Violent Punjab,quiescent Bengal,and the partition of India

Why did the Punjab bear the brunt of the mass violence and the migration that accompanied the partition of India? This paper makes the case for analytical eclecticism by showing that the following three explanations – centred respectively on democratisation, nationalism, and ideas; the commitment problem; and the security dilemma – account for the violence/migration in the different stages in the run-up to the partition of India. Instead of arguing that ‘everything mattered’, this paper elucidates the complex causality at work by demonstrating how these factors interacted with one another during the different stages leading to India’s partition.     

Editors’ Introduction

Abstract

This article explains why the United States has not fought a preventive war against North Korea despite that country’s moves to arm itself with nuclear weapons. I argue that the absence of war is mainly attributable to military strategies that the US military has with regard to North Korea. With only attrition strategies available, the United States neither expects to lose a precious military opportunity nor anticipates grave future vulnerabilities vis-à-vis North Korea. The prospect of a costly attritional campaign deters both Washington and Pyongyang from resorting to military force. Straightforward attrition strategies also allow little chance for miscalculation, thereby making inadvertent escalation to war unlikely. The research finds sufficient evidence for my argument, whereas conventional explanations offered by international relations theory fall short when applied to this case.     

Reconsidering cultural globalization: The English language in Malaysia

The increased prominence of the English language in Malaysia seems to confirm the view that flows of culture are one-way in the constellation of processes that constitute contemporary globalization. This article argues otherwise by examining local perspectives and engagements with the English language. In the late 1960s Lloyd Fernando argued for the retention rather than the rejection of the study of the colonial language and its literature. For this scholar of English, only familiarity with the language's cultural breadth could eliminate the persistent fallacy of its superiority. Given Fernando's perspective on English, the article discusses three writers who treat the language as a venue for renewed explorations of Malaysia's history, society and cultural identity, problematizing the language's colonial origins in the process. As a consequence, their work engages imperializing tendencies within globalization by demanding of its proponents a more complex and pluralistic view of the economy, politics and culture.     

The debt wish: Rent seeking by business groups and the structure of corporate borrowing in India

Business groups play an important role in emerging economies. The transactions cost perspective, which has dominated our understanding of such groups, argues that the emergence of business groups is a natural response to market failures in developing countries. In this paper, we propose an alternate theoretical perspective – the rent-seeking view – that takes these groups as engaging in coordinated lobbying for the capture of rents created by governments. We develop and implement an empirical strategy to test for the rent-seeking view drawing from the property rights theory of corporate finance. We find strong empirical support for the rent-seeking view using a large cross-sectional data-set of firms in India.     

Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict: at a crossroad between peace and war

In the 1990s the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka had acquired the reputation of an orphaned and dirty war. Hence, there was widespread support when in the new millennium Norway tried to facilitate a dialogue between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the main Tamil insurgent group, and the Sri Lankan government. The peace process led to a ceasefire agreement and six rounds of face‐to‐face meetings. Although progress was understandably slow, a political framework that allowed Tamil national self‐determination while simultaneously protecting Sri Lankan sovereignty and territorial integrity seemed near. However, by late 2003–early 2004, such optimism lay shattered and a return to the days of warfare seemed a real possibility. In this paper, I offer an explanation for the onset of peace talks, assess its achievements and explore whether the peace process is still salvageable or a return to warfare is more likely to mark the future.     

Foreign ownership and firm scope in India

We examine how foreign ownership influences the extent to which firms engage in outsourcing. We observe a significant and positive relationship between the extent of foreign ownership and the level of internal sourcing for the firms. Second, when foreign owners have at least 51% ownership versus where foreign ownership is less than 51% we observe dramatic differences in outsourcing levels. Also we find that for firms with controlling foreign ownership undertaking in-house activities, the motivation to keep their property rights as inviolate as possible when their capability contributions within the Indian economy are large and significant is intense. For firms considering locating in India a strategy of internalization of activities in India is central towards retaining their competitive advantage.