Aseema Sinha

The Changing Political Economy of Federalism in India: A Historical Institutionalist Approach

In July 1991 India’s central government initiated economic policy reforms amounting to a quiet economic revolution—or, as noted by a commentator, “reform by stealth.” Policy regimes in the industrial, macroeconomic, and trade sectors were transformed slowly but surely. These policy changes have persisted in fits and starts, yet in 2002 there was talk of the onset of the “second generation of reforms.” Most notably, economic liberalization transformed central–regional relations unleashing unintended and unplanned decentralization. Since the beginning of economic liberalization and the parallel process of regional representation in national governments (that began in 1996), India’s regional states now enjoy considerable political and economic autonomy, but also face intense fiscal pressures on their fragile economies. Recent scholarship has attempted to map the radical nature of transformations in India’s policy regime and in center–state relations. Lawrence Saez has noted that economic liberalization policies in the 1990s prompted a change in federal relations from intergovernmental cooperation toward inter-jurisdictional competition among the states. I have argued that marketization after 1991 was not a simple process of displacement from the public to the private sector or from the state to the price-mediated markets, but also reordered the role of regional states vis-à-vis the center. Rob Jenkins has argued that federalism facilitated the political sustainability of India’s reform process displacing opposition to the state level. Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph have characterized the changes in the following way: “A federal market economy is fast replacing a Nehruvian centralized command

Understanding the Rise and Transformation of Business Collective Action in India

Scholars of business associations have recently learned a great deal about how associations contribute to development, but much less about the origins of such developmental associations. This essay introduces and assesses a new political explanation for the origins of developmental associations. Conventional wisdom holds that developmental associations must be able to rise above political and collusive pressures and establish autonomy from states. Yet, I argue that these associations developmental capacities emerge as a result of active state support by key actors, and in response to challenges and threats posed by competitive business organizations. Developmental associations emerge and acquire their capacities as they confront internal threats from other associations, as well as utilize the opportunities presented by the national state and international channels. In this view, functional or organizational capacity is not enough, rather, developmental business associations, must exhibit political capacitythat is the ability to manage the political environment, and respond to the structure of opportunities and threats. This explanation views developmental business associations as political organizations seeking power as well as offers a historically sensitive analysis of transformation of business politics in reforming India.

India: Rising Power or a Mere Revolution of Rising Expectations?

In 2009–2010 India faces dramatically different foreign policy challenges than it faced even ten years ago. Similar to other ascendant powers such as China and Brazil but unlike smaller powers, India must not only cope with a transformed international system and project the countrys global aspirations, but also ensure that its emergence as a rising power responds to its domestic dilemmas and constraints. Indias actions and aspirations on the global stage have changed dramatically toward greater activism and leveraging of its newfound economic strengths. Yet, despite powerful pressures and opportunities nudging India toward a greater role in the global system, India must also attend to crucial capacity building to mobilize its potential and aspirations. The path toward a major power role and status needs to be paved with more than good intentions and be accompanied by political will and institutional flexibilities that can transform Indias traditional emphasis on autonomy and self-reliance and new ambitions into real power that is sustainable at the global level and yields crucial benefits for Indias diverse population.

Global Linkages and Domestic Politics Trade Reform and Institution Building in India in Comparative Perspective

This article examines how the World Trade Organization (WTO) affects institutional development and policy responses in India. India is a country traditionally resistant to external pressures but in which participation in an international organization stimulated a transformation in trade policy processes and procedures and unleashed a new bureaucratic politics, institutional innovation, and activation of policy—expert linkages. The author argues that we go beyond zero-sum assumptions in understanding the relationship between globalization and national state institutions. Key rules of international organizations increase transaction and sovereignty costs for states, which may catalyze new domestic capacities and create the impetus for new governance mechanisms. The author demonstrates this argument with an analysis of Indias engagement with the WTO and with illustrative evidence of the interaction of China, Brazil, Japan, and United States with the WTO. The evidence is drawn from 18-month fieldwork in India, Washington, D.C., and Geneva; a newspaper database; and reliance on 100 interviews.

Economic Growth and Political Accommodation

Abstract:There is no doubt that India’s democracy has become stable, yet economic change could create distributional conflicts and stresses on its democratic institutions. Economic change and liberalization have served to reinforce and further stabilize democracy rather than undermining it. This has happened partly because of the nature of economic and social transition, which has allowed the rich many options in the private, urban, and global economy. Simultaneously, the poor are divided and seek redress through electoral and democratic channels. Weak coalition governments in the 1990s have responded to claims from the poor contributing to the continuing stability of Indian democracy.

Scaling Up: Beyond the Subnational Comparative Method for India

It no longer makes sense to talk of India without analyzing its infra-national diversity. Yet, this article not only argues for the need to build upon but also go beyond the subnational comparative analysis for India. I make three related points.2 While scholars exploit the variation easily found at the provincial level in India, they must also take their subnational insights and generalize about India as a whole. Users of the subnational method must ask: How do the conclusions of subnational variation change or modify our understanding of India? Second, with economic liberalization and integration of markets within India, a focus on the subnational level makes forces that span across states and cities invisible. Is India becoming more integrated even as variation across its sub-state units is increasing? How can we understand both these phenomena in one analysis?3 In order to understand both spatial differentiation and integration, we need to analyze diffusion and horizontal competition and processes of convergence across subnational units (Jenkins, 2000; Saez, 1999; Sinha, 2004). We can no longer look at policies at the subnational level without examining how policy innovation and e-governance spread across states. Last, the complexity of India’s internal variation makes us hesitate to do cross-regional and comparative studies. What can we learn from the subnational diversity of India, Brazil, China or Mexico studied comparatively? Can we compare such different countries especially when their internal variation makes easy national-wide descriptions suspect? While difficult to do, I would encourage more crossregional and comparative studies that do not ignore the internal variation within India.4 Overall, disaggregating the state to its lower levels may not be enough, and this article urges the need for a ʻscaling up framework’ as a complementary strategy to scaling down. Such a ʻscaling up framework’ must try to craft larger inferential statements about India, while keeping in mind its subnational diversity, the national or global context and the interstate experimentation relevant for the phenomenon under study.

Linkage Politics and the Persistence of National Policy Autonomy in Emerging Powers: Patents, Profits, and Patients in the Context of TRIPS Compliance

The Trade Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS) has had a profound effect on industrialization and innovation, as well as access to medicines in cases of public health crisis such as HIV/AIDS. However, compliance with TRIPS has varied in developing countries, despite heightened international pressure. For instance, Brazil has pursued a coherent approach to its HIV/AIDS health crisis, while India has failed to take care of its HIV patients despite late compliance with the TRIPS agreement and the presence of business firms that produce the generic medicines for HIV/AIDS. This article suggests that divergence in TRIPS compliance is the result of a linkage politics, in which global variables (global rules, global supply chains and global networks) reach into the domestic political economy to alter the interests and capabilities of domestic actors. Indian pharmaceutical firms have developed external and export interests that lower incentives for the Indian state to design a nationally relevant public health policy, while the Brazilian health movement with its societal and external linkages puts pressure on the Brazilian state to defend the interests of its HIV patients even at the cost of patents. We conclude by suggesting that linkage politics is better at helping us understand compliance with international agreements than existing explanations, with important consequences for the effectiveness of international institutions.

A Distinctive Indian Political Economy: New Concepts and a Synthesizing Framework:

This article discusses Rudolphs’ contribution to the study of India’s political economy. Taking off from the ideas they presented in their work, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, the article argues that certain concepts, such as Bullock capitalists, demand-led growth, involuted pluralism, federal market economy and state as a third actor, continue to be critical in understanding India. Through these conceptual innovations, Rudolph and Rudolph not only analyzed India at a given moment but also shaped the larger agenda of debates over India’s political economy.

How global rules and markets are shaping India's rise to power

Indias recent economic transformation has fascinated scholars, global leaders, and interested observers alike. In 1990, India was a closed economy and a hesitant and isolated economic power. By 2016, India has rapidly risen on the global economic stage; foreign trade now drives more than half of the economy and Indian multinationals pursue global alliances. Focusing on second-generation reforms of the late 1990s, Aseema Sinha explores what facilitated global integration in a self-reliant country pre-disposed to nationalist ideas. The author argues that the impact of globalization on India has affected trade policy as well as Indias trade capacities and private sector reform. India should no longer be viewed solely through a national lens; globalization is closely linked to the ambitions of a rising India. The study uses fieldwork undertaken in Geneva, New Delhi, Mumbai and Washington DC, interviews with business and trade officials, as well as a close analysis of the textile and pharmaceutical industries and a wide range of documentary and firm-level evidence to let diverse actors speak in their own voices.

Book Review: Rob Jenkins, Loraine Kennedy and Partha Mukhopadhyay, eds, Power, Protest and India’s Special Economic Zones

Rob Jenkins, Loraine Kennedy and Partha Mukhopadhyay, eds, Power, Protest and India’s Special Economic Zones. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2014. 396 pages. ₹1,145.