Fellowship for Chris Blackden: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Transnational Policy Articulations: India, Agriculture, and the WTO

The proposed research examines the relationships between Indian agricultural policy and the World Trade Organization (WTO) through an analysis of national and transnational hegemony. Hegemony is understood as a set of power relations relying on both consent and coercion. The objects of analysis are policy outcomes in India and the WTO, and the actors and discourses which contribute to them. The production and deployment of discourse is an integral part of hegemonic politics, not only through state organs, but within civil society as well, and particularly within expert communities. This project addresses four research questions: I) What specific WTO regulatory mechanisms affect Indian agricultural policy and what concrete effects have these had on Indian agriculture to date? 2) How does the Indian government represent itself and its interests in WTO forums? 3) How is WTO membership justified to the Indian public in official government statements? 4) How is the WTO discursively constructed and rhetorically deployed in policy debates in the discursive community of agricultural trade policy expertise (outside of official government statements )? Research questions 2, 3, and 4 address how the outcomes addressed in Question I are enabled, legitimized, and represented. Three key arenas are identified and examined to answer these questions: the WTO forum itself, where these regulatory mechanisms are negotiated; the Indian state government; the community of experts in India concerned with agriculture and trade policy. Data obtained from key documents and from semi-structured interviews with Indian policy experts and officials are analyzed using the conceptual framework of policy epistemics (Fischer 2000). The intellectual merits of this project rest on its novel focus: the discursive interface between a nation-state and a multilateral organization. India is not seen here as merely an actor with a certain set of interests in the WTO; nor are political struggles within India that in part produce state strategies examined in isolation. Rather, it is the articulation between national and transnational hegemonic politics, and the discourses which contribute to it, which are examined. In addition to contributing to the development of political geography's concerns with critical state theory, this research will also contribute to current understandings of the relationships between developed and developing countries in the WTO system. In terms of broader impacts, the proposed research speaks to a key issue of widespread concern: the viability of the WTO and the nature of the articulations between it and its member states. It is possible that articles drawing on the research will be of interest to those engaged in public debate over these issues, in India and elsewhere.