This book explores what it has meant for India and Pakistan to act as sovereign states entangled at birth by an unsatisfactory partition. Sovereignty is conventionally understood as a means to achieve the goals that states set for themselves. The book argues that for India and Pakistan, sovereignty has become an end in itself, and that its pursuit has aided majoritarianism, insecurity, and mutual estrangement. The book examines the trajectory of three problems that the partition of 1947 bequeathed to the two states. It investigates the state-minority relations, national identity debates, and contestation over Kashmir to outline the parallel processes of minoritization, homogenization, and territorialization. It shows how these processes signify the two states' quest for sovereignty. The scholarship on India and Pakistan often privileges their bilateral relations. In contrast, this book carries out the deeper task of a single-frame analysis and critique of their intertwined statehoods. Ultimately, the book shows the inadequacy of the nation state form as the basis for political community on the subcontinent. It concludes by pointing to the contemporary relevance of alternative ideas of sovereignty and political community for South Asia that were articulated during the first half of the 20th century.

The Sovereign Lives of India and Pakistan explores what it has meant for the two countries to act as sovereign states entangled at birth by an unsatisfactory partition. Sovereignty is conventionally understood as a means to achieve the goals that states set for themselves. This book argues that for India and Pakistan, sovereignty has become an end in itself, and that its pursuit has aided majoritarianism, insecurity, and mutual estrangement. It examines the trajectory of three problems that the partition of 1947 bequeathed to the two states. It investigates the state–minority relations, national identity debates, and contestation over Kashmir to outline the parallel processes of minoritization, homogenization, and territorialization. It shows how these processes signify the two states' quest for sovereignty. The scholarship on India and Pakistan often privileges their bilateral relations. In contrast, the author carries out the deeper task of a single-frame analysis and critique of their intertwined statehoods. Ultimately, the book shows the inadequacy of the nation-state form as the basis for political community in the subcontinent. It concludes by pointing to the contemporary relevance of alternative ideas of sovereignty and political community in South Asia that were articulated during the first half of the 20th century.

This volume represents a comprehensive and detailed case study of the long-running conflict between India and Pakistan - primarily over the contested territory of Kashmir, and the involvement of the United States within that conflict. The book details the history of 'Partition', the critical event in the modern history of the subcontinent and the fundamental catalyst for the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan. It provides a summary description and analysis of the characteristics - demographic, social-cultural, political, economic and military - of the three primary actors that are party to the conflict: the sovereign states of India and Pakistan and the territory of Kashmir. It explains the history of US policy toward India and Pakistan as individual countries as well as US policy toward the conflict between them, particularly in light of the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests of 1998 and events since September 11, 2001. In addition, the volume also describes and analyzes the involvement of three other major extra-regional actors.

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the international relations of South Asia. South Asia as a region is increasingly assuming greater significance in global politics for a host of compelling reasons. This volume offers the most comprehensive collection of perspectives on the international politics of South Asia, and it it covers an extensive range of issues spanning from inter-state wars to migration in the region. Each contribution provides a careful discussion of the four major theoretical approaches to the study of international politics: Realism, Constructivism, Liberalism, and Critical Theory. In turn, the chapters discuss the relevance of each approach to the issue area addressed in the book. The volume offers coverage of the key issues under four thematic sections: - Theoretical Approaches to the Study of the International Relations of South Asia - Traditional and Emerging Security Issues in South Asia - The International Relations of South Asia - Cross-cutting Regional Issues Further, every effort has been made in the chapters to discuss the origins, evolution and future direction of each issue. This book will be of much interest to students of South Asian politics, human security, regional security, and International Relations in general.

The India-Pakistan rivalry is one of the five percent of international conflicts that has been labeled as intractable. Cohen draws on his varied experiences in South Asia as he develops a comprehensive theory of why the dispute is intractable and suggests ways in which it may be ameliorated.

For International Relations scholars, discussions of globalization inevitably turn to questions of sovereignty. How much control does a country have over its borders, people and economy? Where does that authority come from? Sovereign Lives explores these changes through reading of humanitarian intervention, human rights discourses, securitization, refugees, the fragmentation of identities and the practices of development.

Under what conditions are some developing countries able to create stable democracies while others have slid into instability and authoritarianism? To address this classic question at the center of policy and academic debates, The Promise of Power investigates a striking puzzle: why, upon the 1947 Partition of British India, was India able to establish a stable democracy while Pakistan created an unstable autocracy? Drawing on interviews, colonial correspondence, and early government records to document the genesis of two of the twentieth century's most celebrated independence movements, Maya Tudor refutes the prevailing notion that a country's democratization prospects can be directly attributed to its levels of economic development or inequality. Instead, she demonstrates that the differential strengths of India's and Pakistan's independence movements directly account for their divergent democratization trajectories. She also establishes that these movements were initially constructed to pursue historically conditioned class interests. By illuminating the source of this enduring contrast, The Promise of Power offers a broad theory of democracy's origins that will interest scholars and students of comparative politics, democratization, state-building, and South Asian political history.