Introduction: Globalization and change in India

ABSTRACT

This series of papers on Globalization, Institutional Change, and Politics of reforms in India highlights some of the key characteristics of institutional change and globalization in India. This special issue points in the direction of three important conjectures on globalization and change by bringing together a few key aspects of the process of institutional change and engagement with the global in India. First, India’s liberal democracy has embraced globalization and globally influenced institutional change in an embedded liberal way. Second, this is a saga of gradual and largely endogenous change. India is deeply affected by the demonstration effect of global best practices but builds rather more after its own internal consensus. Finally, even though India is not a classic developmental state, the state is an important factor in promoting change.     

Complexities in natural-resource management: irrigation infrastructure in Bihar

All over Gaya District in Bihar, irrespective of a person's caste or economic status, irrigation is the overriding topic of concern on public platforms and in private conversations. In the absence of adequate government action, different kinds of community endeavour are emerging to answer the need, some supported by radical political movements, others by organisations of a religious persuasion, and still others primarily by prominent local citizens.     

Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft?

In the United States, identity theft resulted in corporate and consumer losses of $56 billion dollars in 2005, with up to 35 percent of known identity thefts caused by corporate data breaches. Many states have responded by adopting data breach disclosure laws that require firms to notify consumers if their personal information has been lost or stolen. Although the laws are expected to reduce identity theft, their effect has yet to be empirically measured. We use panel data from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to estimate the impact of data breach disclosure laws on identity theft from 2002 to 2009. We find that adoption of data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft caused by data breaches, on average, by 6.1 percent. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Estimating the Effects of Climate Shocks on Collective Violence: ARDL Evidence from India

This paper examines the causal relationship between climate shocks and collective violence in India using annual data over the period 1954–2006. We use the ARDL bounds testing approach to deal with problems of autocorrelation and non-stationarity of key variables. Rather than rainfall, we find that it is maximum temperature that has long and short run effects on collective violence, with unidirectional causality from temperature shocks to riots. A one standard deviation increase in maximum temperature over the long run average increases the number of riots by 55 per cent. Return to long run equilibrium after a temperature shock takes approximately 15 years. The insignificance of rainfall holds whether we consider rainfall levels or rainfall growth. Given the absence of long run relationships between income levels /growth and riots, it is unlikely that the income channel is the one through which climate affects riots in India. Instead, the evidence suggests a psychological channel through which temperature affects riots in India, with hotter temperatures being associated with increased levels of aggression.     

全球外包浪潮中的东南亚：趋势、机遇与挑战

近年来发达国家的企业纷纷将其经济活动外包到发展中国家。这一全球性的现象对政策制定者和政治家都有着重大的意义。尽管还没有一个严格的定义 ,外包现象指的就是企业战略地运用外部资源来进行它过去用本地的人力物力进行的经济活动①。这就涉及到企业要与专业有效的服务提供者(通常在另一个国家)签订合同 ,要求他们长期为公司行使某些主要的职能。外包背后的主要目标是减少全球业务成本 ,保持竞争力。全球外包大致发展成了两种形式。第一种是信息技术服务外包(ITO) ,它牵涉到一个或多个服务提供者提供部分或全部信息系统 ,外包的业务通…     

Pledges and Pious Wishes: The Constituent Assembly Debates and the Myth of a “Nehruvian Consensus”

The strategic worldview of India’s political elite is typically described as having evolved in linear fashion. At the time of Independence there was ostensibly a broad consensus on the ends and means of diplomacy, which included peaceful co-existence and anti-imperialism on the one side, and non-alignment and non-violence on the other. This consensus, crafted by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, is depicted as having steadily weakened over subsequent decades, eventually collapsing when diplomatic isolation and near bankruptcy toward the end of the Cold War compelled the adoption of a more pragmatic approach to foreign relations. The evidence does not support this narrative, however. Drawing on debates in the Constituent Assembly, this essay shows that from the outset there were voices, even inside the Congress Party, calling for realism in the conduct of international relations. Though Nehru’s dominant position meant that these critical voices were brushed aside at the time, recollecting them reveals that the realism that is said to have recently seeped into Indian foreign policy discussions is not a new development but rather the fruition of a long-standing critique.     

India-Singapore Bilateral Relations (1965–2012): The Role of Geo-Politics,Ideas, Interests,and Political Will

This paper is a critical historical analysis of the trajectory of geo-political and economic relations between India and Singapore. This paper argues that India’s perception of its interests and its geopolitical orientation towards the Cold War prevented India’s security and economic integration with Southeast Asia. Apart from geopolitics, the economic orientation of India was also a critical factor that influenced the trajectory of India – Singapore economic engagement. However, there was a dramatic change after the Cold War ended. The structural change from bi-polarity towards a unipolar moment transformed both geopolitics and economic engagement. Moreover, India’s own economic orientation had also changed by the end of the Cold War. In sum, this paper attempts to elucidate upon how ideas construct economic and political interests and how geopolitical interests, once constructed, drive economic relations.