India, Asia and the World Trade Organization: are regional initiatives moving into global governance's territory?

Abstract

"One of the largest (and most-discussed) changes in the global political economy in the last twenty years has been the rise of the so-called emerging powers (EPs). Through rapid economic growth and integration into the international economic system, these states have increased the complexity of that system and, in particular, the governance of it. This paper will explore the relationship of one of these EPs, India, with one of the major institutions of global economic governance, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and, in so doing, address the role played by regional initiatives in India's current foreign economic policies. Specifically, it will attempt to answer the following questions. First, is India, which has benefited so much from its affiliation with the WTO, now trying to substitute the functions of this institution with regional strategies it has developed to perform these same functions? And, if so, why? In the next section, the theoretical framework of the paper will be presented. This will be followed by case studies of two regional agreements in which India is involved, the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) and the proposed India-ASEAN Free Trade Area (IAFTA), as well as the WTO. The case studies will cover the two functional realms of the WTO, namely, trade liberalization and dispute settlement. The final section will briefly summarize the findings of the paper." (author's abstract)