No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The First Level of Analysis, Chief Executives and the Sino-Indian Border Dispute
Abstract
This is a chapter in my book Armed Coexistence: The Dynamics of the Intractable Sino-Indian Border Dispute, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
In this chapter, poliheuristic choice theory is used to explain how the different leaders from Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru to Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi. Poliheuristic choice theory argues that a state leader chooses which foreign policy to pursue by relying on several heuristics, or rules of thumb, in order to determine what would likely be the best option. When it comes to interstate border disputes, the key heuristics that a leader will utilise are the impact a policy will have on their political survival, whether it would advance their grand strategy for the country and which policy would be most likely to work. This chapter then applies this basic model to explain the actions of the key state leaders in China and India.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
In 2020, the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control (LAC) witnessed several violent clashes between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian military that resulted in a tense stand-off between the two highly mobilised armies and plunged Sino-Indian bilateral relations to its lowest point since the 1962 border war. Whilst confrontations between Chinese and Indian border forces are relatively commonplace, this recent crisis has proven remarkable due to the ferocity of the clashes and the alarming pace and degree to which established rules of engagement on the LAC have broken down. With both sides seemingly locked in a stalemate, it is prudent to reflect on the causes and significance of the current stand-off. This article argues that the crisis was largely precipitated by China’s calculation that India’s recent border infrastructure building activities and assertive domestic and foreign policy in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir could threaten the PLA’s tactical advantage along the border, and eventually undermine China’s hold over the disputed Aksai Chin region. Acting on these perceptions and sensing that a ‘window of opportunity’ could be rapidly closing, the Chinese government authorised the PLA to initiate actions to consolidate its advantageous position on the LAC. Although both militaries are fully mobilised and in close proximity across the LAC, both sides clearly recognise the decision to go to war would not benefit either side. Hence, both sides will need to engage in some deft diplomacy going forward to resolve the current crisis and to reset bilateral ties.
The origins of the Cultural Revolution are still shrouded in uncertainty. Crucial questions either remain unanswered or have been given answers which derive from conflicting interpretations. To what period can the direct origins of the Cultural Revolution be traced? What issues, if any, divided the leadership, and how deep were these divisions? What was the state of power relations and what was Mao’s position? Why did developments in the period preceding the Cultural Revolution reach a climax in such a convulsion?
Between Two Plenums examines these questions as they apply to the years 1959–1962. At base, the perspective of pre-Cultural Revolution politics adopted therein is that of “conflict” rather than “consensus.” From this vantage point, the Eighth and Tenth Plenums loom in retrospect as important watersheds in the development of the intraleadership conflict which culminated in the great upheaval.
The Sino-Indian border dispute has been effectively stalemated since the end of the 1962 Border War and remains a source of serious tension between the two Asian giants. Yet there were several instances throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s when the two sides could have resolved their dispute amicably. Curiously, despite several detailed historical accounts on how the Sino-Indian border dispute developed, there has been few systematic theoretical accounts exploring why this occurred. To address this gap, I utilise poliheuristic choice theory to examine the choices of the both the key decision-makers of the time, Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru. The poliheuristic choice theory illuminates why both Mao and Nehru initially chose status quo policies before embracing either compromise or escalation policies, when faced with domestic pressure at home and ideological impulses.
The balance of decision literature specific to foreign policy has focused on decision making in the context of international crises and the outbreak of war (e.g., Holsti and George 1975; Brecher 1980; Smith 1984; Maoz and Astorino 1992; Haney 1994).Together these works provide both empirical and qualitative evidence that the situational factors associated with immediately threatening situations (e.g., elevated stress, time pressure, decision uncertainty, etc.) induce simplified and nonnormative decision making.To date, however, foreign policy decision making in the absence of crisis-related factors has gone largely unexplored.
As China's political and economic influence in the world is rapidly increasing, it is essential to understand how China's domestic politics affects its foreign political and economic policy. This book offers an accessible, informative and up-to-date systemic analysis of the foreign policy of China. Where mainstream literature on international relations usually suggests that China's foreign policy is primarily determined by external factors, such as the international system and external settings, this book demonstrates instead that domestic factors profoundly shape China's foreign policy from the late Mao's era to the reform era. It demonstrates how China's foreign policy is driven by the preservation of political and economic regimes; the political survival of the top leader; the top leader's vision for, and skills in, managing external affairs; the leader's policy priorities; dramatic events and the process of policymaking. It presents its argument in-depth analysis of major cases of Chinese foreign policy - for example, China's difficult relations with Southeast Asia; China's 15-year accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO); China's oil diplomacy in the recent decade, and the diversified process of foreign policy making in the twenty-first century.
The twenty-first century is likely to witness Asia’s two largest civilizations, China and India, join the United States in an elite club of global superpowers. By some economic indicators, the two Asian giants are already the second and third largest economies in the world, and they are developing world-class militaries to complement that economic clout. While Beijing and Delhi have spent the past half-century free from armed conflict and enjoy cordial diplomatic relations, elements of rivalry have shadowed the relationship since the two countries went to war in 1962 over their disputed Himalayan border. In the twenty-first century, that rivalry has evolved in unpredictable ways, advancing in some arenas and retreating in the face of growing cooperation in others.
Cold Peace: China–India Rivalry in the Twenty-First Century updates and deepens our understanding of the China–India relationship by unraveling the complex layers of the contemporary China–India rivalry. This book draws from over 100 interviews with subject-matter experts, government officials, and military officers in India, China, and the United States between November 2011 and July 2013. It also benefits from rare and unique field research at the disputed China–India border in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh; at the contested town of Tawang in the Himalayas; at Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile; at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; and on Hainan Island, which administers China’s South China Sea territories. With 14 chapters dedicated to issue-specific studies, including Threat Perceptions in China-India Relations, the border dispute, Tawang, Tibet, the Dalai Lama succession issue, maritime security, and the role of the United States and Pakistan in Sino–Indian relations, Cold Peace provides a comprehensive examination of the evolution of China–India relations.
A look behind the scenes of some of India’s most critical foreign policy decisions by the country’s former foreign secretary and national security adviser.
Every country must make choices about foreign policy and national security. Sometimes those choices turn out to have been correct, other times not. In this insider's account, Shivshankar Menon describes some of the most crucial decisions India has faced during his long career in governmentand how key personalities often had to make choices based on incomplete information under the pressure of fast-moving events.
Menon either participated directly in or was associated with all the major Indian foreign policy decisions he describes in Choices. These include the 200508 U.S.India nuclear agreement; the first-ever boundary-related agreement between India and China; India's decision not to use overt force against Pakistan in response to the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai; the 2009 defeat of the Tamil rebellion in Sri Lanka; and India's disavowal of the first-use of nuclear weapons. Menon examines what these choices reveal about India's strategic culture and decisionmaking, its policies toward the use of force, its long-term goals and priorities, and its future behavior.
Choices will be of interest to anyone searching for answers to questions about how one of the world's great, rising powers makes its decisions on the world stage, and the difficult choices that sometimes had to be made.
This book examines India as a rising global power by reevaluating its foreign policy and relations from the Nehru period to the present through an analytical framework constructed from Indian foreign policy and the processes of globalization and regionalization. Global Power describes the economic, scientific, technological, and nuclear gains that have been made by India, reaffirming its status as a major actor on the international scene.
The book presents a fundamental reappraisal of the ever-changing relationship between India and other major and regional powers, paying special attention to its relationships with China and Pakistan. It seeks to shed light on Indian foreign policy's goals as they relate to both national and international interests, all the while keeping within the context of India's multiethnic, mulitcultural, multilingual society.
As India has risen economically and militarily in recent years, its political clout on the global stage has also seen a commensurate increase. From the peripheries of international affairs, India is now at the centre of major power politics. It is viewed as a major balancer in the Asia-Pacific, a major democracy that can be a major ally of the West in countering China even as India continues to challenge the West on a whole range of issues – non-proliferation, global trade and climate change. Indian foreign policy was driven by a sense of idealism since its independence in 1947. India viewed global norms as important as it kept a leash on the interests of great powers and gave New Delhi “strategic autonomy” to pursue its interests. But as India itself has emerged as a major global power, its foreign policy has moved towards greater “strategic realism.” This book is an overview of Indian foreign policy as it has evolved in recent times. The focus of the book is on the 21st century with historical context provided as appropriate. It will be an introductory book on Indian foreign policy and is not intended to be a detailed examination of any of its particular aspects. It examines India’s relationships with major powers, with its neighbours and other regions, as well as India’s stand on major global issues. The central argument of the book is that with a gradual accretion in its powers, India has become more aggressive in the pursuit of its interests, thereby emerging as an important player in the shaping of the global order in the new millennium.
China views India as an asymmetric (‘lesser’) rival that has the ability to obstruct China’s grand strategic goals. China’s long-term goals are domination in East Asia followed by Asia-wide domination, and finally global pre-eminence. The asymmetric dimension of their rivalry is rooted in the ego-relevancy cognitive bias in the Chinese elites’ perceptions of Indian history and statehood. Consequently, China does consider India as a ‘peer’. This perceptual dimension pre-dates their material power asymmetry. Nevertheless, China perceives India as an ‘imperial’ rival that interferes in China’s Tibet. Furthermore, India’s ‘hegemonic’ ambitions in Southern Asia pose a challenge for China at the pan-Asian level, and may even undermine Chinese domination in East Asia. Thus understood, there are three implications for the Sino-Indian rivalry. First, the positional and territorial dimensions of their rivalry are now intertwined and will be difficult to resolve. Second, this is not just a dyadic rivalry as it will interact with their relations with the United States, Japan, and Pakistan, thereby creating new uncertainties. Finally, the military undertones of this rivalry are spilling over into other regional countries. This rivalry will intensify if India pursues internal or external balancing, or if India charts a distinct path to politico-economic modernisation.
No other bilateral relationship for India is as complex and challenging as the one with China. The intractable border dispute is at the root of their rivalry. The military stand-off at Doklam in 2017 had poisoned the bilateral relationship until steps were taken to remove mistrust and misunderstanding through two ‘informal’ summits between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping in 2018 and 2019. Nonetheless, the sense of general improvement in Sino-Indian ties generated at Wuhan and Mamallapuram was shattered by China’s aggressive behaviour in June 2020 at the Galwan Valley in Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The article traces key events during the Doklam stand-off and the violent military clashes at Galwan, as well as the steps taken by India to enhance political trust at the highest level. It contends that since there has been no change in China’s policies on a range of issues that are critical for India, it is not possible for India to remain ambivalent on how to deal with China. The article concludes that there seems to be greater recognition of the challenge from China and the need to recalibrate the Indian response.
How did China and India manage to prevent the 1986-87 Sumdorong Chu Crisis from escalating into a war? I argue that it was a combination of changing geopolitical factors (Sino-Soviet rapprochement and the end of Soviet support for India in the context of Sino-Indian tensions) and military factors (conventional deterrence and perceptions of limited revisionism) that help explain crisis management. While these geopolitical and military factors helped avert immediate escalation, the crisis truly ended only after China and India sought a new modus vivendi during Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark trip to China in December 1988. The absence of great power (Soviet) support meant that India had to make a costly signal to China in the form of Gandhi’s trip that happened during the 1987-89 cycle of protests in Tibet against Chinese rule. Nevertheless, Gandhi’s visit took place after India had demonstrated its military strength and resolve in its ability to defend the status quo on the border, and therefore should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness. In other words, I argue that successful deterrence requires broader foreign policy reorientation. At the same time, considerations of power (in the form of internal/external balancing) are central to strategic stability in the Sino-Indian dyad, and that any recourse to diplomacy that ignores the realities of military power is unlikely to be successful for crisis management.
In Service of Emergent India is an evocative insider's account of a crucial period in India's history. It provides an in-depth look at events that changed the way the world perceived India, and a unique view of Indian statecraft. As Minister of External Affairs, Defense, and Finance in the BJP-led governments of 1996 and 1998-2004, Jaswant Singh was the main foreign policy spokesman for the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee during the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, the hijacking to Kandahar, Afghanistan, of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, and the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, as well as other key events. In an account that is part memoir, part analysis of India's past and future prospects, Singh reflects on his childhood in rural Rajasthan at the end of the colonial period, his schooling and military training, and memories of Indian Independence and the Partition of India and Pakistan. He analyzes the first four decades of Indian nationhood under Congress Party rule, ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan, Sino-Indian relations, and post-9/11 U.S.-Indian relations.
"Rational" diplomacy in the service of revolution the making of the diplomat in revolution, 1919-49 establishing the foreign ministry in cold war peaceful co-existence vs containment at Geneva and Bandung "peaceful co-existence" and the Sino-Soviet split Zhou Enlai, Jawaharlal Nehru and estranged "Afro-Asian unity" the "revolutionary diplomatic line" in the cultural revolution strategy and "realism" in Sino-American normalization Zhou Enlai's legacy - towards independent foreign policy".
China's domestic politics and foreign policy have evolved considerably under President Xi Jinping. Domestically the regime has actively promoted the idea of the ‘China dream’ to restore optimism and enthusiasm about its future, particularly among young people. Yet it has also sought to differentiate the socialist China dream from any resemblance to the American dream. Its main emphasis is on making China ‘strong and powerful’ again. In foreign policy, the leadership has become more active. While China has pursued a more robust policy in the South China Sea, it has also launched two extremely ambitious long-term projects to expand land and maritime transport links between China and Europe, termed the ‘one belt, one road’ initiative. They aim to promote development of western China, but if successful, they should also help to transform economic relations across large parts of Eurasia. In geopolitical terms, they will expand China's shadow over regions of the world where hitherto its presence has been relatively modest. They should strengthen links with Europe, as well as with other countries along the routes, to counterbalance potentially conflictual relations with the US. However, success will require active and enthusiastic cooperation from many neighbours. For that reason the risks are as great as the ambition. © 2016 The Author(s). International Affairs
Neoclassical realism is an important new approach to international relations. Focusing on the interaction of the international system and the internal dynamics of states, neoclassical realism seeks to explain the grand strategies of individual states as opposed to recurrent patterns of international outcomes. This book offers the first systematic survey of the neoclassical realist approach. The editors lead a group of senior and emerging scholars in presenting a variety of neoclassical realist approaches to states' grand strategies. They examine the central role of the 'state' and seek to explain why, how, and under what conditions the internal characteristics of states intervene between their leaders' assessments of international threats and opportunities, and the actual diplomatic, military, and foreign economic policies those leaders are likely to pursue.
Is “grand strategy” a useful concept? What is it, and how is it different from “strategy”? Some definitions of grand strategy—as an all-encompassing idea for coordinating the resources of an entire nation to achieve its ultimate goals—are unachievable, overly focused on strategy as a master concept, could unintentionally militarize domestic policy, and blur the lines between strategy and policy. The concept is salvageable. Grand strategy is best thought of as both the intellectual framework or master concept that ties together whole-of-government (but not whole-of-nation) planning, and the long-term pattern of behavior that reveals states’ behaviors and priorities in action.
Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India's Foreign Policy examines India's foreign policy options in order to ensure that the country retains its space for manoeuvre, to follow an independent foreign policy in the 21st century global scenario.
Neorealists, with their focus on the international structure and the relative capabilities of the great powers, have tended to neglect the impact of domestic political forces – such as public opinion, the legislature, and privileged interest groups – on foreign security policy. Recently, however, a new generation of realists has begun to draw upon the comparative political economy literature to account for the impact of domestic political considerations and to introduce the problematique of state autonomy to security studies. As chapter 1 indicates, though, this neoclassical realist literature is still underdeveloped. In particular, it needs to address five critical questions about the role of domestic actors in determining policy: (1) Which domestic actors matter most in the construction of foreign security policy? (2) Under what international circumstances will they have the greatest influence? (3) Under what domestic circumstances will domestic actors have the greatest influence? (4) In what types of states will they matter most? (5) How is their influence likely to manifest itself? In this chapter, I provide preliminary answers to these questions with the goal of building a theory of domestic actors and the national security state, although I do not build such a theory here. Specifically, I explain when domestic political factors affect foreign security policy and which domestic groups and actors matter most.
Since Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit to China in December 1988, the Joint Working Group (JWG) meetings have emerged as the most important instrument by which China and India can address their border dispute. While the confidence-building measures (CBMs) dominated the agenda of the early talks of the JWG, the focus was shifted to the clarification of the line of actual control (LAC) after 1999. Thanks to the CBMs along the border, the aim of avoiding unexpected conflicts and military clashes along the disputed border has so far proved achievable. However, the task of clarifying the alignment of the LAC seems to be more difficult than initiating the CBMs because there is division of opinion on the approach. Without further momentum or compulsion, maintaining the status quo along the border seems to be the best that can be hoped for in the foreseeable future.
This book presents a concise introduction to contemporary China. It is intended as a first book for those coming new to the subject, providing the essential information that most people need to know, without going into excessive detail. Its coverage includes the economy, society, politics and international relations; China's history, especially the twentieth century; and Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as the People's Republic of China. The book provides an up-to-date and clear guide to the often bewildering changes which have taken place in China in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It draws on the enormous body of empirical and theoretical research that is being carried out by economists, political scientists and sociologists on contemporary China, but is itself written in non-technical and accessible language. It does not assume any previous knowledge of China and explanations of Chinese terms are provided throughout the book. It includes a map, a chronology, a glossary of Chinese terms, biographical notes on key figures, and a guide to further reading.
Presidents of the United States have frequently decided to engage in military interventions abroad, but existing explanations of such intervention tend to emphasize either third-image (international) or second-image (domestic) factors. Third-image theories of intervention point to factors such as the international distribution of power and external threats. Second-image theories of intervention point to factors such as electoral incentives, together with the governing coalition's economic or political interests in war. However, as Jeffrey Taliaferro, Steven Lobell, and Norrin Ripsman argue in chapter 1, neoclassical realist theories generate more explanatory leverage over the national security behavior of states by incorporating both the domestic and international milieus. In this chapter I put forward a neoclassical realist model and show exactly how, why, and to what extent domestic politics matters in shaping US military interventions abroad. According to this model, when facing the possibility of major military intervention, presidents usually begin by consulting what they perceive to be the national security interests of the United States. Subsequently however, they consider how best to pursue those conceptions of the national interest in the light of domestic political incentives and constraints. These constraints frequently lead presidents to implement the precise conduct, framing, and timing of US intervention in a manner that may appear puzzling or anomalous from a neorealist perspective. In this sense, domestic politics “matters,” not as a primary cause of intervention, but rather as a powerful influence on its exact form.
How do states perceive international threats? Which domestic actors are the most important in threat definition? What happens when domestic actors and interests disagree on the nature of threats? As we state in chapter 1, these are central questions to the neoclassical realist agenda and require a theory of the state to answer. In this chapter I will develop a neoclassical realist theory of threat assessment to fill this gap and illustrate it with reference to the British experience between the two world wars. Neorealist theories are theories of international outcomes. They highlight the role of polarity and international structure, black box the state, and focus on shifts in aggregate military power or threat. Debates include whether bipolar or multipolar distributions of power are more war-prone; whether anarchy encourages states to maximize relative power or security; whether equal or unequal distributions of power contribute to war; and the prevalence of buck-passing or balancing against threats. Proponents of balance of power theory and balance of threat theory would argue that prior to World War I Britain balanced against the rising power (or threat) of Wilhelmine Germany in the form of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, the Triple Entente, and the naval arms buildup. Granted, prior to 1914, balancing may not have happened in an optimal fashion. Balance of power theory and balance of threat theory, at least in their current forms, predict a general tendency toward balancing and do not expect an efficient or quick balancing process under all circumstances.
In this edition of his path-breaking analysis of political and social change in China since the crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Joseph Fewsmith traces developments since 2001. These include the continuing reforms during the final years of Jiang Zemin's premiership and Hu Jintao's succession in 2002. Here the author also considers social trends and how Chinese citizens are starting to have a significant influence on government policies. As Fewsmith - a highly regarded political scientist and a seasoned China-watcher - observes, China is a very different place since Tiananmen Square. In the interim, it has emerged from isolation to become one of the most significant players on the world stage. This book explains the forces that have shaped China since Tiananmen.
Of all the issues in international relations, disputes over territory are the most salient and most likely to lead to armed conflict. Understanding their endurance is of paramount importance. Although many states have settled their disagreements over territory, seventy-one disputes involving nearly 40 percent of all sovereign states remain unresolved. In this study, Krista E. Wiegand examines why some states are willing and able to settle territorial disputes while others are not. She argues that states may purposely maintain disputes over territory in order to use them as bargaining leverage in negotiations over other important unresolved issues. This dual strategy of issue linkage and coercive diplomacy allows the challenger state to benefit from its territorial claim. Under such conditions, it has strong incentive to pursue diplomatic and militarized threats and very little incentive to settle the dispute over territory. Wiegand tests her theory in four case studies, three representing the major types of territorial disputes: uninhabited islands and territorial waters, as seen in tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku and Diaoyu Islands; inhabited tracts of territory, such as the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla affecting Morocco and Spain; and border areas, like the Shebaa Farms dispute between Lebanon and Israel. A fourth case study of a dispute between China and Russia represents a combination of all three types; settled in 2008, it serves as a negative example. All these disputes involve areas that have key strategic and economic importance both regionally and globally.
This is a groundbreaking analysis of China's territorial disputes, exploring the successes and failures of negotiations that have taken place between its three neighbours, namely India, Japan and Russia. By using Roberts Putnam's two level game framework, Chung relates the outcome of these disputes to the actions of domestic nationalist groups who have exploited these territorial issues to further their own objectives. By using first-class empirical data and applying it to existing theoretical concepts, this book provides a detailed account of China's land and maritime border disputes that is both clear and accessible.
Why do leaders sometimes challenge, rather than accept, the international structures that surround their states? In The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru, Andrew Kennedy answers this question through in-depth studies of Chinese foreign policy under Mao Zedong and Indian foreign policy under Jawaharlal Nehru. Drawing on international relations theory and psychological research, Kennedy offers a new theoretical explanation for bold leadership in foreign policy, one that stresses the beliefs that leaders develop about the “national efficacy” of their states. He shows how this approach illuminates several of Mao and Nehru's most important military and diplomatic decisions, drawing on archival evidence and primary source materials from China, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A rare blend of theoretical innovation and historical scholarship, The International Ambitions of Mao and Nehru is a fascinating portrait of how foreign policy decisions are made.
In the approach to the Sino-Indian war of 1962, the Indian government made some surprising policy choices. Most significant was Nehru’s decision to contest what was viewed by him and his officials as unimportant territory in the western sector, rejecting in the process Chou en-Lai’s 1960 “package” offer. Instead, Delhi chose to initiate in 1961 the Forward Policy, in full awareness of the severely disadvantageous position of the Indian military in the disputed border areas. Using Indian primary documents, this article makes the case that reputational considerations—particularly Nehru’s fear that any concessions to China would be viewed as weakness and provoke further aggression—help explain the puzzling aspects of India’s intransigence on the Sino-Indian territorial dispute during this period.
This book studies Indira Gandhi's final term in office as India's Prime Minister (1980-84). This is an important period in the country's recent history as it is then that some of the defining features of today's India's political system emerged. The book argues that the early 1980s were a period of uncompromising change, particularly in three key areas. First, India undertook the road that would eventually lead to the liberalization of the economy; second, new forms of political mobilization emerged, including mobilization based on communal identities; third, the polity became increasingly regionalized, and the states became crucial actors in India's political system. The book shows the crucial contribution that - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not - Mrs Gandhi gave to these processes. The book covers a second and overlapping theme, namely Mrs Gandhi's drive for personal domination of India's political system and the consequences that this had on her democratic framework. The book argues that Indian institutions were severely, perhaps irremediably damaged by Mrs Gandhi's rule. The institutionalization of corruption as a systemic feature of India's political system and the personalization of institutions are the two most detrimental legacies of Indira Gandhi's prime ministership. The book traces the origins of these processes and their consequences on the political system. Finally, the book describes the significant changes occurred within India's society during Mrs Gandhi's rule, in particular the process of emancipation of the Indian masses that Indira Gandhi contributed in no small measure to accelerate.