CIPOD collaborates with a number of national and international institutions in various academic activities. These include, institutional collaboration for faculty and student exchange, workshops and conferences, joint research projects and publications, both independently, and under the aegis of a large number of JNU’s MOUs (https://jnu.ac.in.sites/default/files/ic/MoUs.pdf) with other universities/institutions worldwide. Currently, the Centre partners actively with the following institutions:
1. Centre Émile Durkheim - Science Politique et Sociologie Comparatives, SciencePo, Bordeaux, France.
2. Kings College, London.
3. Managing Global Governance (MGG) Network, anchored by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany.
4. Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies (RIIO), Kunming, China.
Collaborative Research Projects
- Nuclearization of South Asia: Implications for India’s National Security is an ICSSR (Indian Council for Social Science Research) funded project run by Rajesh Rajagopalan and Happymon Jacob, with Yogesh Joshi, one of CIPOD PhD students, as the project assistant. The project looks at the last quarter century since the nuclearization of South Asia. While most previous works on the nuclearization looks at the period after the nuclear tests in 1998, this project looks at the period since the late 1980s, which is when both India and Pakistan are thought to have gone nuclear. The project brings together some of the best analysts and scholars from around the world to examine different aspects of the impact on India, including issues such as the evolution of doctrines, strategies and forces, civil-military and intra-service relations, and impact on global norms and bilateral relations. The project is expected to conclude in early 2015.
- Migration Flows, Labour Market Policies and Social Friction (2011-2012) is a part of a larger collaborative research programme with ‘Transformation and Friction in Globalizing India funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The project was undertaken in collaboration with the Faculty of Humanities, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, with Moushumi Basu (CIPOD) and Jonathon Moses (NTNU) as principal investigators. The Project addresses significant changes that had come about in the labour market following liberalization.
- India’s Regional Relations in a Transitioning World: Policies, Priorities and Practices. Professor Varun Sahni is Project Director of this Sponsored Research Project of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) with a financial outlay of Rs. 400,000. The Project was initiated on 1 November 2013 and will run till 31 October 2015. Dr Krishnendra Meena, Assistant Professor, CIPOD is a Co-Director of the Project, along with Dr Atul Mishra (Assistant Professor, Central University of Gujarat), Dr Devika Sharma (Assistant Professor, University of Delhi) and Dr Jayashree Vivekanandan (Assistant Professor, South Asian University). It is noteworthy that all four Co-Directors earned their doctoral degree from the Centre. The primary objective is to identify domestic, regional and global contexts as well as major themes that structure India’s regional relations, especially with regard to neighbouring countries that are less studied. To this end, the researchers will jointly examine the contexts, cases and themes of India’s regional relations in a world faced with transitions at varying levels (thus reconfiguring existing scales of the national, the regional and the global), domains (security, economics and environment) and cases (bilateral relations with relatively neglected regional neighbours like Afghanistan, Nepal and Myanmar). The aim is to provide a theoretically-informed account of contemporary India’s regional relations with strong policy-relevant recommendations.
- International Collaborative Project on Global Norm Evolution and Responsibility to Protect: C. S. R. Murthy and others. Joining the United States, Europe and Russia as major powers, countries like Brazil, China, India and South Africa are demanding greater influence on the global order. As a result, global norms such as sovereignty and non-intervention are evolving in an increasingly contested way. The debate about a “responsibility to protect” civilians from mass atrocities is a prime example of this dynamic. To examine this process of norm evolution, researchers at seven academic institutions in Europe, Brazil, China and India are collaborating in a two and a half year project called Global Norm Evolution and the Responsibility to Protect. By focusing on “norm evolution,” we highlight the potential for changes in norm interpretation over time as well as the convergence and divergence between alternative interpretations of norms supported by different constituencies. In contrast to the simplistic image of “the West against the Rest,” we observe shifting positions and coalitions both within the West and among other groups, for example the BRICS, the African Union and IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa). Their different views and changing coalitions produce complex patterns of state practice in supporting, opposing or ignoring particular interpretations of the norm (“normative conflict”). For the period from 2005 to 2012, the project asks two basic research questions: How and why did the interpretations, attitudes and practices of major powers with regard to a responsibility to protect change? How did the interaction between major powers (“normative conflict”) shape the evolution of the global norm? The research consortium includes partners from Oxford University,the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Peking University, Fundação Getulio Vargas in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and Central European University in Budapest.
