| Summary: | This thesis considers how India negotiates international rules and why it ratifies certain international rules but not all. To date, the scholarly coverage on this question has not captured the texture of India’s interactions with the international order, specifically the process through which India negotiates international rules on key issues. This lacuna is unfortunate since India has been widely involved across the international order working to influence, shape, evade and resist international rules that have an effect on its development and security. In this study, I argue that India’s approach toward international rules is determined by three factors – what the interests are toward a particular rule; how adeptly institutions like the bureaucracy, legislature and executive understand the policy problem being negotiated and adopt policy actions given state interests on the issue; and how effective domestic interest groups are in articulating their respective preferences to state institutions responsible for international negotiations and coordinate with them thereafter to secure policies in their favour. Empirically, I consider India’s behaviour negotiating four specific international rules - Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and GATT’s Uruguay Round Trade Agreement. Through detailed case studies, I demonstrate that political economy considerations, specifically how interests, institutions and interest groups interact, affects how India negotiates international rules and the decision taken thereafter to ratify or not. The empirical findings of the thesis also call us to question prevailing claims of India being a rising power that has the ability to manage its rise in the international order that involves interacting with various aspects of the order including the negotiation of international rules. We might require a new conceptual vocabulary to consider and explain the behaviour of key states like India that are rising powers when measured in aggregate terms and systemic impact but less so when considering their development challenges and constraints.
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