Book review: Rajesh Basrur, Subcontinental Drift: Domestic Politics and India’s Foreign Policy
| Published date | 01 September 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23477970241261431 |
| Author | Rishabh Yadav |
| Date | 01 September 2024 |
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
11(3) 423–433, 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23477970241261431
journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
Book Reviews
Rajesh Basrur, Subcontinental Drift: Domestic Politics and India’s
Foreign Policy. Georgetown University Press, 2023, 246 pp. ISBN:
9781647122850 (Paperback).
Why do states falter in implementing policies despite having systemic incentives
and inclinations towards those policies? For structural realists, such accounts of
state behaviour remain a persistent anomaly. In Subcontinental Drift,Rajesh Basrur
draws upon neo-classical realism to explain this anomaly in Indian state behaviour
by showing how domestic political processes affect foreign policy decision-making
that leads to suboptimal outcomes.
Basrur’s central concern is to explain the gap between India’s foreign policy
aims and its actual choices, which he terms as ‘policy drifts’. Policy drifts are
defined as slow and aimless movements deviating from the expected paths. These
drifts are identified by examining the irregularities between the policy prescrip-
tion and the actual process of policy actions. He argues that policy drift occurs due
to two factors: the material distribution of domestic political power (power deficit)
and leadership willingness (or lack of it) to meet political responsibility and
accountability (responsibility deficit). Further, the drifts are characterised into
two types: involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary drift occurs when policymakers
do not have substantial control over the levers of policymaking due to the frag-
mented nature of domestic political power. On the other hand, voluntary drift
occurs when policymakers have substantial control over policymaking but fail to
make decisive policy decisions, thus abdicating political responsibility.
After providing a theoretical account, Basrur, over the next four chapters, out-
lines the empirical case studies to explain the policy drift in India’s foreign policy.
The first two cases focus on the India–US nuclear agreement and India–Sri Lanka
relations during the latter’s civil war. Both of these cases are identified by the
author as examples of an ‘involuntary policy drift’ caused by material factors—
specifically the fragmentation of domestic political power, which allowed regional
parties to have excessive influence in the policymaking process. The India–US
nuclear agreement got mired in domestic politics due to opposition by nuclear
bureaucracy and opposition parties. Specifically, the major opposition party, the
Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), opposed the deal without having any reservation for
it but for tactical reasons to dislodge the government. Similarly, in the case of
Sri Lanka, New Delhi’s actions were constrained due to the resistance from the
regional parties in Tamil Nadu that supported the national government in Delhi.
The next two case studies, India’s nuclear strategy and its counter-terrorism
policies, are examples of what the author considers to be ‘voluntary policy drift’.
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