The effects of domestic security challenges on India's regional policies

This thesis aims to explain India's regional policies in the context of domestic security challenges. With the end of the Cold War, there have been significant changes in the structure and operating of the international system and in India. For example, variables that affect the behaviour of states, such as the increasing spread of liberal economics and transnational terrorism, have become more prevalent and visible. India, on the other hand, has abandoned the protectionist economic policy (swadeshi) it had been pursuing since independence and adopted a liberal economic model. With this new approach, India has achieved military and economic growth. However, it has been found that India has three major security problems within the country, namely Jammu and Kashmir, Naxalite insurgency and insurgencies in the northeastern states, and that these problems have linkages in five countries, namely Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Accordingly, in this thesis being used qualitative case study, the basic assumptions/concepts of the RSCT and the process tracing method were utilized. For data collection, the document analysis technique used in qualitative studies was employed. In this context, primary (official government documents) and secondary (scientific publications, expert opinions, reports of research centers, news articles) sources were used. The thesis concludes that the security challenges in Jammu and Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations are dominated by hard power elements and that there is a conflict pattern in India-Pakistan relations. It is also concluded that military and economic instruments have been used to solve the security challenges arising from the Naxalite movement (CPI (Maoist)) and the insurgencies in the northeastern states and that there has been a relative improvement in the security situation; military and economic instruments have been used in policies towards the states of Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh in order to prevent the regional linkages of these problems and a pattern of relative cooperation with these states has emerged.