International Relations Theory and the India–Pakistan Conflict

Abstract

Abstract Notes 1. Patrick M. Morgan, Deterrence Now (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 8. Other examples of relatively recent works on deterrence theory are Frank C. Zagare and D. Marc Kilgour, Perfect Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Robert Powell, Nuclear Deterrence Theory: The Search for Credibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 2. Times News Network, “Prithvi's naval variant is successfully test-fired,” Times of India, October 28, 2004. 3. For non-weaponized deterrence, see George Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 3 and 317; for recessed deterrence, see Jasjit Singh, “A Nuclear Strategy for India,” in Jasjit Singh, ed., Nuclear India (New Delhi: Knowledge World, 1998), p. 318. 4. See Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb, pp. 455–56; Itty Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1998), pp. 16–17; Ashley J. Tellis, “Reconstructing Structural Realism: The Long March to Scientific Theory,” Security Studies Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter 1995/96), pp. 3–94, pointing out how India's nuclear behavior does not fit the realist paradigm. For detailed analytical histories of the Indian nuclear program, see Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2002); Ashley Tellis, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001); Ashok Kapur, Pokhran and Beyond: India's Nuclear Behavior (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001); Perkovich, India's Nuclear Bomb; Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000); Abraham, The Making of the Indian Atomic Bomb; Sumit Ganguly, “India's Pathway to Pokhran II,” International Security Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring 1999), pp. 148–77. 5. ‘We have the bomb, says Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove,’ Observer, London, 1 March 1987. 6. For an excellent critical survey of the neorealist–neoliberal debate see Robert Powell, “Anarchy in International Relations Theory: The Neorealist–Neoliberal Debate,” International Organization Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring 1994), pp. 313–44. For two book-length collections on the debate see Robert O. Keohane, ed., Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), and David A. Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). For the best statement of traditional realism, see Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), and for the classic statement of neorealism, see Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1979). For an early and classic statement of neoliberal institutionalism, see Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). 7. The structure of the argument and the classification of criticisms of neorealism in the next few pages draw heavily on Powell, “Anarchy in International Relations Theory.” 8. Keohane, After Hegemony. 9. Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” in Keohane, ed., Neorealism and its Critics, pp. 116–42. 10. However, it has been shown that cooperation can take place under conditions of sensitivity to relative gains too. See Duncan Snidal, “Relative Gains and the Pattern of International Cooperation,” American Political Science Review Vol. 85, No. 3 (September 1991), pp. 701–26. 11. Powell, “Anarchy in International Relations Theory.” 12. See for example, Alexander Wendt, “Constructing International Politics,” International Security Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer 1995), p. 73. 13. Sagarika Dutt, citing Lapid and Kratochwil, argues that as homogeneous nation-states are a dwindling minority, national identity based on territory and that based on “ethnicity”/culture have become contradictory. See Sagarika Dutt, “Identities and the Indian State: An Overview,” Third World Quarterly Vol. 19, No. 3 (September 1998), pp. 411–33, at p. 412; Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil (eds.), “Revisiting the ‘National’: Toward an Identity Agenda in Neorealism,” in Yosef Lapid and Friedrich Kratochwil, The Return of Culture and Identity in IR Theory (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997). 14. Constructivist approaches also enable approaches to understanding identity conflict that have the potential to transcend and resolve such conflicts. Jonathan Mercer argues that identities being malleable, identity conflicts can be overcome by giving transcendence to larger identities, for example, national to pan-European identity in the case of European integration. See Jonathan Mercer, “Anarchy and Identity,” International Organization Vol. 49, No.2 (Spring 1995), pp. 229–52. 15. Stephen Krasner, “Global Communication and National Power,” in Baldwin, ed., Neorealism and Neoliberalism. 16. Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, “Ideas and Foreign Policy: An Analytical Framework,” in Robert O. Keohane and Judith Goldstein, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). 17. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987). 18. See Mohammed Ayoob, “Subaltern Realism: International Relations Theory Meets the Third World,” pp. 31–49, Carlos Escude, “An Introduction to Peripheral Realism and its Implications for the Interstate System: Argentina and the Condor II Missile Project,” pp. 55–76, and Amitav Acharya, “Beyond Anarchy: Third World Instability and International Order After the Cold War,” pp. 159–212, all in Stephanie G. Neuman, ed., International Relations Theory and the Third World (London: Macmillan, 1998). Also for a detailed critique of neorealism see Powell, “Anarchy in International Relations Theory.” 19. Ayoob, “Subaltern Realism,” and Sumit Ganguly, The Origins of War in South Asia: Indo-Pakistani Conflicts Since 1947 (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986), emphasize the importance of the nature of partition and the British exit in post-colonial India–Pakistan conflict. 20. Ayoob, “Subaltern Realism.” 21. Ayoob, “Subaltern Realism,” pp. 42–43. 22. Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Also see Barry Buzan, “Conclusion: System versus Units in Theorizing About the Third World,” in Neuman, ed., International Relations Theory and the Third World, pp. 213–34. 23. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, pp. 43–44. Perhaps the earliest and most comprehensive IR-theoretic account of South Asia's international relations are those by Barry Buzan, “A Framework for Regional Security Analysis,” and Gowher Rizvi, “Pakistan: The Domestic Determinants of Security,” and “The Rivalry Between India and Pakistan,” all in Barry Buzan and Gowher Rizvi, eds., South Asian Insecurity and the Great Powers (London: Macmillan, 1986). 24. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, p. 45 (emphasis added). 25. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, p. 45. 26. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, p. 46. 27. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, p. 47. 28. Rizvi, “The Rivalry Between India and Pakistan,” p. 94. 29. Ganguly, The Origins of War. 30. Kanti P. Bajpai and Stephen P. Cohen, eds., South Asia After the Cold War: International Perspectives (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990). 31. Maya Chadda, Ethnicity, Security and Separatism in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997). 32. Rajat Ganguly, Kin State Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Lessons from SouthAsia (New Delhi: Sage, 1998). 33. See Katherine Adeney, “Constitutional Centring: Nation Formation and Consociational Federalism in India and Pakistan,” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics Vol. 40, No. 3 (November 2002), pp. 8–33, for a historical analysis of the Partition movement using consociationalist categories. 34. For a classic case of a small state resorting to “cliency” as a strategy to protect its security interests, see Mary-Ann Treteault, “Autonomy, Necessity and the Small State: Ruling Kuwait in the Twentieth Century,” International Organization Vol. 45, No. 4 (Autumn 1991), pp. 565–91. 35. Bajpai and Cohen, eds., South Asia After the Cold War. 36. Morgan, Deterrence Now, p. 4. 37. For a survey of the then-existing CBMs in South Asia, see Dipankar Banerjee, ed., Confidence Building Measures in South Asia (Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, September 1999). 38. Edward A. Kolodziej, “Whither Security Studies After the Cold War?” in Bajpai and Cohen, eds., South Asia After the Cold War, pp. 15–46. Additional informationNotes on contributorsE. SridharanE. Sridharan is Academic Director of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India in New Delhi.