Conference Program

The economic reforms initiated by the Narasimha Rao government in the wake of the crumbling down of the bipolar world order led to massive readjustment in India's foreign policy from nonalignment to multiple engagements. The economy was liberalised and integrated with the global economy. Since then, economics has emerged as the powerful locomotive of India's foreign policy calculus. The demise of the bipolar world order and the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation programmes in the economy prompted analysts to think that India abandoned nonalignment once and for all as it had become obsolescent. However, nonalignment reappeared as strategic autonomy. The Modi Government, which came to power in 2014, redefined strategic autonomy as greater efficiency, stronger partnerships and multiplicity of options and renamed the Rao Government's Look East Policy as Act East Policy. Other aspects of Modi’s foreign policy are India First, Extended neighbourhood, active involvement in Quad, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, BRICS, India-Nordic Summit in Europe, Voice of global South Summits, Forum for India-pacific islands Cooperation Summits, India Middle East Economic corridor, International Solar Alliance and I2U2-India, Isreal, UAE, the US. On the domestic front, Modi emphasised infrastructure development, new supply chain, skill development, Make in India, promoting small and medium industries, and focusing on technology and manufacturing. In what way has India's foreign policy been shaped in the context of the fast-paced integration of the Indian economy with the global economy? This paper argues that the dynamics of the international political economy determine the nature and direction of India's foreign policy.

In recent years, international development cooperation has been important for emerging middle powers' foreign policy engagements in both regional and global contexts. This paper examines how domestic ideas and interests have influenced the development assistance preferences of two emerging middle power states, Mexico and Turkey. It is well-established in the literature that ideational components and material economic interests found in the foreign policy approaches of these countries are also found in their approaches to development cooperation. I problematize why the development policy preferences reflect, in one case, predominantly the ideational dimensions of development policy-making and, in the other case, a combination of both ideational and material interest-oriented dimensions. This study considers development policy as a specific area of foreign policy due to its cooperation component. It is mainly concerned with decision-making processes regarding development assistance to developing countries. The paper draws on the example of Mexico during the Calderón period (2006-2012) and Turkey under the Erdogan governments (2007-2014), the period in which both middle powers emerged as major players in international development cooperation. I find significant evidence that variations in development policy decisions of emerging middle powers correlate with the differences in the value-based, path-dependent expectations of voters (domestic ideas) and the cost-benefit calculations of domestic sector groups (domestic interests) that prevail in domestic decision-making processes. Overall, the study aims to gain new insights into the domestic drivers of development cooperation of emerging middle powers.

For many years, Israel's relations with Iran - two regional powers in the geopolitically extremely turbulent and stormy Middle East region - have remained exceedingly strained. Some scholars call the state of relations between these two disunited states a low-intensity war. The bloody and horrendous events of late 2023 and early 2024 prompt the prediction that this low-intensity war between Israel and Iran is unfortunately gradually transforming into a high-intensity war. It also appears that the United States of America, under the leadership of Joe Biden, in the face of the displacement of its influence in the region by an increasingly powerful and active China and an assertive, bellicose Russia, is eager to provoke a war with Iran that is in principle already practically a foregone conclusion. It seems that the further escalation of the current conflict in the Middle East is only a question of time.

Nevertheless, it is still a mystery which global and regional powers will ultimately support Iran and to what particular extent. Will Russia, which is heavily involved militarily in Ukraine, be willing and eager to militarily help Iran. On which side of the conflict will Turkey, which has already accustomed the world to continual manoeuvring, ultimately take sides? Will China dare to respond militarily to aggression against Iran? Which Western countries will actively support Israel in the forthcoming war? However, one thing is sure – the Middle East will be extremely devastated and depopulated after the next big war.

The foreign policy decisions are the outcomes of both international dynamics and domestic politics of the states. While the structure of the international system restricts the states’ options, the states' characteristics, decision-makers, and capacities determine the most rational option. Therefore, every state’s foreign policy decision-making process is unique. Examining the foreign policy decision-making processes of different states provides various perspectives. This study will analyze the foreign policies of Turkey, Russia, and Iran, which are the sides of the Syrian Civil War reconciliation process. The research question is whether the motivations of these three states regarding the reconciliation process of the Syrian Civil War, consisting of the Astana and Sochi Processes, are similar. In this direction, it will be claimed that despite the uniqueness of decision-making processes, those three states made their decisions on this issue with the same global and regional restrictions and similar domestic motivations. Neoclassical realism will be utilized as a theoretical background to comprehend the systemic restrictions and domestic politics of the three states. The research question will be answered via the single case study, the Syrian Civil War, and process-tracing methods. The importance of the study is to reveal the foreign policy motivations of the most important actors in the reconciliation process of the Syrian Civil War and contribute to the comparative foreign policy analysis literature with those three actors.