10101. The Pragmatic Challenge to Indian Foreign Policy
- Author:
- Deepa Ollapally and Rajesh Rajagopalan
- Publication Date:
- 03-2011
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Washington Quarterly
- Institution:
- Center for Strategic and International Studies
- Abstract:
- A subversive pragmatic vision is increasingly challenging some of the key foundations of India's traditional nationalist and left-of-center foreign policy, diluting the consensus that shaped the policy, and raising new possibilities especially for India's relations with the United States and global nuclear arms control. This debate between two centrist foreign policy perspectives is not yet settled. The two are described here as ''traditional nationalist'' and ''pragmatist,'' with the former representing the established and dominant perspective, and the latter as the emerging challenger. Actual Indian policy mostly splits the difference, mouthing traditional nationalist (hereafter referred to as simply nationalist) slogans while following pragmatist prescriptions. One major result has been the widening of political space for closer relations with the United States, even without a stable consensus.
- Political Geography:
- United States