Category Archives: Comparative Politics

Will Emerging Powers Promote Democracy?

The decline of Western dominance, symbolized by the financial crisis in 2008 and the rise of emerging actors such as China, India and Brazil, will fundamentally change the way decisions are made at the international level. Apart from changing the way decisions are made, the rise of non-established powers such as India and Brazil on the one hand and China on the other, will also have an impact on the international discourse on political values and systems of governance.

Border Provinces in Foreign Policy: China’s West and India’s Northeast

China has given greater leeway in economic matters, to these provinces of the west under its Western Development Strategy (WDS). In India, too, there is greater attention being paid to connecting India’s Look East Policy (LEP), a foreign policy initiative, with the economic development of the Indian Northeast. Might the WDS and the LEP be compared?

Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu

The India-Myanmar border regions form a forgotten frontier in the Indian and global imagination but violence, trade and transnational challenges such as drug-trafficking and the spread of diseases have kept both a regional identity as well as specific community identities alive.

The States in Indian Foreign Policy

This presentation focuses on one particular aspect of centre-province relations in India – the nature of influence that Indian provinces (or States) exercise on national foreign policymaking.

Provincial Interests and Foreign Policy

A combination of the success of economic reforms in certain provinces and of coalition politics at the national level underwritten by strong regional parties is beginning to translate into a ‘decentralization’ of Indian foreign policymaking. Indian provinces and their leaders are increasingly vocal in their opinions on foreign policy and international affairs and their views are beginning to have an impact on how the centre makes its foreign policy calculations.

Referendums in Taiwan

Referendums in the East Asian/Chinese context have a particular relevance, not so much because they are happening in Taiwan but because they involve China and this, at multiple levels. Without doubt, China has learned and is learning from Taiwan as it is from other parts of the world.

Leadership Change in China and Implications for India

The 17th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China that took place in October 2007 was notable for the beginning of the transition to the so-called fifth generation of China’s leaders. It is important to analyze these leadership changes both for what they reveal about the Chinese domestic political system and for their possible impact on China’s external relations.

Direct Flights between Taiwan and China

Direct transport, trade and postal links – known as the “three links” – with the mainland were snapped by the Republic of China government that had fled to Taiwan following its defeat. Today, in an era of deepening economic ties, the lack of direct and convenient links between the two political entities remains something of an anachronism. What has complicated matters however, is the fact that the strengthening of Sino-Taiwanese economic ties has also been accompanied by the rise of Taiwanese nationalism.