Uneven Accountability: Public Attitudes on Indian Foreign Policy since the 1960s

• In Event: Publics, Institutions, and Cultures: New Research on Indian Foreign Policy

Abstract

India is the world’s largest democracy and is growing steadily more important in the international system, yet we know very little about how India’s 800 million-person democratic public influences foreign policy choices. This paper explores public opinion about India’s foreign policy by leveraging both historical survey data from the 1960s and 1970s, and modern, scientific surveys from the 2000s onward. Historical and modern data show three notable trends in Indian public opinion on foreign policy. First, the dynamics of public opinion vary across foreign policy issues. Attitudes toward Pakistan and China, for example, are remarkably consistent over time and across society while attitudes on India’s nuclear program are more variable. Second, historical data reveals systematic sub-national variation in attitudes. Even leaving aside foreign policy issues that have particular high salience in one region (like the 1971 war impacting West Bengal), foreign policy attitudes seem to vary between the South and North, East and West. Finally, we find massive variation by income and education in the rate of “Don’t Know” responses: Poorer and less educated respondents are systematically more likely to demur when asked about foreign policy and world affairs. We suggest that this finding demands rethinking how democracy and foreign policy are linked. Rather than “the electorate,” there appears to be a clear bias in class, education, and geography, with certain social sectors far more involved and informed about foreign policy. We explore the implications of this kind of bias for understanding what democracy does, and does not, do for international politics.

Authors

• Paul Staniland, University of Chicago

• Vipin Narang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Aidan Milliff, Massachusetts Institute of Technology