India and the Redistribution of Power and Resources

Abstract

India's spectacular growth in the last 15 years and its increasing integration into the world economy should have influenced the country's foreign policy goals away from the isolationist stance of former times. The government should also have become more interested in the distributional effects of global integration, become more assertive in demanding influence within global governance institutions and more sensitive to the demands of domestic interest groups affected by the actions of other countries. This is indeed the case, as we aim to show in this article. The government is still insulated to a certain but declining degree against the influence of specific interest groups on foreign policy strategies, however. Redistribution at the domestic, regional and international levels is a concern of the political elite, but activities at the domestic level target those important as voter groups more than those affected by globalisation. Regional activities are only partly proactive, while those at the global level do not challenge the existing international economic order but mostly intend only to carve out a better position for India itself.