International Relations and Governance Studies

<p>Shiv Nadar University is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, research-focused, and student-centric University offering a full range of academic programs at the undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral level. With state-of-the-art infrastructure, the University comprises of academic wings, sophisticated labs, international standard sports facilities, amphitheaters, auditorium, conference rooms and smart classrooms. The University&rsquo;s goal is to become internationally recognized for the quality of its research and creative endeavors and their applicability to improving quality of life, generating new insights and expanding the boundaries of human knowledge creativity. Committed to excellence in teaching, research and service, the University aims to serve the higher education needs of India and the world beyond.</p>

Shiv Nadar University

The article seeks to do an audit of the state of International Relations theory (IRT) in India. It examines three facets of IRT in this connection. The first relates to the possibility of a tradition of thinking on issues of universal theoretical significance. The second pertains to an exploration of scholarly reflection on an important principle of Indian foreign policy, namely, non-alignment and the limits of theorizing it. The final facet examines the concerns that inform theorization by Indian scholars since the 1990s. In regard to the first facet, the article argues that there exists an Indian tradition of thinking on issues of order, justice and cosmopolitanism, even though it may not have been expressed in the language of IRT. With regard to non-alignment, the article argues that while it did not result in broader theoretical formulations, it raised a number of first order issues for further theorizing. Finally, it suggests that recent IRT invocations by Indian scholars reflect a more receptive conjuncture for such work, both in terms of Indias own changing stature in the world system as well as an acknowledgement of more eclectic methods and possibilities in the broader world of the social sciences.

(SoHSS) School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Fulltext

International Studies

Development of international relations theory in India: Traditions, contemporary perspectives and trajectories

The article reviews the book "The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War," by Prem Shankar Jha.

India Quarterly

The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War.

Strategic Analysis

{Contested World Orders: Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (Penguin, New Delhi, 2008), pp. 292 Parag Khanna, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global {\ldots}}

Superpower Rivalry and Conflict: The Long Shadow of the Cold War on the 21st Century

Engaging the idea of global citizenship

This article examines the theoretical salience of territoriality, particularly in South Asia, by comparing the histories of the region's three most contentious boundaries - Durand, McMahon and Radcliffe lines. It argues that four distinct avenues are central to theoretical considerations on territoriality in South Asia: the role of liberalism in colonial construction of state; international and domestic dimensions of geopolitics; disruptions in demographic and cultural contiguities produced by the boundaries; and the nature of sovereignty resulting from the experience of colonialism. Traditional lenses for studying boundaries and territoriality offer limited analytical purchase. The article posits that critical geopolitics and history-intensive approaches allow a better grasp of material and discursive dimensions of territoriality. Such an eclectic consideration is especially suitable for studying territoriality in South Asia given the region's cross-border complexities, both real and symbolic. {\textcopyright} 2008 SAGE Publications.

Boundaries and territoriality in South Asia: From historical comparisons to theoretical considerations

A draft bill on public funded research and development prepared by the department of biotechnology proposes grant of financial incentives to scientists to patent and sell their own research. This is a good example of how legal tinkering or half-baked institutional changes based on inadequate analysis of the existing system will instead restrain science.

World University root node

Economic and Political Weekly

Policy bungling on incentives for public sector s and t

Mainstream theories on international relations have largely evaded engagement with the concept of Sovereignty, which is fundamental to the discipline. Critical approaches such as "constructivism" appear to make headway into thinking about Sovereignty, not only in the west but also in south Asia, where theorising is sorely needed. With the approach's engagements with Sovereignty revealing contingent and relativist features as well as sounder ontological foundations of the concept, constructivism is better placed to theorise issues related to domestic and regional politics in south Asia.

Theorising state sovereignty in South Asia

Cooperation and Conflict

Book Review: Raia Prokhovnik, Sovereignties: Contemporary Theory and Practice. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 272 pp. ISBN 13: 978 1403 913 234

Interlinked contracts have been examined almost exclusively in the context of the rural sphere. This article describes the nature of exchange regimes between two sets of primary collectors of recyclable waste, that is, waste pickers and itinerant buyers, and their dealers, in the city of Delhi. Far from the casualised labour transaction commonly described for the unorganised urban sector, the findings portray a picture of personalised and surprisingly long-term exchange between the parties. While a new institutional economics approach might explain the underlying motivation and consequent general form of the implicit contracts, it cannot explain the differential nature of each. It is suggested that in order to do that a political economy approach must be taken. This would understand interlinked transactions as being embedded within and consequently influenced by the particular social context, in this case of an inequitable and impermeable caste hierarchy amongst those that engage in waste work.

Journal of Development Studies

Interlinked contracts and social power: Patronage and exploitation in India's waste recovery market

Treating globalization as an initial point of departure to examine how cultures may have a bearing on great power ambitions, one can identify and challenge seven popular fallacies surrounding the concept. Available histories of globalization amply demonstrate that it is not a new phenomenon and secondly, that it must not be simplistically equated with everything western. Further, ongoing processes of globalization suggest that conceptions of what constitutes 'culture' and similarly what constitutes 'greatness' are complicated and of crucial consequence in ascertaining any correlations between culture and predispositions to great power standing. One should not assume that greatness in conventional international relations usage is inevitably a generic predisposition of all cultures. The notion of an essentialist national culture is highly contentious as there is likely to be considerable divergence of opinion amongst diversely socially positioned domestic constituencies with regard to both the content of greatness and cultural inclinations to greatness as understood in the dominant international relations idiom.