India’s Rise as an Asian Power examines India’s rise to power and the obstacles it faces in the context of domestic governance and security, relationships and security issues with its South Asian neighbors, and international relations in the wider Asian region. Instead of a straight-line projection based on traditional measures of power such as population size, economic growth rates, and military spending, Sandy Gordon’s nuanced view of India’s rise focuses on the need of any rising power to develop the means to deal with challenges in its domestic, neighborhood (South Asia), and regional (continental) spheres.
Terrorism, insurgency, border disputes, and water conflict and shortages are examples of some of India’s domestic and regional challenges. Gordon argues that before it can assume the mantle of a genuine Asian power or world power, India must improve its governance and security; otherwise, its economic growth and human development will continue to be hindered and its vulnerabilities may be exploited by competitors in its South Asian neighborhood or the wider region. This book will appeal to students and scholars of India and South Asia, security studies, foreign policy, and comparative politics, as well as country and regional specialists.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Governance and the "Hybrid Inheritance"
2. Enmeshed Dissonance in South Asia
3. South Asian Dissonance, Global Factors, and Global Power Competition
4. Wider Regional Implications
5. The Government Response: Domestic Governance and Security
6. External Strategies and Challenges: From Neighborhood to Region
Conclusion
Bibiliography
Index
Reviews
"Presents a useful, and perhaps necessary, reality check to those willing to overlook or wish away many of India's complications and contradictions."—Contemporary Southeast Asia
"This excellent book combines scholarly analysis based on a wealth of empirical material with policy prescriptions. The conceptual innovation is the use of neighborhood, not region, for South Asia, and region for the larger Asian and Indian Ocean space."—Eswaran Sridharan, University of Pennsylvania Institute for the Advanced Study of India
About the Author
Sandy (Alexander) Gordon is a visiting fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific at Australian National University (ANU). Previously, he worked as an academic at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), Wollongong University, and at ANU, from where he retired as professor in 2011. As a public servant, he worked in Australia’s Office of National Assessments; AusAID; as executive director of the Asian Studies Council; and as head of intelligence, Australian Federal Police. He is the author of several books.
