Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

U.S. Invasion Of Afghanistan: A Critical Analysis Of American South Asian Policy, Kerem Tasdan

Student Research – Politics and Government

This study will offer a critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy in South Asia specifically centered around America’s invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and its aftereffects. The 2001 Invasion of Afghanistan was a pivotal moment not only in the geopolitical landscape of the nation of Afghanistan but also in shaping the outline of American foreign policy in the broader South Asia region. This study embarks on a critical examination of the multifaceted repercussions stemming from the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, analyzing its profound impact on the destabilization of Afghanistan itself and its intricate ramifications on the broader South Asian geopolitical …

Re-Situating The Buffer State In International Relations: Nepal’S Relations With India And China, Bibek Chand

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

No abstract provided.

Women’S Human Development Outcomes In India: A Closer Look At Fdi Inflows, Economic Structure, And Female Labor Force Participation, Nisha Bellinger

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Global human development trends display a consistent improvement over time. However, these indicators may not improve at the same pace or even trend in the same direction. India is one such country that displays intriguing trends. While women’s education and health outcomes have improved over the years, women’s political representation and labor force participation rates are lagging behind. This chapter focuses on female labor force participation (FLFP) in India, which has declined in recent years. I discuss the nature of India’s globalizing economy, specifically foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, in conjunction with the changing structure of the domestic economy, to …

Rural Decentralization And Infant Mortality Among Select Indian States: A Preliminary Analysis, Nisha Bellinger

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 1992 the 73rd amendment to the Indian constitution called on states to create and empower rural local governments. Despite the amendment, however, there is variation in the extent of decentralization of power from states to rural local governments in the country. How has this process of decentralization influenced health outcomes in India? The research note addresses this question by collecting preliminary data on political, administrative and fiscal decentralization and examining trends in different dimensions of decentralization and infant mortality rates among select states (Assam, Rajasthan, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) from 1994 to 2017. These states display disparities in the …

Gender Through Time And Culture, Kate Wick

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Gender has been viewed as fluid through time. Different identities existed in communities across the globe. How gender is viewed in a western mindset can affect our perceptions of the past. The gender binary that’s been applied so strongly today is an outdated European concept. This binary brings gender roles, which have their own assumptions tied to them. This paper will define many known terms surrounding gender, as well as contemporary gender identities. This will be a look into alternate identities in Native American communities, Native Hawaiians, the Philippines as well as in India, both pre-colonial and post-colonial. Other locations …

Hegemonic Instability? India’S Himalayan Hegemony In Theoretical And Historical Perspective, Philip Hultquist Ph.D., Prakash Adhikari Ph.D.

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Is India the regional hegemon of South Asia? If so, what kind of hegemon is it? India has long been considered the regional hegemon of South Asia, primarily based on relative power considerations alone. We critique this material basis for hegemony. Hegemons must act to establish their hegemony, and smaller states must acquiesce to some degree to establish the relationship. We follow the literature to identify three strands of behavioral definitions of regional hegemony—leadership, domination, and sphere of influence—each drawing on different theoretical foundations, liberalism, realism, and imperialism, respectively. India has demonstrated characteristics of each, depending on the period and …

‘It All Comes From Me’: Bahu Begam And The Making Of The Awadh Nawabi, Circa 1765–1815, Nicholas J. Abbott

History Faculty Publications

This article examines the durable, yet largely overlooked, claims of Bahu Begam (1727–1815) to dynastic wealth and authority in the Awadh nawabi (1722–1856), a North Indian Mughal ‘successor state’ and an important client of the East India Company. Chief consort (khass mahal) to Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1754–75) and mother to his successor Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula (r. 1775–97), Bahu Begam played a well-documented role in the regime’s tumultuous politics, particularly during Warren Hastings’s tenure as the Company’s governor-general (1773–85) and his later parliamentary impeachment. But despite her prominent political influence, little attention has been paid to the substance of her …

When Economic And Political Interests Collide: The Cases Of Defense Procurement And Microfinance In India, Mackenzie Owens

Politics and International Relations Research Papers

India is a growing democracy with an abundant population that seeks economic development; India is a democracy in an ever more important, strategic location. It is essential to better understand India, its politics, and its policies as geopolitical tensions rise in our world. India will be explored via a political economy approach through three sections in this paper: (1) The Political System of India; (2) India’s Trade Policy toward Defense Procurement; (3) The Microfinance Crisis of 2010. India looks to develop its domestic industries, grow investment, while defending its interests and sovereignty.

Decree Power In Parliamentary Systems: Theory And Evidence From India, Madhav Shrihari Aney, Shubhankar Dam

Research Collection School Of Economics

Decree powers are common to presidential systems; they are rarely found in parliamentary ones. We analyze decree powers in one such rare setting: India. We show that bicameral minority governments in India systematically use ordinances to circumvent parliament and prosecute their legislative agendas. They promulgate more ordinances, enact less legislation, and often repromulgate lapsed ordinances. These patterns suggest that, with bicameral minority governments, the locus of lawmaking shifts to the executive branch. While both majority and minority governments invoke ordinances, the latter do so systematically to get around their parliamentary deficit. In the hands of minority governments, then, the mechanism …

Us Bilateral Relations With China And Their Effects On Us-Japan And Us-India Relations, Mackenzie Owens

International Relations Summer Fellows

How do US-China relations impact US relations with other Asian nations, specifically with India and Japan? US-China relations can be seen as the main driver in US relations with Japan and India following rapprochement with the United States. The inverse relationship that exists between US-China and US-Japan/US-India relations signals the importance of the US’ bilateral relationship with China. While there are significant differences between the US-India and US-Japan relations, both are similarly affected by US-China relations. The critical time period explored in this paper is the Sino-Soviet Border Conflict of 1969. This time period explores the impact of US-China relations …

Humanist But Not Radical: The Educational Philosophy Of Thiruvalluvar Kural, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Humanist ideas in education have been promoted by both Western thinkers and classical wisdom texts of Asia. Exploring this connection, I examine the educational philosophy of an iconic ancient Tamil (Indian) text, the Thiruvalluvar Kural, by juxtaposing it with a contemporary humanist classic, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As this comparative study reveals, both texts offer humanist visions of relevance to education, politics, and society. Notably, however, the Kural takes what might be described as a more mainstream humanist stance vis-à-vis Freire’s radical humanist approach. Nevertheless, both educational philosophies share a common humanist bond representing important breakthroughs …

Symbiotic Suppression: How Digital Authoritarianism Helps Facilitate Physical Repression In Indian Controlled Kashmir, Patrick Aaron White

Honors College

Within the scholarship of authoritarianism, there is a growing assumption that as a regime’s access to digital means of repression increases, use of violence and other forms of physical state repression will be replaced and decrease. However, since India’s revocation of Kashmir’s special semi-autonomous status in August 2019, the nature of the ensuing crackdown has suggested that this understanding of modern repression may be incomplete—especially in light of India’s extensive use of the digital tactics that purportedly facilitate this transition. Through examining a broad collection of Kashmiri activist, survivor, journalist, and NGO accounts since August 5, 2019, this thesis contends …

Gender And Parliamentary Representation In India: The Case Of Violence Against Women And Children, Sadhvi Kalra, Devin K. Joshi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To better understand how gender impacts parliamentary representation, we analysed representative claims made by parliamentarians in India, the world's largest democracy. Applying critical frame analysis to plenary debates in the Indian Rajya Sabha, we examined four parliamentary bills addressing violence against women and children under four successive governments between 1999 and 2019. Testing six hypotheses concerning who represents and how, our study found women legislators more active in speaking on behalf of women and children than male legislators. Women parliamentarians focused more on rehabilitating victims and expanding the scope of rights and rights-holders. Women were also more vocal in contesting …

Upsurge Of The Bharatiya Janata Party In India, Anthony (Sungho) Choi

Student Publications

This research paper examines the development of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India since its establishment and its governance inside the country. The BJP is influenced by the ideals of Hindu nationalism, and such ideals can be visible through the party’s responses to critical issues, such as the ongoing Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir and Jammu. This research paper reviews three issues that seem to be prominent in India and correlated to the influences of the BJP in the government: The Indo-Pakistani conflict, transformations of India’s economy, and religious discriminations.

Historical Geopolitics Of Kashmir: A Discourse Analysis Of Civilizational Framings, Thomas J. Liguori

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation attempts to locate the intractable issue of Kashmir within a global context. The global setting utilized here is constituted and shaped by multiple levels, none of which is purely discrete, and which act upon each other with differing degrees of salience. Taking a discourse analytic approach, political positions can be seen as activating (acting upon, mobilizing, or challenging) existing discursive material in a given political context and then deploying it. This dissertation aims to show how the Kashmir problem has: 1) come about; that is, how it has been constituted and the (discursive) contexts which shaped the available …

Bangladesh And India: The Domestic And International Repercussions Of Asymmetric And Securitized Hydro-Politics, Tamanna Ashraf

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

India, the second-most populous country in the world, is experiencing the worst water crisis in its history, and by 2030, 40% of Indians will lack access to drinking water. Equally concerning is Bangladesh’s situation, with 2.5 million people experiencing water shortage due to increased salinity. Both India and Bangladesh share 54 transboundary rivers in the larger Ganges Brahmaputra and Meghna (GBM) basin. Even though the two nations have signed multiple treaties on the Ganges River, disputes still take place over the Ganges and other transboundary rivers. Since this region of the world is facing an increasing population and water demand, …

Beyond The Coronavirus: Understanding Crises Of Social Reproduction, Smriti Rao

Economics, Finance and International Business Department Faculty Works

From a feminist political economy perspective, the unfolding of the coronavirus is a further reminder of the fundamental contradiction between a capitalist system that prioritizes profits, and a feminist ethic that prioritizes life-making or social reproduction. This paper argues for a more systematic understanding of crises of social reproduction under capitalism, stressing the difference between such crises for labour, and those for capital. The coronavirus crisis represents an extraordinary example of a crisis of social reproduction for capital, but this paper examines crises of social reproduction for capital and labour that arise from the more ordinary workings of capitalism. The …

“Daughter” As A Positionality And The Gendered Politics Of Taking Parents Into The Field, Menusha De Silva, Kanchan Gandhi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on gendered politics of the field has delved into the practices of accompaniment and its implications on research and knowledge production, particularly through the case of researchers’ children and partners. In comparison, the tendency to seek assistance from parents is neglected within the scholarship. Drawing on the PhD fieldwork experiences of two researchers in their “native” country, specifically a Sri Lankan researcher conducting fieldwork in Sri Lanka and a North Indian scholar researching in South India, the paper reveals parents’ contribution to the research process, in terms of enhancing researcher credibility, facilitating contact‐making and access, and providing emotional and …

The Wealth Of Nations And The Advancement Of Collective Security, Kerry Daniel Good

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis will address the economic development of countries from the strategic perspective of the United States, and consider how this development will progress overlaid in the context of the Chinese framework for the projection of national power. Using an inter-disciplinary approach, this research will synthesize sources on national security policy and economics, while seeking a Christian apologetic framework to answer these questions: How can the United States promote the economic development of countries in the Asia-Pacific region using a biblical economic-development model, as a part of its national strategy? This thesis focuses on some of the political and socio-economic …

India’S Surgical Strikes: Response To Strategic Imperatives, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

In September 2016, militants who were allegedly backed by Pakistan attacked an Indian Army camp in Uri. The government in New Delhi was facing important regional elections. It faced intense public pressure to muster a military response. Such a response, however, ran the risk of triggering a nuclear exchange. Ten days after the Uri attack, India reported that it had carried out ‘surgical strikes’ on terrorist training camps in Pakistan-controlled territory. The paper examines this specific episode in India–Pakistan deterrence dynamics, focusing on the nomenclature ‘surgical strikes’. The paper argues that the choice of the term itself is new and …

Kashmir Constructivism: Indian Policy On Pakistan From Mumbai To Modi, Marc Unger

Politics, Philosophy, and Legal Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The resolution of the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan is a complex puzzle for politicians and scholars alike. The paper intends to create a framework for shifting norms of Indian relations with Pakistan in order to gauge the liklihood of conflict resolution based on major events from the last 11 years.

Public Interest Litigation & Women’S Rights: Cases From Nepal & India, Jordan E. Stevenson

2019 Symposium

As a complex, diverse and dynamic region with diverging, constantly changing constitutional and jurisprudential contexts as well as lasting legacies of patriarchy, South Asia’s traditions of public interest litigation are one of the most well-studied institutions by Western audiences due to their contradictory progressive and innovative nature. Particularly in India, where public interest litigation gives ordinary citizens extraordinary access to the highest courts of justice, questions have been raised as to the effectiveness of public interest litigation as a tool to address gender disparities across the region. Although Supreme Court justices have been a key ally in eliminating legal barriers …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 9: The South Asian Connection, Charles H. Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, Nirmali Wijegoonawardana

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823−1913) is best known for his natural history explorations and theoretical biology, but he was also a potent social critic on subjects ranging from land tenure and colonial policy to antivaccinationism and poverty. Here, one of his emphases in the latter domain is spotlighted: his interest in South Asian affairs. This extended to a variety of subjects in the areas of politics, economics, health, literature, sociology, etc., and to a degree that may have had some influence on the development of thought of some major South Asian figures, including Mahatma Gandhi and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.

India Has A Sexual Assault Problem That Only Women Can Fix, Nisha Bellinger

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

India is the most dangerous country for sexual violence against women, according to the Thomson Reuters Foundation 2018 survey.

Buffer States In Sub-Systemic Rivalries: Analyzing Nepal's Role In Sino-Indian Security Dynamics, Bibek Chand

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the relevance and importance of small buffer states for contemporary International Relations. It argues that sub-systemic interactions reinvigorate the role of buffer states in regional security. Using the case study of the triadic relationship among India, Nepal, and China, this study explains the evolving role of buffer states. The technological innovations in weapons systems, transportation, and communication have extended the reach of potential adversaries, rendering intermediate territorial space less significant than in the past. Thus, it is hypothesized in this dissertation that increased sub-systemic rivalry reinvigorates differently the relevance and significance of buffer states. The role of …

After Nuclear Midnight: The Impact Of A Nuclear War On India And Pakistan, Karthika Sasikumar

Faculty Publications

During the past decade, computer models have predicted that the physical impacts of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, or even a single strike on a large city, would be devastating. The social, economic, and political impacts – although less well known – would also be crippling and would reverberate throughout the world. Efforts to use “Armageddon estimates” to scare the people of India and Pakistan have thus far not significantly reduced the risk of nuclear weapons use in this turbulent region. However, the increasing penetration of television and social media may give members of the public a better …

The Role Of Ngos In International Climate Governance: A Case Study Of Indian Ngos, Lucas J. Giese

All College Thesis Program, 2016-2019

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are ubiquitous in international negotiations on climate change governance, participating in framing issues, providing information and expertise, and lobbying government delegates. NGOs are said to supplement the democratic legitimacy and technical capabilities of intergovernmental organizations, yet their actual political influence is more difficult to empirically ascertain. This paper will use a qualitative framework to determine the influence of NGOs in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), focusing on a case study of Indian NGOs. Using data collected at two UN conferences, including interviews with NGO and government representatives and participant observations, the influence of …

Past, Present, And Future: Analyzing The Relationship Between Indian Women And Cultural Traditions, Jacqueline Kwasigroch

Political Science: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

What Do Chinese Really Think About Democracy And India?, Devin K. Joshi, Yizhe Xu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There has been much speculation about whether China will democratize and avoid conflict with India in the twenty-first century. Yet, few studies have investigated how contemporary Chinese view India and its democracy. Addressing this gap in the literature, the authors examined Chinese media coverage of India’s two-month long April–May 2014 parliamentary election, the largest election in world history, through systematic analysis of over 500 articles from ten major mass media outlets and over 27,000 messages transmitted on Sina Weibo social media. As might be expected, Chinese mass media generally portrayed India and its elections in a condescending fashion while avoiding …

Why Has “Development” Become A Political Issue In Indian Politics?, Aseema Sinha

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

Most observers of India have an implicit model of how Indians vote. They assume that voters in India act on their primary identities, such as caste or community, and that parties seek votes based on group identities—called vote banks—that can be collated into majorities and coalitions. K.C. Suri articulates the logic of this dominant model:

People of this country vote more on the basis of emotional issues or primordial loyalties, such as caste, religion, language or region and less on the basis of policies. The victory or defeat of a party depends on how a party or leaders marshal support …