Non-Alignment to Strategic Autonomy

India’s Engagement with the Liberal International Order

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.22.2025.96.2.04

Keywords:

India, liberal international order (LIO), non-alignment, strategic autonomy, defensive realism

Abstract

This paper explores India’s strategic positioning vis-à-vis the liberal international order (LIO), examining how India has historically both engaged with and asserted autonomy from the Western-led order. It argues that India’s evolving foreign policy—from Nehru’s non-alignment to Modi’s strategic autonomy—reflects a deliberate use of specific approaches to create space within the LIO for its unique national interests. The main argument of the paper is that India’s engagement with the LIO has not involved wholesale rejection of the extant LIO framework but rather the selective leveraging and reimagining of liberal principles to preserve India’s strategic interests while promoting a multipolar, more inclusive global order. India’s approach to the LIO from its independence to now has been marked by continuity. Since 1947, India has sought to uphold sovereignty while benefiting from liberal principles, particularly in institutional and economic domains. The paper draws on the theoretical framework of defensive realism and institutional neoliberalism to deconstruct and highlight India’s policy approach to the LIO, which is characterized by pragmatism and suggests that India could be described as a transactional power.

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Author Biographies

  • Jakub Zajączkowski, University of Warsaw

    Professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw (FPSIS UW), chairperson of scientific council of discipline of International Relations at UW (2025-; 2023-2024); co-editor in chief of scientific journal “Stosunki Międzynarodowe - International Relations”. He was head of Department of Area and Global Studies, FPSIS UW (2019-2023); director of the Institute of International Relations, UW (2016-2019) and deputy director (2012-2016). His research interests focus on regional studies in IR, regionalism, Global South, methodology of IR, international relations in Indo-Pacific region, India’s Foreign Policy. Author and coordinator of several research projects and funded by the EU (Horizon) and National Research Centre (NCN) and projects funded by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. He took part in over 30 international research projects with prestigious universities. Visiting scholars in over 50 universities around world (among others in Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Oxford, University of Heidelberg, Australian National University, Indiana University, Peking University). Member of Polish International Studies Association, International Studies Association. Author over 60 research papers and co-editor of several books and authors of two monographs. Selected publications: The Re-integration of Regional Studies as a Sub-Discipline of International Relations, „Polish Political Science Yearbook” 4, 2024; J. Zajączkowski, J. Schottli, M. Thapa (eds), India in the Contemporary World: Economy, Polity, International Relations, New Delhi, London, New York: Routledge 2014; J. Zajączkowski, M. F. Gawrycki, A. Bógdał-Brzezińska (eds), Re-Visions and Re-Orientations: Non‑European Thought in the International Relations Studies, New Delhi, London, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury 2014.

  • Manish Jung Pulami, The University of Osaka

    Doctoral candidate at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University under Japanese Government (MEXT) Scholarship. He was Lecturer at the Nepali Military Academy (NMA) and research scholar at the Department of International Relations, South Asian University (SAU).

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“Non-Alignment to Strategic Autonomy: India’s Engagement With the Liberal International Order”. 2025. Politeja 22 (2(96/2): 73-97. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.22.2025.96.2.04.