- Intro:J N Dixit: Foreign policy of a country is a statement of what it stands for and the role that it takes upon itself and projects to the world.
- Cabinet
- Main drafter on Indian foreign policy particularly the Cabinet committee on security
- Initially Nehru unilaterally formulated India’s foreign policy rather than actually involving the Cabinet
- Due to coalition politics use of cabinet members especially of coalition partners has become crucial
- Cabinet integrates issues such as trade and commerce, security into a coherent foreign policy strategy
- Parliament
- Can keep checking vote of no confidence
- Through Parliamentary committee on external affairs
- After Beru Bari union case Supreme Court said that India needs to pass Constitutional amendment if India gives away any territory—> 100th AA related to exchange of conclaves
- Crucial treaties and international agreements need Parliamentary approval. For example Indo US nuclear deal
- The grants given by MEA to different nations via budget has to be passed by Parliament
- Business
- 1950-90s-
- Size of business lobby was small as private sector was small
- Inward looking economic policy based on import substitution
- After liberalization
- Role of track 2 dialogues improved
- Interest groups like CII, FICCI became more significant
- Dairy lobby was highly opposed to RCEP due to cheap dairy products from Australia and New Zealand
- MEA
- Nodal Ministry
- India has one of the smallest diplomatic corps, almost equivalent to Singapore. In the words of Shashi Tharoor- India is punching below its weight
- Pillai Committee Recommendation
- Increasing size of diplomatic corps
- Coordination of MEA with other ministries must be enhanced
- Professional training inadequate
- Lateral entry for highly specialized fields like climate change,nuclear disarmament
- National Security Council
- Joint intelligence committee
- RAW
- IB
- Strategic Policy Group
- Main advisor to government of India
- Headed by national security advisor
- Includes Foreign Secretary, defence Secretary, home secretary, defence chiefs
- National security advisory board
- Ex-bureaucrats and external advisors
- National Security Council Secretariat
- Prime Minister’s office
- Neoclassical realists such as Zakaria (1998: 42) contend that statesmen are the principal actors and that their perceptions are crucial.
- in India's case the PMO has been a proactive player in foreign policy making
- In recent times has become the centre of gravity in terms of foreign policy formulation
- Has particularly gained importance during times of prime minister is like Nehru, Gandhi, Bajpai, PM Modi
- Nehru—> panchsheel and NAM
- Modi- Act east, indo pacific, act west,etc
- Personal relations with leaders like Netanyahu, Putin, etc
- MEA as the line ministry although still functions as the implementing body but PMO takes authoritarive decisions like hosting of events like “howdy modi” , “Namaste Trump” , “Wuhan informal summit”,etc
- The annual dialogues between PM and other state’s representatives and summit diplomacy has created even more space for PMO post LPG era
- National security advisor
- Principal security and foreign policy advisor to PM
- Cabinet rank
- Some NSAs have overshadowed Foreign Secretary
- Think tanks
- This is quite a recent phenomenon in Indian strategic culture
- Act as pressure groups to try to influence government policy
- Weakness
- The official secrets act, lack of systematic timeline for the classifying diplomatic archives and every day reluctance of bureaucrats to talk candidly to researchers leads to lack of reliable information about policy
- This naturally affects the accuracy and quality of policy research that these think tanks undertake even when equipped with quality researchers
- Lack of adequate funding
- Since the leadership is primarily comprised of former bureaucrats with a reputational speak in existing policy, their conclusions will tend to be prejudiced in the favour of status quo
- Ex- ORF,IDSA,Gateway house
- MEA organises Raisina dialogue
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