While successful processes of regional multilateralism are taking place in all corners of the world, South Asia and its neighbouring regions have not been able to successfully cooperate in a regional framework. At present, there are four regional organizations or initiatives: the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral-Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMST-EC), the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) and the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) Initiative.
Presently, these regional organizations are regarded as failures: In 2005, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh summarized the essence of 20 years of SAARC cooperation: “The honest answer is that regional economic cooperation in South Asia has fallen far short of our expectations and the dreams of our founding fathers. It remains far behind the more successful examples in both Asia and other regions of the world.” In 2007, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Myanmar Nyan Win concluded that “there has been a general perception that, despite seven years of efforts by MGC countries to move forward in areas designated for cooperation, there has been very slow progress.” And in 2009, the then Indian Minister of External Affairs Shashi Tharoor commented on the IOR-ARC that after 12 years of cooperation, “[IOR-ARC has not] done enough to get beyond the declaratory phase that marks most new initiatives.”
The book attempts to provide an answer to the question why all four organizations have not been able to succeed in their respective fields of inter-state cooperation and have failed to provide a functioning framework of cooperation. Few studies on South Asian regionalism have attempted to provide a theoretical backdrop that addresses the particular situation in South Asia , and there is hardly any literature on regional multilateralism in the Indian Ocean Rim, the Bay of Bengal or the Mekong Ganga. Also, there is at present no theoretical approach enabling a comparative study of the development, design and shortcomings of all four organizations in whose founding India was involved. The book attempts fills this gap in the existing scholarship on South Asian regional cooperation by using a novel analytical perspective and providing an alternative explanation for the development and institutional set-up of the regional architecture that has been implemented in the four regions at hand.
The focus of the present examination, therefore, is the genesis and evolution of regional multilateral-ism from a normative standpoint by using the vantage point of India’s foreign policy and the latter’s “cognitive prior”, i.e. Indian foreign policy ideas, norms and values, and the particular “Indian way” of responding to and implementing an external international norm. The global norm which serves as the analytical point of reference for the present study is regional multilateralism. The study will examine the process of the localization of regional multilateralism and its implementation in the four specific regions. “The framework of localization […] is helpful in understanding why any given region may accept a particular norm while rejecting another, as well as variation between regions in undergoing normative change.” (Amitav Acharya) The focus of norm localization is thus the analysis of trans-national or international ideas and the question of why these find greater acceptance in one region or setting than in another. This issue is of great relevance for developments in international politics, since successful norm diffusion can greatly impact the behaviour of states.
In providing a theoretically informed analysis of regional cooperation by using a specific local / regional lens, this study responds to Peter Katzenstein’s critique that theoretical analyses on Asian regionalism have so far ignored “local, national, or regional political contexts central to those writing on Asian regionalism,” and especially ideational forces originating from within the region. With this approach – at the interface of international relations, comparative politics, political ideas and political economy –, the idiosyncrasies of regional cooperation in the South Asian region can be portrayed in a new scientific manner and policy recommendation can be given about the future prospects of cooperation in those organizations and regions.
The approach of the book is based upon mixed methodology and draws upon an extensive number of primary and secondary sources and data, among them memoirs of decision-makers, 62 personal interviews and discussion with policy-makers and analysts of the Indian and Nepali foreign policy establishment, transcripts from official proceedings of the Lok and Rajya Sabha, reports in the media and statistics provided by the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the IMF and the World Bank.
This book synopsis is republished with permission from the author.
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