EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
How do the constituent states influence the foreign policy making process in India?. (UPSC CSE Mains 2021 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
- John Kincaid of Lafayette College had coined the term “constituent diplomacy" in 1990 to denote the “international activities of a foreign-policy character undertaken by the constituent governments…and local governments (mostly municipalities) of federal countries and decentralized unitary states, as well as by citizen organizations and non-governmental organizations".
- The concept of paradiplomacy was first proposed in 1990 by John Kincaid, an American scholar who outlined a foreign policy role for local governments within a democratic federal system. Economic paradiplomacy related to trade and investment in particular has become an institutionalised practice across the world – in federal states like the United States, Canada and Belgium, quasi-federal states like Spain, non-federal states like Japan and even non-democratic states like the People’s Republic of China.
- The distribution of legislative powers between the Union and states in India is quite explicit. A threefold distribution of legislative powers between the two (Art 246) is envisaged in the Indian Constitution. Foreign affairs, diplomatic, consular and trade representation, participation in international conferences, entering into treaties and agreements with foreign countries and implementation of treaties, agreements, and conventions with foreign countries, foreign jurisdiction and trade and commerce with foreign countries, import and export are the areas where only the Union government is competent to legislate.
- States may attempt to sway a range of foreign policy issues in India, in a way that is not always in sync with national priorities and can occasionally lead to suboptimal policy outcomes. Of all issues, border disputes, cultural and diaspora, and foreign investments frequently feature in center-state dynamics.
- Political parties in Tamil Nadu, for example, influenced the Manmohan Singh government’s policies on Sri Lanka when the island country was being offered a number of sweetheart deals by China. The Singh government was not just forced to vote against Sri Lanka in the UN Commission on Human Rights but the Tamil Nadu parties effectively vetoed Singh’s plan to travel to Colombo for the November 2013 Commonwealth heads of government meeting.
- With the historic rise in states’ share of funds from 32 to 42 percent as suggested in the 14th Finance Commission of India, regional governments are becoming fiscally wealthier and politically assertive. There is a simultaneous increase in the realization that NRIs can be leveraged for prestige and politics. In what can be called competitive federalism, states want to reach out to foreigners to attract tourists and investment independent of center’s efforts.
- Any and all efforts by the states are a win-win for the national government as well. Apart from traditional friction points involving neighbors, New Delhi should support and harness state efforts to attract tourism and investment wholeheartedly, while states should not hesitate from using the MEA’s expertise, even if they are political rivals. If such policy harmony could be created by expanding the remit of States Division of MEA and involving local missions, there is much the states and the center can achieve collectively.
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