The Difficult Politics of Peace: Rivalry in Modern South Asia

A sweeping and theoretically original analysis of the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present.

Since their mutual independence in 1947, India and Pakistan have been engaged in a fierce rivalry. Even today, both rivals continue to devote enormous resources to their military competition even as they face other pressing challenges at home and abroad. Why and when do rival states pursue conflict or cooperation? In The Difficult Politics of Peace, Christopher Clary provides a systematic examination of war-making and peace-building in the India-Pakistan rivalry from 1947 to the present. Drawing upon new evidence from recently declassified documents and policymaker interviews, the book traces India and Pakistan's complex history to explain patterns in their enduring rivalry and argues that domestic politics have often overshadowed strategic interests. It shows that Pakistan's dangerous civil-military relationship and India's fractious coalition politics have frequently stymied leaders that attempted to build a more durable peace between the South Asian rivals. In so doing, Clary offers a revised understanding of the causes of war and peace that brings difficult and sometimes dangerous domestic politics to the forefront.

Christopher Clary is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and a Nonresident Fellow with the South Asia Program of the Stimson Center in Washington, DC. He has held fellowships at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the RAND Corporation in Washington, D.C., and the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in the Office of South and Southeast Asian Affairs of the Office of the Secretary of Defense.