The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia(MODERN SOUTH ASIA SERIES)

A sweeping and theoretically original analysis of the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present. Since their mutual independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have been engaged in a fierce rivalry. Even today, both rivals continue to devote enormous resources to their military competition even as they face other pressing challenges at home and abroad. Why and when do rival states pursue conflict or cooperation? In The Difficult Politics of Peace, Christopher Clary provides a systematic examination of war-making and peace-building in the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present. Drawing upon new evidence from recently declassified documents and policymaker interviews, the book traces India and Pakistan's complex history to explain patterns in their enduring rivalry and argues that domestic politics have often overshadowed strategic interests. It shows that Pakistan's dangerous civil-military relationship and India's fractious coalition politics have frequently stymied leaders that attempted to build a more durable peace between the South Asian rivals. In so doing, Clary offers a revised understanding of the causes of war and peace that brings difficult and sometimes dangerous domestic politics to the forefront.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1: Rivals, Leaders, and Change Chapter 2: Partition, the First Kashmir War, and the Origins of the Rivalry Chapter 3: War Scares and the Failure of Kashmir Talks, 1948-1954 Chapter 4: Nehru, Ayub, and the Indus Waters Treaty Chapter 5: The Rise of Bhutto, Sino-Indian Conflict, and the Second Kashmir War Chapter 6: Dhaka, Simla, and an Incomplete Peace Chapter 7: Dictatorship, Democracy, and the Bomb in South Asia Chapter 8: From Musharraf to Modi Conclusion Index

About the Author :
Christopher Clary is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and a Nonresident Fellow with the South Asia Program of the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. He has held fellowships at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C., and the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in the Office of South and Southeast Asian Affairs of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Review :
This book is written chronologically across eight chapters, spanning the creation of the partition in 1947 to the recent Modi and Khan leadership pairing...Clary's detailed focus on the impact of these factors throughout the entire history of the two nations makes this book a useful addition to any collection on South Asian conflict studies. Clary's provocative new theory to explain the oscillations in India-Pakistan ties between peacebuilding and warmaking is a remarkable contribution to the field of international relations. Grounded in the history, domestic politics and geopolitics of South Asia over the past seven decades, this forensic examination is bound to challenge conventional wisdom and traditional arguments about the subcontinent. By focusing on domestic politics and developing a theory of leader primacy—how leaders control foreign policy authority—The Difficult Politics of Peace sheds new light on when rivalries are more peaceful, and when they are more conflictual. This book deserves to be widely read, for its illuminating, careful study of the India-Pakistan rivalry, and for its insights into the domestic politics of war and peace. Theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, The Difficult Politics of Peace is an outstanding analysis of the long rivalry between India and Pakistan. This carefully and closely argued account challenges and revises much of the received wisdom on the sources of cooperation as well as conflict in the subcontinent. This is a spectacular book. It is empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated. Clary successfully debunks the age-old typification of the India-Pakistan rivalry as an 'unending' conflict. He clearly shows how and why leaders in both South Asian countries made choices about peace-making efforts, not just as a temporary measure between wars, but those with unique motivational characteristics. This excellent book will appeal to not only those interested in the history and politics of South Asia, but to any reader of war and peace in the modern world.