Rethinking Political Regimes: Comparisons of India and China

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Since the mid-twentieth century, Asia’s two giants have represented alternative models of political modernity. But the dramatic rise of Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping has witnessed a striking convergence in the aims, structure and exercise of power in India and China. Both leaders have promised to eliminate political corruption, reduce socioeconomic disparities, tackle ecological crises, modernize their economies and secure great power status. Yet they have also centralized power and promoted a leadership cult not seen for several decades, undermining the checks and balances that had previously developed. And both Modi and Xi envision a majoritarian nation, which has severely undermined the rights of minorities and contested peripheries, and stoked military conflict.

What are the causes of these strikes changes? What are the ramifications for their domestic politics and bilateral relations? And what impact have their respective political regimes had, or not had, on shaping these developments?

This panel addresses these questions. Sanjay Ruparelia examines how Modi and Xi and embraced high-modernist projects, concentrated political authority and expanded state power, and advanced singular nationalist tropes. Aseema Sinha analyzes the emergence of sweeping developmental campaigns in India under Modi, which display many longstanding features of the Chinese experience that continue under Xi, but retains key democratic techniques. Min Ye (Boston) examines the evolution of Sino-Indian ties in the realm of digital technology, trade and investment, and how border conflicts and the COVID19 pandemic encouraged the securitization of these relations. William Hurst will assess the papers and their connections with each other.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Modi’s and Xi’s Mobilized Development: A New Form of Politics - Aseema Sinha, Claremont Mckenna College

• Clipped Wings: How Did China's Digital Flying Geese Fail to Take Off in India? - Min Ye, Boston University

• A Strange Convergence: India and China under Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping - Sanjay Ruparelia, Toronto Metropolitan University

• A Measure of Political Uncertainty in Autocracies with Evidence from China - Tamar Zeilberger, University of California, Los Angeles

Chair

• Sanjay Ruparelia Toronto Metropolitan University

Discussant

• William Hurst University of Cambridge