John Maynard Keynes proposed the concept of ‘Bancor’ 1940 as a supranational currency that would serve as the international reserve currency. The concept did not take off at the time, although the underlying need to liberate the international system from the hegemonic tendencies of a national currency serving as a global medium of exchange. The emergence of Bitcoin makes it possible to revive the idea

African countries have been hit by a dual shock of COVID-19 pandemic and global oil crisis, which have caused severe economic and social disruptions. Most studies shed light on the correlates between COVID-19 and the global oil crisis, including their economic impacts on oil producing/exporting countries. However, the objective of this study is to examine the effects of the global oil crisis on the

Among other things, the recent pull-out by the United States from Afghanistan is yet another indication of global turbulence involved in a reset of geopolitical alliances. While the reset goes back to the end of the last century’s global economic shifts the rapidity with which the old order is unravelling gives rise to many questions. These involve the tenacity and resilience of regional institutions

Diesen, G., & Lukin, A. (Eds), The Return of Eurasia: Continuity and Change (The Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Pp. v-xv, 213, €10399 (Hardcover). ISBN: 978-981-16-2178-9.

U. L. Baruah, A Bangladesh War Commentary: 1971 Radio Dispatches: Vol. 1. Indian Council of World Affairs, Macmillan Publishers India Private Limited, 2021, ISBN: 93-5455-048-7 ₹1,650, pp. 148.

The article reviews India’s contested role of a great power in global politics. Although showing tangible results across all the aspects pertaining to the great power status, in international relations India is still largely underestimated and even overlooked. Politicians and scholars generally mention three main reasons behind that phenomenon: weak social and economic figures, the country’s relatively

The India and Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) partnership began in the early 1990s mainly in the economic domain. Reeling from a major internal crisis, India wanted to tap onto the region’s economic vibrancy to strengthen its own waning economy. Since then, amidst India’s domestic constraints, economic ties have largely sustained the India–ASEAN partnership on a steady course. India’s

The renewed and reinvigorated engagement of India with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) over the past few years has been one of the significant factors leading to the gradual and irreversible transition of the regional organisation from a declaratory phase to one of implementation (Bhagwati, 2008). The recent developments in the South Asian region, especially the new growth

As the commercial use of outer space becomes feasible, the nature of possessory rights will potentially emerge as the central focus of future space-related activities. The existing international law relating to outer space does not address in detail the nature of possessory rights in outer space and is subject to multiple interpretations. Alarmingly, the recently adopted space policies and legislations

The rapidly transforming Arctic has led to rethink the concept of security in the region. The increasing global warming and opening up of the Arctic have brought multiple geopolitical issues before the Arctic and non-Arctic states.1 In pursuit of their perceived geopolitical, geo-economics and strategic interests, a race to ‘securitise the Arctic’ has started amongst the major Arctic states. This process

One of the key terms to understand the nature of violence and conflicts world over is ‘radicalisation’. Sri Lankan case is instructive in understanding various dimensions of Islamic radicalisation and de-radicalisation, especially in South Asia. Though a small state, Sri Lanka has witnessed three radical movements, the latest being Islamic that got manifested in deadly Easter attacks of April 2019

This commentary recounts the important hallmarks of the institutional history of the Indian Council of World Affairs, one of India’s first publicly funded research institutions. It presents a brief account of its long history since 1943, its career in acquiring prominence, its decline and its revival. This commentary takes off from its recently published institutional history (Raghavan, T., & Mishra

Zorawar Daulat Singh, Power & Diplomacy: India’s Foreign Policies During the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2019). pp. 398, ₹950. ISBN 978-0199489640. Sudhanshu Tripathi, India’s Foreign Policy: Dilemma Over Nonalignment 2.0 (SAGE Publications, 2020). pp. 203, ₹895. ISBN 978-9353286422.

Jayaram, Dhanasree, Climate Diplomacy and Emerging Economies: India as a Case Study (Routledge, 2021). Pp. 154. Price £44.99 ISBN: 9780367634025 (hardback), £16.99 (e-copy).

Rasheed, Adil, Countering the Radical Narrative (Knowledge World, 2020), Pp. 198, Price ₹1280 ISBN 978-93-89137-71-2 (Hardback).

Narayan, S., & Datta, S. (Eds.), Bangladesh at 50: Development and Challenges (Orient Blackswan, 2020). Pp. 263, ₹995 (paperback). ISBN: 978-93-90122-60-8.

In the last few years much has changed, with existing global regimes under stress to step up to new realities and new and old powers reassessing the grounds of their relationships. Hence, the big debate of the last few years has been the fate of the normative principles at the heart of the liberal order and the future shape of the institutions built on these. In the Global South, the debate has rested

We would like to thank our contributors for the issue 77.3.

India’s limited partnership with the liberal international order (LIO) of the post-Second World War period had seen a substantial transformation after the end of the Cold War through its economic integration with the world economy. At this critical time of liberal internationalism triggered by the relative decline of American hegemony, rise of the non-Western powers and the tendency of populism in

Anthropogenic climate change has emerged as the most disruptive socio-political issue in the last few decades. The Kyoto Protocol’s failure to curb the rising greenhouse gases emissions pushed the UNFCCC-led negotiations towards a more flexible, non-binding agreement at the Paris COP21 meeting in 2015. The Paris Agreement’s hybrid approach to climate change governance, where flexible measures like

The recent vigorous campaign by Nigerian government for a permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council is, like previous attempts, hinged on the country’s ‘track record’ in peacekeeping operations. However, in recent years, particularly since the uprising of the Boko Haram terrorist group, it appears that Nigeria’s commitment to this role has diminished considerably in its foreign policy

Since the early 2000, Balochistan is yet again embroiled in a cobweb of violence after a hiatus of more than two decades. The Baloch nationalist militancy began to reinvigorate after the seizure of power by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999. Musharraf marginalised the moderate Baloch nationalists and repressed dissident voices. The differences over power and resource sharing escalated quickly into a

The growth of economic corridors in developing regions has become instrumental in boosting economic growth and infrastructure. Economic corridors integrate existing road and rail networks to build effective multimodal transportation networks within a particular geographical setting with the aid of quality distribution networks, logistics and infrastructure. This helps in interlinking various markets

The articles in this issue represent a collaboration between the India Quarterly and the Vietnam Journal for Indian and Asian Studies, Hanoi. They address the understanding of the Indo-Pacific as a new geopolitical concept and the many issues related to the politics, structure and institutions of this domain.

H. P. Ray, Coastal Shrines and Transnational Maritime Networks Across India and Southeast Asia. Routledge, 2021 Hardback, 255 pages, ISBN: 978-0-3677-0804-7 Price: ₹995.

J. P. Panda, The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics. Routledge, 2020, pp. 272, £96.00 (hardback). ISBN 9780367364236.

Ravinder Kaur, Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2020), pp. 360., $28, ISBN 9781503612594 (Paperback).

Anu Sharma, Through the Looking Glass: Iran and its Foreign Relations. KW Publishers, 2020, pp. 306, ₹1,480 (hardback). ISBN: 978-93-89137-57-6.

Ahmet T. Kuru, Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019). pp. 323. ISBN: 9781108419093 paperback (£26.99).

The international order today is characterised by power shift and increasing multipolarity. Countries such as India and Vietnam are working to consolidate the evolving multipolarity in the Indo-Pacific. The article maps the convergences in the Indian and Vietnamese foreign policy strategies and in their approaches to the Indo-Pacific. Both countries confront similar security challenges, such as creeping

India and Indonesia are two key emerging economies in the Indo-Pacific region—both with a strong reliance on the maritime domain for sustained economic growth. After a relatively tumultuous phase in their bilateral relations during the Cold War, the countries have embarked on a path of reconciliation and developing stronger ties. During this phase, there has understandably been a strong focus on enhancing

It is noticeable that India–Vietnam relations have remained stable and had signs of development despite the new challenges in the global and regional environment due to COVID-19 pandemic. The authors of this article are of the view that one of the factors that help maintain the stability and development of bilateral relations in the current context is public diplomacy. Since the beginning of the twenty-first

Literature in Diplomatic Studies often reference a phenomenon where diplomats sent for too long to another country develop an affinity for their assigned country, sometimes to the detriment of their home country. This has profound implications when we examine diplomatic agents as personalities in their own right and their ability to perform as state agents. This article investigates the basis of such

The history of Indian diplomacy conceptualises diplomacy racially—as invented by the West—and restrictively—to offence. This is ‘analytic-violence’ and it explains the berating of Indians for mimicking diplomacy incorrectly or unthinkingly, and the deleting, dismissing, or denigrating, of diplomatic practices contradicting history’s conception. To relieve history from these offences, a new method is

Sreeram Chaulia, Trumped: Emerging Powers in a Post-American World, New Delhi: Bloomsbury India, 2019, pp. 256, ₹799 (Hard Cover). ISBN 978-93891-6592-0.

The first British application to join the European Economic Community (EEC) in July 1961 came at a time when India confronted an acute foreign exchange crisis and chronic trade deficits and when it was heavily dependent on the UK as a major market. Unlike the widely held belief, this article argues that India engaged Community institutions in a proactive and calibrated manner from the outset till de

Aparna Pande, Making India Great: The Promise of a Reluctant Global Power (Noida: Harper Collins, 2020), xxviii + 208 pp., ₹599, ISBN 978-93-5357-801-5 (Hardback).

Thomas Hegghammer, The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad (Cambridge, UK: University Printing House, 2020), 718 pp. ₹3,602, ISBN 10-0521765951 (Hardback).

As global politics becomes more complex, calls for expanding our repertoire of skills to deal with this complexity have a new urgency to them. The need to address old and new concerns simultaneously is a challenge. It has clearly required rethinking conventions and concepts, dusting off many of the assumptions about niggling issues that threaten security and nimble improvisation and innovation around

Communal violence, one of the deadliest forms of political violence in Africa, has characterised Jos and other central Nigerian cities since the 1990s. With origins in colonial land and administrative policies at the inception of the city, communal tensions rooted in local elite competition over ‘indigeneship’ and entitlement to political and government positions, access to higher education and land

Turkey has been among one of the most active players in African politics over the last decade. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) governments have changed the traditional foreign policy approach towards Africa. Turkey has sought to develop its strategic relations with non-Western regional and sub-regional organisations during the AK Party governments. In this regard, Turkish Embassy

This article discusses aspects of Namibia’s foreign policy principles and how they impact on the values of democracy, and issue of peace and security in the region. The article will focus on the attainment of peace in Angola, democratisation of South Africa, and security situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar and Lesotho. The main question of this article is: To what extent

Biberman, Yelena, Gambling with Violence: State Outsourcing of War in Pakistan and India (Oxford University Press, 2019). pp. xv + 220, HB ₹1,295. ISBN: 9780190099800.

Perera, Sasanka, Warzone Tourism in Sri Lanka: Tales from Darker Places in Paradise (SAGE Publications, 2016). pp. 256, ₹578.00. ISBN 978-9351509226 (Hardcover). Subramanian, Samanth, This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War (Thomas Dunne Books). pp. 336, ₹1,312. ISBN: 978-1250069740 (Hardcover).

This article evaluates the impact of natural resource conflicts on Africa’s security. This study is qualitative and based on secondary data that were analysed textually. Hinged on the greed and grievance theory, the study argues that the mismanagement of resources, greed and grievance have had immeasurable negative implications on national security, national growth and development. The issues that

These are vexing times. And not just because we have been imprisoned by a virus. Economies have been shattered and people let down by their governments. Worse, the enormity of the pandemic has not brought the global community together to deal with what is, after all, the only actually global crisis in a century. On the contrary, the world has become witness to an equally unprecedented relapse into