, trade governance, democracy promotion, India's engagement with other emerging powers in platforms such as the BRICS, the changing dynamics with its neighbours, and maritime governance.

A timely reimagining of global politics, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and international relations, climate change, military and strategic studies, economics, and South Asian studies.

1 Rising India and Its Global Governance Imperatives

Harsh V Pant

DOI: 10.4324/9781003272540-1

India was one of the most enthusiastic players when the edifice of global governance was laid in the post–World War II period (Bhagavan 2013). It participated in key international negotiations aimed at building the post-war international order, which was marked by the bipolarity of the Cold War era. Its vantage point was equally unique, with its lack of material power to shape global processes being largely compensated by its moral leadership of the then newly decolonised world. While maintaining a strong interest in global institutions, it remained non-aligned to the two major power blocks in global politics.

Even though India aspired to global leadership through the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to redefine the global governance agenda, the intensity of the Cold War politics and India’s lack of economic strength realistically reduced it to a regional player in South Asia. For most of the Cold War, India practised what can be called the “universalism of the weak” evident in its stand on the Korean crisis, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and New International Economic Order, to name but a few (Mohan 2010). Principles trumped pragmatism often leading to India’s marginalisation from global processes of norm-making. As a result, India was largely confined to being a rule-taker than a rule-maker in global governance (Sidhu et al. 2013, p. 6).

Major changes took place in India’s profile and its conception of national interests in the post–Cold War international politics. Disintegration of the former Soviet Union created a New World Order where Indian interests demanded a proactive engagement with global institutions not merely as a dissident but also as a positive contributor. This also coincided with economic liberalisation in India, allowing it to break the shackles of the “Hindu rate of growth” (Baru 2016). The role India has played in global governance in the last quarter of a century – whether in global trade, climate change, or nuclear non-proliferation – attests to both its rise and its importance in global governance. The domestic political scene also underwent changes with non-Congress governments coming to power who were less inclined to follow the precepts of non-alignment. In the last quarter of a century, India has slowly and surely embraced the liberal global order much more emphatically than ever in its history (Mukherji 2014). India’s resurgence in the post–Cold War period can largely be attributed to the liberal economic order. The liberal security order, on the other hand, has welcomed its rise largely because India’s democratic credentials gel well with the liberal principles. Not without reason, unlike China, India’s rise has been welcomed by the liberal world. This does not however translate into a complete abandonment of its past practices. The vestiges of India’s resistance to some of the global institutions and norms continue to inform its decision-making. This friction between its principled past and its pragmatic present continues to inform contemporary global governance debates in its domestic politics and shape India’s engagement with the wider world.

If the end of the Cold War was a major inflection point in India’s approach to global governance, the current turmoil in international politics is another. The post–World War II global order, to use the words of Henry Kissinger, is now in a state of “crisis” (Goldberg 2016). The US hegemony, which was primarily responsible for the liberal global order, seems to be in decline. The rise of Chinese power has thrown a challenge to the existing norms, rules, and institutions which govern global politics (Kagan 2017). Global governance, just like global balance of power, is witnessing the rise of a bipolar system (Xuetong 2011). China’s influence on structures of global governance is likely to create immense problems for India’s rise. This is because of two reasons. Firstly, if the US hegemony is replaced by a Sino-centric world order, the future of global governance may look drastically different from where it stands as of today. Secondly, if the US practised benevolent hegemony, the same cannot be said for China. Its assertiveness in Asia and beyond signals that China would use its growing influence to the detriment of other rising powers and more so, whom she considers as her strategic opponents. From India’s perspective, this is already evident in the debate over the expansion of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Lastly, the current disorder in global governance is not entirely driven by systemic factors of power transition. There is growing evidence to suggest a steady rise of internal resistance against globalisation (Roach 2016). States, which earlier spearheaded globalisation, are now increasingly following neo-mercantilist policies evident in the US President Donald Trump’s policies and the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. The future of the liberal order is now at stake.

Global economic multilateralism, which was largely a West European initiative in the mid-1970s, underwritten by America’s political, military, and economic prowess, stands at an inflection point today. It is being challenged by national populism, the most visible manifestations of which are Trump’s America and Boris Johnson’s United Kingdom. China’s rise is challenging the underpinnings of the global economic order, while the United States’ unwillingness to underwrite this order is testing the capabilities of western European powers. Tensions between China and the United States today represent something much larger than a mere bilateral dispute between two major powers. It underscores the unravelling of the post–Cold War consensus on global economics and politics. The Sino-US economic integration was, in more ways than one, the high-water mark of global economic convergence unleashed by the forces of globalisation. For a moment at least, politics was seemingly becoming subservient to economies as two opposite political ideologies in Washington and Beijing were getting intertwined through the forces of economics. But that was then. Political considerations are back in vogue. Today, as the two major global economies focus their energies on decoupling their economic futures, it signifies the broader anti-globalisation landscape of our times, a move that is engendering greater nationalism and inward orientation. The chimera of “Chimerica” is over. This is the age of America First!

This poses a formidable challenge for India. New Delhi has immensely benefited from the present structures of global governance; the liberal global order has been to its advantage. While benefiting from the system, it has repeatedly underlined that the current structures of global governance are not representative enough of its concerns. Such behaviour is typical of all rising powers. Not without reason, therefore, India finds these institutions both enabling and constraining. They have helped her rise, but as she rises in the system, she also finds some of them out of sync with the changing shifts in global balance of power. Its principal strategy therefore has been to uphold certain venues of the current global order, while assailing others. The current trend of anti-globalisation is therefore particularly troublesome. For the liberal order to sustain, India may have to now offer its leadership rather than mere participation (Pant 2017). This would require further commitments and resources on New Delhi’s part; rather than being simply a beneficiary of global public goods, it will now have to actively generate, sustain, and secure them.

This is also reflected in the desire of Indian policymakers to make India a “leading power.” While delivering the Fullerton lecture at the International Institute for Strategic Studies on “India, the United States and China,” Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said, “India looks to transforming itself from a balancing power to a leading power” (Jaishankar 2015). After keeping a low profile in the international system for long, India now wants to pro-actively shape global outcomes as there are now growing demands on India to make more contributions to the maintenance of the global order. The shifts in Indian foreign policy in the last quarter of a decade have been momentous. From “looking east” to “acting east,” India has shed some of its traditional reservations and is increasingly embracing the logic of expanding its influence beyond South Asia. Indian armed forces are now actively engaged globally in defence diplomacy. India is now a major voice in global trade and climate change debates. However, doubts galore over its capability to shoulder this responsibility. Notwithstanding India’s economic strides, poverty remains a major challenge. A substantial proportion of its population still remains unaffected by the growth trajectory it has experienced in the post–Cold War period. Its military focus is still very much defined by the traditional threats posed on its land frontiers by its hostile neighbours. It also lacks the appropriate institutional and bureaucratic apparatus to further its influence across its immediate frontiers. More importantly, it is its willingness to be engaged and contribute to global peace, security, and governance which is a topic of major speculation among strategists and political commentators, in both India and abroad.

It is therefore important to understand India’s role and views on the current flux in global governance and its own intentions and motives regarding its future shape. This volume seeks to examine India’s reaction to the current crisis in global governance, its stake in a liberal world order, its interests in ushering change in existing structures, and its capacity to influence and shape the future of global governance.

Global Governance and the Challenge of Rising India

The present structure of global governance emerged out of a particular mix of power, interests, and ideology in the post–World War II era (Ruggie 2004; Ikenberry 2005). Western hegemony shaped international institutions in its own light. They were first a result of the US military and economic preponderance, with Bretton Woods’s institutions and global economic governance its most emphatic manifestation. The liberal economic order was a public good only the United States could engender and sustain through its economic and military power. If power was one criterion, interests was another. Where one superpower could not do it alone, their complementarity of interests paved way for new norms and rules. Great power consensus therefore was equally responsible for the current structures of global governance. Soviet and American interests in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons were largely responsible for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime in the post–World War period (Krauss 2007: 296). While on the one hand power was instrumental in creating new norms and rules, on the other, norms and rules were critical for the balance of power to remain concentrated in the hands of the great powers (Mearshiemer 1994: 13). Global governance is thus not only an offshoot of a particular constellation of power but also an agent to sustain the same. Once created, it helps in preserving the system by making others converge their behaviour along the predefined norms and rules. These norms and rules gain additional legitimacy if they serve the interests of those they seek to govern. It is through this process of internalisation of norms and rules that global governance attains its overarching influence upon state behaviour.

For most of the post–World War II period, two great powers defined the international system and also structures of global governance. For a considerable time after the end of the Cold War, American unipolarity replaced that bipolar distribution of power. Its impact on global governance was palpable in so far as it came to represent closely the neoliberal outlook of successive US administrations. The liberal global order attained its climax in the first decade of US hegemony (Blyth 2007). In the last quarter of the century, however, the US unipolarity has paved way for a multipolar global order whose principal agents are a number of rising powers (Kahler 2013). Foundations of this emerging multipolarity lay in the shift of economic power from the West to the East (Posen 2009). The engine of global growth has now located itself in Asia, with China and India as the new destinations. Their rising economic prowess has also contributed to their military strength. Their rise however is not restricted to their increasing resource base and capabilities; their presence is also equally consequential for any solution to the world’s most important predicaments (Kliengibiel 2016). From restructuring of global economy to climate change to trade negotiations, these rising powers are part of both the problem and its solution.

This rise of new powers, therefore, poses new challenges to the existing structures of global governance which is largely a vestige of the post–World War II global distribution of power. From the United Nations Security Council to the International Monetary Fund, global institutions are struggling to accommodate this change in the power equation. Rising powers are not only clamouring for a greater role but also sometimes restructuring these norms, rules, and institutions. In other words, these rising powers are transitioning from rule-takers to rule-makers. India’s bid for a permanent seat at the UNSC, its drive to become a “normal” nuclear power, and its pursuit of greater influence in global economic governance is a case in point. Its intention is not to change the entire edifice of these institutions but only to seek greater participation. Accommodation rather than revolutionary change is its objective (Press Trust of India 2016). Its increasing power base has only made this quest realistic. This in essence makes India both a stakeholder and a challenger to the existing structures of global governance.

Yet there are certain avenues of the liberal global order which invite India’s strong reservations, if not its vehement opposition. India’s transition from the “universalism of the weak” to “exceptionalism of the strong” is yet not fully over (Mohan 2010; Sidhu et al. 2013). Multiple reasons explain India’s reluctance to fully embrace and internalise all of the liberal global governance agenda, including that of democracy promotion, the responsibility to protect, and neoliberal global trading regimes. For one, India is yet to overcome the stranglehold of its ideological past. Sovereignty, non-intervention, non-alignment, and strategic autonomy are rooted in its strategic culture but also possess certain domestic political value. Secondly, even when New Delhi has seen a great transformation in its economic and military prowess in the last quarter of the century, the willingness to use its power beyond its immediate neighbourhood is yet to be internalised by its political decision-makers. When it comes to the use of military power, India remains extremely conservative. Lastly, Indian decision-makers are acutely sensitive about India’s vital interests because of its unique challenges. Unlike great powers in the past, India’s focus largely remains inward. The contradiction of India’s rise is apparent in its impressive economic growth on the one hand and its multitude of poor on the other. India’s engagement with the liberal global order therefore varies from issue to issue. Where its ideology, interests, and resources dictate otherwise, India is willing to be an outlier, notwithstanding increasing global expectations.

Yet rising powers like India cannot merely be challengers or stakeholders in global governance; they also need to contribute. Legitimacy of their growing power rests on suggesting, devi...