Recalcitrant spoiler? Contesting dominant accounts of India’s role in global trade governance

Kristen Hopewell

doi:10.1080/01436597.2017.1369033

Abstract

India is frequently cast as a troublemaker and blamed for the breakdown of the Doha Round. This article provides a critical re-reading of India’s trade policy and its position in multilateral trade negotiations. It challenges the widespread characterisation of India as a recalcitrant spoiler, intent on derailing trade liberalisation at the WTO. It shows that with the emergence of its highly-competitive, export-oriented services sector, India became one of the leading advocates of global services trade liberalisation in the Doha Round. Yet, not unlike the traditional powers, India’s offensive trade interests are also combined with significant defensive concerns in agriculture.

Highlights

Global economic governance has been historically dominated by the US and other advanced-industrialised states; yet a significant change is underway, as rising powers such as China and India emerge as major actors in the global economy and its governing institutions
The disparity in spending levels is all the more striking when we consider that agriculture accounts for only 1% of GDP and less than 2% of employment in the US compared to 17% of GDP and 50% of employment in India
India’s key objectives – seeking greater access to foreign markets for its services exports and flexibilities to protect its agriculture sector – correspond with precisely what developing countries were promised in the round. As this analysis has shown, the dominant depiction of India put forward by the US and other advanced-industrialised states as a troublemaker and disruptive force in multilateral trade negotiations is misleading. Stances that, were they taken by a traditional power, would be seen as a normal part of trade diplomacy are instead portrayed as obstructionist when taken by India

Summary

Introduction

Global economic governance has been historically dominated by the US and other advanced-industrialised states; yet a significant change is underway, as rising powers such as China and India emerge as major actors in the global economy and its governing institutions. A central question is what impact contemporary power shifts will have on the liberal international economic order constructed under US hegemony.. The emerging powers are frequently portrayed as disrupters of the liberal order: as illiberal, recalcitrant spoilers, vetoers and irresponsible stakeholders, refusing to pull their weight in global governance.. Othering refers to the process of casting an actor or group into the role of the other and defining one’s self through opposition to and, frequently, vilification of this other. Critical international relations scholars have shown that, shaped by the legacies of colonialism and imperialism and intertwined with enduring structures of domination/subordination in international politics, the self/other dichotomy takes a specific form in the West’s othering of non-Western countries: while the West is presented as superior, rational, virtuous and the upholder of universal liberal ideals, the non-Western other is cast as inferior,

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Conclusion