Building Bridge Between Indonesia

and India: A Cultural Perspective

Idin Fasisaka

Department of International Relations

Udayana University
15 September 2015
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After Cold War: International order?

To speak of (a)
containing threats or of
(b) managing
particular international
interactions is
to speak of shaping,
building, or
establishing the whole
of international order
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After Cold War: How to order

international politics?
Implementing policies on how to design the
relations among states:
Realists: fantasize power politics: orderproducing effects of material threat
systems.
Institutionalists: fantasize common
interests: order-producing effects of
cooperation in pursuit of mutual goals.
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Skeptical that power politics and

common interests are sources of
international order or factors that
contribute to international order?
Neither power politics nor common
interests can create stable, shared
expectations and behaviors among
states: neither the two speak for
themselves.
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What about identity as source of

international order?
Identity refers to the cognitive,
sociological, emotional, and other
non-tangible bonds among states
that constitute their roles in relations
to one another and so provides
states with a desirable self definition
or concept (Ashmore and Jussim,
1997)
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Narratives and Politics?

Homo fabulans: storytellers. Who do
we think we are, based on the stories
of: national, ethnic, racial, gender,
class, or religious kinds?
When do we discover a shared
tradition or a feeling of belonging with
others? When our experiences
and stories match
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A Shared Tradition?

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Does identity matter?

States can develop any
variety of identities with
each other, ranging from:
collective knowledge of
positive self-other
bonds (friends) to
collective knowledge of
negative self-other
bonds (enemies)
(Wendt, 1999)
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Are identities ever fixed or finished?

Identity is relationship that is always in
process, whether that means
emerging, evolving, or breaking down
(Connolly, 1991)
IR theory: to integrate the theories of
the tangible world of material power
and interests with more ideational
theories.
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Indias Cultures
Culture has influenced the foreign policy
approaches: leaders' preferences and
perceptions.
Values like pluralism and tolerance
fostered by Nehru's peaceful
coexistence policy, underpinning a
disdain for forceful humanitarian
intervention.

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Identity and values in Indian foreign

policy

The less well known

civilizational links
with Southeast
Asia: Indian cultural
exports like
Hinduism,
Buddhism, Sanskrit,
and Islam without
producing cultural
superiority.

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India: from Look East Policy to Act

East Policy
Modi government (since may 2014) and
the Minister for External Affairs, Smt.
Sushma Swaraj termed the new phase
as Act East Policy which in a sense
meant that more substantial
implementation of many elements of the
LEP.
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