Institutionalization of Paradiplomacy in India

Abstract

In 2014, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of India created a ‘States Division’ to facilitate greater involvement of Indian states in the external outreach of the country’s diplomatic efforts. This reflects a move towards the greater federalization of foreign policy in India. The phenomenon of the rising involvement of non-central governments in the external relations of a country is referred to as parallel diplomacy or ‘paradiplomacy’. In the context of India’s federal arrangement, external affairs continue to be the exclusive domain of the central government. However, since the 1990s, the factors of globalization and coalition politics have, perhaps unintentionally, paved the way for the greater involvement of Indian states in influencing Indian foreign policy. There have been initial efforts to cautiously institutionalize this process through changes in the rules and norms in the conduct of foreign policy, which was earlier sporadic and reactionary in nature. In this chapter, the authors seek to explore the motivations that drive the institutionalization of paradiplomacy in India.