India and Central Asia The Mythmaking and International Relations of a Rising Power

by Kavalski, Emilian

• ISBN13: 9781848851245
• ISBN10: 1848851243
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-15
• Publisher: Tauris Academic Studies

Summary

India's role in global politics draws increasing attention from the international community. Unprecedented economic growth in the recent past, rising fundamentalism in national politics and the knife-edge of nuclear-fuelled tension with an unstable Islamic government in Pakistan are all bound up in Indian claims to geopolitical ascendance. At the same time, Central Asia has re-emerged as a site of international contestation or a "new Great Game," with Russia, China and the US vying over security and energy interests in a politically unstable region. In this fresh and penetrating analysis of India's foreign policy, particularly on Central Asia, Emilian Kavalski illuminates India's international ambitions and capabilities, and its complex dynamics with great powers USA, China and Russia.India and Central Asiaprovides a timely and much-needed assessment of the foreign policy of a rising power.

Author Biography

Emilian Kavalski is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Western Sydney and author of Extending the European Security Community (I.B.Tauris, 2008).

Table of Contents

*List of Abbreviations * List of Figures and Maps * Acknowledgements * Introduction: Framing India’s International Interactions * Trajectories of India’s Post-Cold War Foreign Policy *  The Myth of Assertive Posturing and India’s Post-1998 Foreign Policy Making * The ‘Look North’ Policy: Uncovering India’s Discourses on Central Asia * The Peacock and the Bear: Shifting New Delhi’s Relations with Moscow in Central Asia *  An Elephant in a China Shop: India’s Search for Pragmatic Relations with China in Central Asia *  The Porcupine meets Mars and Venus: India’s Interactions with the West in Central Asia * Conclusion * Notes * Bibliography *  Index *