India and the Current Concerns of UN Peacekeeping: Issues and Prospects
Peacekeeping opera tion is amongst the volatile issues in the contemporary debate on the role and activities of United Nations. The United Nations uses the peacekeeping operation as a fire-fighting device, sent to the crisis situations in various corners of the world. It was an innovative method devised by accident rather than by design to deal with the impasse created by the Cold War between the two Superpowers. It began as an unambitious system in 1948 to deal with inter-state conflicts and by late 20th century, it has become a much sought after means to contain, calm and resolve intra-state disputes. The changed circumstances provided a conducive opportunity to finish the unfinished task of resolving some of the remaining inter-state conflicts of the Cold War period. Meanwhile, ethnic cleavages that remained suppressed during the cold-war period erupted, leading to civil war situations and secession movements.
The Middle East in India’s Quest for Status
The temptation to explain India’s foreign policy behaviour in the Middle East through the lens of power alone has obscured a rich history of Indian diplomacy in the region that escapes power-centric explanations. India’s relentless advocacy for Palestinian statehood, its diplomatic support for the weaker Arab states against Israel and Western powers and its role in UN mediation and peacekeeping missions in the region are difficult to explain using a structural realist framework that privileges power alone. Challenging the dominant historiographies, this article introduces the concept of status into the study of India’s behaviour in the Middle East. Based on a re-reading of secondary sources, it argues that status and power have been articulated in various ways in India’s behaviour in the Middle East. Under prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, India pursued status without power, following a primarily normative strategy of status-seeking in the region that afforded India considerable deference at the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Following India’s nuclear tests of 1998 and a decade of economic growth, however, power and status converged in India’s behaviour in the Middle East through further alignment with US interests in the region and greater use of naval power projection. By shedding light on the various possible ways in which status and power articulate, this article attempts to step away from the artificial opposition between morals and self-interest as guiding principles of foreign policy. The inquiry into status challenges the prevalent historiographies and analytical frameworks that have dominated the discussion on India’s foreign policy in the Middle East, generating productive openings for reconceptualising and reimagining the field.
Britain and the Problem of International Disarmament: 1919-1934
Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. The Concept and Context of Disarmament, 1919-1934 3. The Human Element 4. The Lloyd George Coalition Government, 1918-1922 5. The Conservative Governments, 1922-1923, and the First Labour Government, 1924 6. The Conservative Government, 1924-1929 7. The Labour Government, 1929-1931 8. The National Government, 1931-1934 9. Conclusion Bibliography