Print Price: $45.00

Format:
Hardback
432 pp.
156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199552023

Publication date:
May 2011

Imprint: OUP UK

Does the Elephant Dance?

Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy

David M. Malone

India today looms large globally, where it hardly loomed at all twenty years ago. It is likely to be a key global actor throughout the twenty-first century and could well emerge soon as one of the top five global powers.

Does the Elephant Dance? seeks to survey the main features of Indian foreign policy. It identifies elements of Indian history relevant to the topic; examines the role therein of domestic politics and internal and external security challenges, and of domestic and international economic factors; and in successive chapters delves into the specifics of India's policy within its South Asian neighbourhood, and with respect to China, the USA, West Asia (the Middle East), East Asia, Europe and Russia, and multilateral diplomacy. It also touches on Indian ties to Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. India's "soft power", the role of migration in its policy, and other cross-cutting issues are analyzed, as is the role and approach of several categories of foreign policy actors in India. Substantive conclusions close out the volume, and touch, inter alia, on the absence of an organizing framework for Indian foreign policy.

Readership : Scholars and students of international relations, foreign policy, and South East Asia studies.

Reviews

• "A wonderfully illuminating book on India's relations with the world informed both by remarkable expertise on diplomacy and foreign relations and by carefully acquired intimate knowledge of a very complex country. The book will enlighten not only Indians involved in public discussion and policymaking but also people across the world interested in an ancient land undergoing extraordinarily rapid transformation."
  
  --Amartya Sen
  
  
  
  
• "With the analytical mind of a scholar and the perceptive eye of an experienced diplomat, David Malone ranges across history, geography, economics and strategy to provide a treatment of Indian foreign policy which is both lucid and profound."
  
  --Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, former Deputy Secretary of State of the USA, and author of Engaging India: Diplomacy, Democracy, and the Bomb
  
  
  
  
• "David Malone has written an impressively thorough and deeply insightful analysis of how a previously inward-looking India is now reaching out to the world. Comprehensive in scope, examining major themes and regions, it shrewdly brings history and economics to bear on our understanding of foreign policy. The work of a hugely skilled scholar-practitioner, this book is mandatory reading for diplomats and journalists, and for teachers and students in the social sciences. I would strongly recommend it to ambitious politicians and concerned citizens as well."
  
  --Ramachandra Guha, Historian, Author of India After Gandhi
  
  
  
  
• "By daring to walk through Delhi's Tower of Babel, David Malone has produced a rewarding work on the sources and conduct of India's contemporary international relations. The capacity to differentiate between the 'signal' and the 'noise' in Delhi's rambunctious discourse and a deep empathy for India's aspirations allow Malone to excavate the obscure riches of India's new regional and global engagement. Undeterred by Delhi' self-referential discourse and unfettered from the Western preconceptions, Malone offers the most insightful guide yet to judging what kind of a power a rising India might become."
  
  --C. Raja Mohan, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research and Contributing Editor of The Indian Express, New Delhi, author of Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy
  
  
  
  
• "iDoes the Elephant Dance?r is the best book yet on recent Indian foreign policy. It will be required reading for anyone wanting to make sense of the great transitions underway in India's engagement with the world."
  
  --The Times of India
  
  
  
  
• "The book's comprehensive approach makes it a must for all those interested in India and South Asia."
  
  --India Today