Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transnational Policy Articulations: India, Agriculture, and the WTO

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The recent shift of political authority over economic policy from territorial states to multilateral bodies like the World Trade Organization (WTO) or Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) challenges political geographers to examine hegemonic politics that overflow traditional state boundaries. This doctoral dissertation research project will examine the relationship between Indian agricultural trade policy and the WTO through an analysis of transnational hegemonic politics. Hegemony is a concept that emphasizes the informal and de facto arrangements of power that underlie formal juridical structures. It especially highlights how political actors are brought to accept and participate in particular power structures. Hegemony usually is studied on a national level, taking the state as a container of politics, or on an international level, taking states as actors. In this project, the objects of analysis are policy outcomes in India and the WTO as well as the actors and discourses that contributed to them. Three key arenas are identified: (1) the WTO forums where Indian delegations represent their country and its interests; (2) official statements of policy where the Indian state explains and justifies its membership in the WTO and its positions towards the WTO; and (3) policy debates regarding the WTO within the discursive community of agricultural trade policy expertise in India. Archival analysis of key documents from the WTO and the Indian government will be used to establish the WTO regulatory mechanisms that affect Indian agricultural policy and what concrete effects have these had on Indian agriculture to date. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with policy experts and government officials during three months of fieldwork in Delhi. Data obtained from these interviews and from key documents will be analyzed using policy epistemics as a conceptual framework. During the Doha Round, agricultural trade emerged as the most decisive issue in ongoing WTO talks. India plays a decisive role in these negotiations. This project will focus on the hegemonic articulations between national politics and a multilateral organization. It will not take the framework of the nation-state as a given and will explore networks of power that cross international boundaries, exist in overlapping fields of sovereignty, and blur traditional distinctions between states and international organizations. India is not seen here as merely an actor with a certain set of interests in the WTO; nor are political struggles within India that help to produce state strategies examined in isolation. Rather, it is the articulation between national and transnational hegemonic politics and the discourses that contribute to it that are examined. In addition to contributing to the development of critical state theory in political geography, this research will also contribute to current understandings of the relationships between developed and developing countries in the WTO system. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.