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1691. Iran's Security Challenges and the Region

Publication Date:
09-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
The following summary addresses key aspects that emerged from the discussion at the Ninth Liechtenstein Colloquium on European and International Affairs held in Triesenberg, Principality of Liechtenstein on March 17-20, 2005. The colloquium focused on Iran and included an in-depth discussion of the nuclear issue. Since the LCM is conducted under strict off-the-record rules, no attribution is provided. Attending participants included high-level Iranian offi cials involved in the ongoing negotiations with the EU, as well as representatives and experts from the United States, the EU, Russia, and India.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Security, Nuclear Weapons, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and India

1692. Out of School and (Probably) in Work: Child Labour and Capability Deprivation in India

Author:
D. Jayaraj and S. Subramanian
Publication Date:
08-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper explores the hypothesis that the phenomenon of child labour is explicable in terms of poverty that compels a household to keep its children out of school and put them to work in the cause of the househol d's survival. In exploring the link between child labour and poverty in the Indian context, the paper advances the view that the nature of the connection is more readily apprehended if both the variables under study are defined more expansively and inclusively than is customarily the case. Specifically, the suggestion is that it may be realistic to include those children who are conventionally categorized as 'non-workers not attending school' within the count of child labourers. It is also suggested that poverty is meaningfully measured in terms of a multi-dimensional approach to the problem, wherein the aim is to assess generalized capability failure—arising from want of access to elementary infrastructural facilities and essential amenities—with respect to a number of basic human functionings. The core of the paper's argument is presented by means of a simple analytical model of child labour and deprivation, and the issues emerging from it are studied in the Indian context with the support of bot h primary and secondary data.
Topic:
Education, Human Rights, and Poverty
Political Geography:
India and Asia

1693. Why is Mobility in India so Low? Social Insurance, Inequality, and Growth

Author:
Kaivan Munshi and Mark Rosenzweig
Publication Date:
07-2005
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
Abstract:
This paper examines the hypothesis that the persistence of low spatial and marital mobility in rural India, despite increased growth rates and rising inequality in recent years, is due to the existence of sub-caste networks that provide mutual insurance to their members. Unique panel data providing information on caste loans and sub-caste identification are used to show that households that out-marry or migrate lose the services of these networks, which dampens mobility when alternative sources of insurance or finance of comparable quality are unavailable. At the aggregate level, the networks appear to have coped successfully with the rising inequality within sub-castes that accompanied the Green Revolution. Indeed, this increase in inequality lowered overall mobility, which was low to begin with, even further. The results suggest that caste networks will continue to smooth consumption in rural India for the foreseeable future, as they have for centuries.
Topic:
Economics, Inequality, Economic Growth, Mobility, and Insurance
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

1694. India's energy needs

Author:
Nick Hordern
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
India's exploding demand for energy is confronting New Delhi with two important dilemmas, one internal and one external. India's internal dilemma is that to satisfy its energy needs, India must not only expand but also renovate its energy sector, a huge task. Moreover, New Delhi must balance accelerating the necessary reform of this sector with the need to avoid alienating important domestic constituencies. The external dilemma derives from the fact that India will only be able to meet part of its increased energy demand from its own domestic resources, and therefore will be increasingly forced to rely on energy imports. India is trying to secure its energy supplies in a hostile geo-political climate, since New Delhi's parlous relations with its neighbours make energy cooperation difficult. The resultant fears regarding the vulnerability of India's external sources of energy chime with a core principle of New Delhi's political culture, swadeshi (self-sufficiency), whose influence, while waning, retains its potency. Concerns regarding energy security are particularly prevalent in the case of oil, where India's dependence on imports is becoming acute. The proximity of the Persian Gulf to India's industrialised northwest makes it the main source of growing oil imports. But this in turn increases India's reliance on the unstable Gulf. In order to reduce this risk New Delhi will seek out oil from new energy provinces in the Atlantic Basin, Sudan, Russia and South East Asia. It will also turn to a new energy source - gas - and more imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be one result. India's energy needs have implications for Australia. India's growing demand for energy will see coal continue to dominate the energy mix, and as a result India's demand for imported coking coal, including from Australia, is also set to grow. At the same time, India's quest for diversity of supply means that at least some of India's increased LNG imports are likely to be Australian.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Russia, Sudan, India, Asia, New Delhi, Australia, and Southeast Asia

1695. Energy insecurity: China, India and Middle East oil

Author:
Anthony Bubalo and Mark P Thirlwell
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The rapid expansion of their economies has seen China and India become voracious consumers of energy. Oil, much of it imported from the Middle East, has become an increasingly important part of their energy needs. Both governments are conscious that this growing reliance on one of the world's most unstable regions leaves their countries vulnerable to supply disruptions and/or price fluctuations. As a result, energy security has become a key foreign policy objective and, particularly in the case of China, is shaping their approach to the Middle East. This issues brief provides an overview of current energy demand trends and raises for discussion some of the potential longer term strategic implications of this growing dependence on Mid-East oil.
Topic:
Energy Policy
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, India, and Asia

1696. India: the Next Economic Giant

Author:
Mark P Thirlwell
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
The Indian economy is showing clear signs of realising its dormant potential. The impact of more than a decade of economic reforms, instigated by a 1991 balance of payments crisis, has now removed or at least mitigated some of the major economic distortions that have handicapped past economic performance. One important result has been a significant boost to the economy's overall potential growth rate. Another has been India's re-engagement with the global economy, which in turn has transformed the prospects of key sectors of the Indian economy. This transformation has been most visible in the case of information technology-related services exports, where India has already become an important global player. But there are also positive signs in the areas of merchandise trade and international capital flows. These trends will have important consequences for the international economy as a whole and for Australia in particular.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, and Globalization
Political Geography:
India, East Asia, Asia, and Australia

1697. Doubling the Global Work Force: The Challenge of Integrating China, India, and the Former Soviet Bloc into the World Economy

Author:
Richard B. Freeman
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
In 1985, the global economic world (N. America, S. America, Western Europe, Japan, Asian Tigers, Africa) consisted of 2.5 billion people. In 2000 as a result of the collapse of communism, India's turn from autarky, China's shift to market capitalism, global economy encompassed 6 billion people. Had China, India, and the former Soviet empire stayed outside, global economy would have had 3.3 billion.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa, Japan, China, America, India, Asia, and Western Europe

1698. The Next Wave of Globalization? Exploring the Relocation of Service Provision to India

Author:
Rafiq Dossani and Martin Kenney
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy
Abstract:
The rapid increase in the ability and desire of multinational corporations to offshore services or, what are commonly termed “business processes” to developing nations is becoming a significant international development issue. This paper utilizes a case study of India, the largest recipient of offshored services, to explain the dynamics of offshoring from the perspective of the firm and the recipient nation. The explosion of offshoring is placed within a historical context. The technologies enabling offshoring and the corporate environment are discussed. Finally, the organizational forms involved in offshoring are discussed. The conclusion considers the implications of the offshoring of services for developed and developing nations and possible policy initiatives for developing nations interested in the possibility of entering the ITES sector.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

1699. The Language of Democracy: Vernacular Or Esperanto? A Comparison between the Multiculturalist and Cosmopolitan Perspectives

Author:
Daniele Archibugi
Publication Date:
12-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Will Kymlicka has argued “democratic politics is politics in the vernacular.” Does it imply that democratic politics is impossible in a multilingual community, whether at the local, national, regional or global level? This paper discusses this assumption and maintains that democratic politics should imply the willingness of all players to make an effort to understand each other. Democratic politics imply the willingness to overcome the barriers to mutual understanding, including the linguistic ones. Any time that there is a community of fate, a democrat should search for methods that allow deliberation according to the two key conditions of political equality and participation. If linguistic diversity is an obstacle to equality and participation, some methods should be found to overcome it, as exemplified by the Esperanto metaphor. The paper illustrates the argument with four cases of multi-linguistic political communities: a) a school in California with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking students; b) the city of Byelostok in the second half of the nineteenth century, where four different linguistic communities (Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish) coexisted. This led Markus Zamenhof to invent Esperanto; c) the linguistic problems of the Indian state, and the role played by English – a language unspoken by the majority of the Indian population in 1947 – in developing Indian democracy; and d) the case of the European Parliament, with twenty languages and a wealth of interpreters and translators.
Topic:
Democratization, Economics, and Politics
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, India, California, and Germany

1700. Prospects Brighten for Long-term Peace in South Asia

Author:
Rafiq Dossani
Publication Date:
11-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
Ever since 1998, the year of India and Pakistan's nuclear tests, many commentators have argued that, in the absence of U.S. intervention, the two nations are headed for armed conflict that will likely end in nuclear war. The logic underlying this view is twofold. First, that religious radicalism—defined as the participation in political and/or military activities by groups in the name of religion—has become sufficiently powerful in Pakistan to make ongoing support for the Kashmir insurgency inevitable. Second is that India's concurrent growth of nationalism and religious radicalism, as well as a rise in economic power, will make the state less willing to tolerate Pakistan's support for insurgency in Kashmir. Against this seemingly inevitable clash, Pakistani President Musharraf is viewed as a lonely holdout against the forces of religious radicalism in Pakistan. U.S. support is therefore argued to be critical for sustaining Musharraf, whether through political support for Pakistan's policies in Kashmir, or economic support. This paper reaches a different conclusion: that peace is about to “break out” between India and Pakistan. Our conclusion is based on the following analysis. First, Islamic radicalism in Pakistan relies (and has always relied) on the army to survive, as it lacks sufficient popularity to influence state policy through political parties or popular agitation. Second, the army has previously supported Islamic radicalism tactically, but not ideologically, providing such support only when it has perceived the state to be in crisis. Contrary to a common view, the elections of 2002 were no different in this respect. Third, Hindu radicalism in India, though gaining in both popular and political support, is insufficiently popular to support irrational aggression against Pakistan. At the same time, India's improved economic prospects have influenced its rulers to favor accommodation with Pakistan. Third, the outcomes of recent elections in India and Pakistan have shifted the Pakistani army's strategic priorities toward negotiating a civilian-military balance, and away from destabilizing civilian politics through “crisis-mode” tactics that have included support for Islamic radicalism.
Topic:
Nationalism, Nuclear Weapons, and Religion
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, South Asia, India, Asia, and Kashmir