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Monalisa Adhikari, "A Post-Liberal Peace: How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management" (Cornell UP, 2026)
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Welcome to the New Books Network
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Monalisa Adhikari about her book titled A Post Liberal How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management, published by Cornell University Press in 2026. Now, this book is really important, really in a lot of ways, and quite useful because much of the literature on conflict and how conflict is managed or ends are negotiated is obviously incredibly important, both from a sort of academic sense as well as from helping people not die sense. Right? The stakes are very high here, and yet a lot of the literature focuses on who the big actors have been. So we often talk about the United nations, the United States, we talk about Cold War politics, and some of that is still relevant today. But there's some other people involved now that are pretty relevant, right? Mainly we're talking about India and China, but aren't necessarily talked about, despite the fact that they are very much doing things in active conflicts. And so we should probably study them. This book helps us do exactly that. So clearly we have A lot to discuss. Mona Lisa, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Thank you Miranda, for having me.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Could you start us off please by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book? What kinds of questions did you want to investigate? How did the project develop?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Thank you. My name is Mona. I am a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling and my research broadly focuses on two themes. The rise of non Western powers focused on India and China in the global governance of peace, security and development agenda, and political transitions in conflict affected contexts, where I focus on south and Southeast Asia. This book really grew out of my doctoral research. My book and the doctoral research essentially focus on three central questions. Related questions first, how do emerging powers like India and China equal engage in peace processes in neighboring countries within their regions of influence? And the case studies for the book and my work was Nepal and Myanmar. Secondly, the book also engages with the question of how does this engagement of rising powers or emergent powers interact with and impact upon liberal peacebuilding projects in Nepal and Myanmar? And finally, from the perspective of conflict affected states, how do these plural forms of engagement of emerging powers and different liberal peacebuilding actors impact upon domestic political settlements as these countries transition out of conflict? And I think the focus on these three questions and why I pursued this is rather personal. I grew up in Nepal during the civil war with a period that also intersected with the kings taking over executive power. So there was also a degree of authoritarianism embedded, which meant that as a teenager growing up in Nepal, questions of peace, democracy, political transition weren't very abstract but became a part of your everyday life. But more directly, before entering academia, I worked in international development, primarily on peacebuilding programs in Nepal, which included working for a Track 1.5 dialogue initiative, Rule of law projects focused on community mediation, research on political economy of Nepal's transition, etc. And as I was working, one of the observations that sort of stood out was that despite the fact that Nepal had hosted a UN peace mission in the form of the United nations mission in Nepal, India remained the dominant external political actor, often even shaping the scope and intensity of the UN's work in the country. Yet at that time, the study of non Western states in peacebuilding wasn't a subject of, let's say, a sustained scholarly inquiry. And I think that struck as a gap. And so when I came back to doing my PhD, this is something that I wanted to focus on.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, lots of reasons there kind of any of which I could see motivating the project but the combination certainly so telling. We've both then mentioned a little bit about kind of a gap that's there, and I think to help readers and listeners understand a little bit more about kind of what that gap is and why it's important to investigate. Can you give us a brief overview of the liberal peace model?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. So the liberal peace model, in the shortest way possible, is the dominant framework which for the last three decades has guided much of the international engagement in supporting conflict. Affected states bounce back or continue to transition to peace. And not only has it been the dominant policy framework, but normatively and has also enjoyed this normative and discursive dominance within peace studies as a subfield, but also broadly international studies. And the liberal peace model really was a child of its time and emerged as a policy framework in the post Cold War era. And its origins can be traced to the UN's Agenda for Peace report, which defined peace building as actions to identify and support structures to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid relapse into conflict and definition. The definition here I think is very important because it sought not only to manage the conflict, but also address the root causes and ensure that the countries don't relapse, which meant that any long term engagement or any international engagement in conflict affected states will likely to be long term and perhaps more interventionist, targeting at the root causes of the the very nature of state. This report also categorized peacebuilding as distinct to peacekeeping and peacemaking, which are also critical because these were the peacekeeping and peacemaking then were the more dominant tools until the Cold War. And normatively, the logic that anchors peacebuilding liberal peace projects is that liberal values are intrinsically peace promoting, which of course is proven by the experience of European states, which really meant that if endowed with democratic government and liberal economy, countries are likely to be more peaceful, likely to be internally secure, which also would have implications for transnational security. So with that logic, peace building manifests on the ground in the form of multiple projects. Some of these projects look at promoting democracy, some of them look at promoting rule of law, drafting of more liberally oriented constitutions, reforming the security sector, just to name a few. And when I say that they've enjoyed policy dominance, it has also been that many of these peace building tasks have increasingly been embedded into peacekeeping missions as well. But in the last three decades of practice, there have also been multiple critiques, and I think it's important not to overlook those critiques that have sort of defined liberal peacebuilding in itself. So critiques ranging from the fact that liberal Goals have often relied on rather illiberal means, as most visibly noted in cases like Iraq or Afghanistan. Or the fact that the liberal spirit are often of liberal norms that are sought to be promoted are often compromised as things go by for Western security goals. There's also this idea that while promoting liberal economy, the focus has been on elite level deals, often sidelining everyday economic concerns around livelihoods, economic distribution and even sort of almost enabling corruption. So all these have also sort of showed us that liberal peace, despite, despite its in intent, have really led to modest achievements at best. So they might have ended certain conflicts, but this rise of liberal states, the transition of conflict affected states into resilient liberal states have been far and few.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's very helpful as an overview. And obviously it's a massive field, as you said, it's been dominant for quite a while. So a tricky challenge that I gave you to kind of summarize it, but I think that really helps us kind of think about what the dominant paradigm has been and also sort of where some of the gaps are, the critiques that already exist. And of course, part of what you're doing here is pointing out those problems. You're also however, proposing kind of something that we can think about instead. So can you describe for us what post liberal conflict management is?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely, thank you. So first to notice that unlike liberal peace building, which is the articulated model by many, many bilateral and multilateral organizations, there is no articulated model that non Western rising powers have sort of launched with regards to how they seek to engage in conflict affected states. So no policy frameworks or institutional blueprints, or even white papers or even specialized peace and security agencies, and comparable to what we see of liberal peacebuilding projects. Accordingly, the concept developed in this book is largely inductive, derived from analyzing the state of practices on the ground, but also with interviews in Nepal, Myanmar, China as well as in India. Also, to note before I sort of unpack what postlippopist is, is that it's not a coherent or a consequence formulated grand strategy as some people might make it out to be, but rather captures a constellation of different features sometimes which can be contradictory in itself. And in broad terms, post liberal approach to conflict management, as illustrated by India and China, is characterized by five core features which I highlight in the book. So first, this state centric orientation of conflict management, the fact that the engagement is geared towards building or supporting the state, the conflict affected state to be stronger and more resilient, with the idea that strong states can deal with conflicts and crisis by themselves. So what we see in practice is a lot of support to state centric state institutions rather than civil society organizations, or a lot of support to security agencies, which I'll talk about later. Second is a strong emphasis on stability and economic development. Stability in a sense, of course, LIBRA peacebuilding models also seek stability, but the ultimate goal is to sort of have more inclusive and sustained peace. But for rising powers, it's very much focused on closing or ending the violence. That type of stability is intrinsic to their model and it's not ambitious enough to sort of think about peace. And that's why I don't call, I term it post liberal conflict management rather than post liberal peace per se. It also envisions economic development as a pathway for peace rather than rule of law or democracy. And third is this preference for national and regional actors to lead peace processes. And fourth is this normative ambivalence to liberal principles. This is not a rejection of liberal principles, but almost a normative ambivalence. So for instance, despite being so dominant in both the peace processes in Nepal and Myanmar, China has been sort of absent from ideas around discussing ideas around transitional justice, of federalism or inclusion that was so central to the peace process. And they were rather focused on what do we do for stability, what do we do for certain economic development goals, etc. And lastly, I think one of the distinguishing factors is a very pragmatic, context driven approach to engaging in conflict affected states. And this is of course made more visible by the absence of institutionalization of their models. Like I mentioned before, there are no white peoples, so the engagement has sort of shifted as things shift in conflict affected states. And despite the fact that there is a notable differences, notable differences between India and China themselves, these five features synthesize the commonalities between both Indian and Chinese approach to engaging in these contexts countries. I also wanted to sort of point that this is not a simple case of emerging powers differing from and hence seeking to displace liberal peace builders. However, the engagement of emerging powers has almost a paradoxical impact on liberal peacebuilding engagement. On the one hand, it constrains liberal peacebuilding engagement, while on the other hand it enables it. And what I mean by that is emerging powers bring in competing norms, incentives and modalities of engagement to conflict affected states, which can undercut the compliance power of liberal peace. However, the often intrusive engagement of India and China, leaving many unintended or even negative impact on the peace process, leads to political elites and even marginalized groups from conflict affected states to invoke Liberal peace builders often as a useful counterweight to the dominance of India and China. So we also find engagement of India and China almost opening up this unprecedented space for liberal peace builders to engage. And now not in the book, but one of the things that to follow back on the book that we did as a part of the Peace Rep Project, which is the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, a project led by the University of Edinburgh, we conducted a survey of over 1200 citizens in Myanmar, where we asked them about their preferred mediators. And what we found was the United States, the UN still are seen as more trustworthy mediators than India or China. And that also goes to show that the intrusive engagement of India and China have also opened up space for liberal peacebuilders to engage. So it's not the simplistic idea of liberal peacebuilders either, displacing liberal peacebuilders.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's a very important point to emphasize. So I'm glad that we've surfaced that at this point in the conversation there are though these kind of different models going on, different people getting involved. And it is interesting when you go and speak to people and go kind of, well, who do you want involved? And the answer is not necessarily India or China, but those countries are kind of getting themselves involved. Why? Why do countries like China, why does India want to do this post liberal conflict management type thing?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
So I think there's a combination of factors that sort of underpin the post liberal conflict management approach to engaging in conflict affected states in the region. So some of it is historical experience and the influence of such historic experience of colonialism and imperialism in the institutional evolution of its foreign policy. But some of it is also the evolution of its regional foreign policy priority. So historically, both India and China have emerged from experiences of colonialism and also played leading roles in advancing principles such as forums such as the Non Aligned Movement. So what we do see is this idea of sovereignty, non interference and resistance to external intervention is very central to those foreign policy priorities. But some of it is also because this focus on sovereignty is also of much more pragmatic angle because both countries have their own experience of engaging with conflicts and separatist movements, including Xinjiang in Tibet in China, Kashmir in India, which have enforced this preference of sort of non interference in conflict resolution. And in both states, development has been articulated as a solution. So for instance, if you develop Tibet, we will not have the Tibetans talking about secession anymore, or if we developed Kashmir, we wouldn't have some of that. So some of it is its own models of conflict management being projected outwards. But some of it is also its own regional policy. So one of the things to note is I think both India and China have this deeply, this deep sense of identity, which is historically derived sense of identity as a regional power. And that is owed to periods of colonialism where of course, the British ruled from India for much of the subcontinent, but also geography, size, population, economic weight, but also technological and infrastructural capacities today. So which has meant that this sense of identity or the sense of regional spiritual their place in that regional order has also led it to have three broad features in its regional foreign policy, which I feel has implicated its engagement in the region. So first, both states have consistently sought to limit extra regional influence in the neighborhood. For instance, China was very wary of the conflicts across the northern Myanmar borderlands being internationalized. Similarly, despite Nepal hosting a UN peace mission in Nepal, it was wary of UN peace. The UNMIN officers being established in the southern borderlands. So there is external involvement is viewed not only as a challenge for the regional primacy, but also as a source of instability and as a means through which neighboring countries can counterbalance their influence by aligning with different other external powers from outside the region. And that is sort of really sort of impacted how they engage with liberal peace builders and how they have. They've sought to almost determine the scope and intensity of liberal peace building projects in the region. And second is this idea of regional stability, which is very central to both foreign policy objectives of India and China. The region is simultaneously seen as a source of insecurity, but also primary area through which its own security, but also economic prosperity can be secured. And so conflict management in the neighboring states is viewed through this lens of managing its regional order. And finally, I think both countries have sought to shape political and economic developments in the neighboring states states in ways to advance their own security interests. This can be through trade and investment and infrastructure, but also through a combination of different political engagement or regime change, development assistance, etc. And of course, engaging with the work in the peace processes are critical because peace processes are times which determines the political transitions of the future. So and it's incredibly important for India and China to be a part of some of that conversations, to be able to sort of weigh into the developments of the future of these conflict affected states which can have an impact on their own security and economic stability.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
so what does this mean then on the ground? For instance, if we start where you did in Nepal, if we're looking at India and China's involvement in that particular conflict and peace process, what impact does it have for China or India to kind of get involved with these sorts of negotiations?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
And so in in terms of the practices on the ground. So for instance, if you look at this focus on stability, both India and China have focused on brokering ceasefires or bringing agreements that end immediate violence. But this has also meant that India and China have tended to avoid engaging in Issues that bring about structural transformation, which in the short term might generate some forms of instability. For instance, transitional justice issues about rights, inclusion. So what that has meant is India facilitated the 12 point agreement in Nepal, which paved the way for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But India was absent in delivering or helping deliver on some of the most salient agendas of the Comprehensive Peace Agreements. So a very stability centric engagement meant that India was a part of the elite level negotiation of drafting the agreement, but not on delivering of the agreement. It is also, if you look at stability, it is also that India and China both justify their engagement, sometimes intrusive on the ground because of their concerns of regional stability. So for instance, Indian sources tended to continually link the debate on inclusion in Nepal because some of the most vocal champions of inclusion in Nepal through federalizing processes were Modisi's, a community that is dominant in the southern borderlands. So what India has continually tended to link that debate to being to India's course security and stability. So stability has also meant that India has tended to see the peace processes in both India and China have tended to see peace processes through a very stability centric lens. Similarly, if you look at state centric engagement, both India and China, like I mentioned before, have have been central to supporting the Nepal army and the Nepal Armed Police Force. So state institutions that are central to delivering on stability. However, it is also to note that India saw Nepal army, for instance, as the only institution that had remained intact in Nepal with all other institutions dismantled to dispute delegitimated. So when Nepal discussed debates around disarmament, demobilization and reintegration in Nepal, India's concern was really that politically tainted Maoists shouldn't be reintegrated into the Nepal army because it would affect the institutional integrity of the Nepal army. So which really meant that this state centric engagement of India really impacted on core agendas of the peace process at will as well as. And if you look at things like the primary responsibility of ownership or primary responsibility or ownership of the peace process, India and China tended to differentiate themselves as core stakeholders, while the peace builders were called external third parties. As a result, in practice, what we found was India was not a party to any multi donor forum in Nepal. You see similar examples perhaps in Sri Lanka, but also China was also not a party to any multitrust funds like the Joint Peace Fund in Myanmar. We also see this, this tendency of seeing themselves as regional stakeholders and everybody else as external, given how India has sought. India sought to limit the mandate of the UN mission in Nepal as Well as campaigned for its early exit from the Nepali peace process, which really affected also the peace process. Because the United nations mission in Nepal, which was brought in, one of the tasks given was to complete the security sector reform process, or what was called the management of arms and armies process. But UNMIN actually left without the process being complete. Now, if you look at the ambivalence of norms, India and China both did not see human rights as a topic worth discussing. So they were very silent from this debate around transactional justice and inclusion, which was so central to the process. And so really some of these things that some of the features that I talked about when talking about post liberal conflict management not manifests on the ground in very different ways, but also impacts on different agendas of the peace process in very salient ways.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I mean, the things you've listed there of what happens to the fighters, what happens to justice, like those are some really key parts of ending a conflict. And of course, in that answer as well, you gave a number of kind of instances of sort of hinting at what some of the differences were between what liberal peacebuilders were wanting to do or would have wanted to do. Are there any other kind of differences we want to highlight in terms of how what China and India are doing is different from what liberal peace speed builders would be doing in the same sorts of circumstances?
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. So in the book I highlight that the differences act. There are differences along five axes. So in, in terms of the purpose of conflict resolution, for one. So if the purpose of conflict resolution is stability for emerging powers, liberal peace builders, at least the stated goal is more sustainable and inclusive peace. But rising powers do not have such ambition to talking about peace. It's very much focused on stability or closing the conflict, ending the conflict through a ceasefire or any form of peace agreement, not beyond. They also differ on pathways to how peace comes about. So if liberal peacebuilders and liberal peace building is centered on ideas of democracy, rule of law and inclusion as pathways to fostering sustainable peace, emerging powers are really focused on development and a strong state as key pathways for peace. And of course, like I mentioned before, some of this comes from their own domestic experience of focusing on development as a form of peace building, they also differ on ownership of peacebuilding. Right. So liberal peacebuilding of course now talks about local ownership, local agency, etc. But the very modality of liberal peace building is almost a shared responsibility with the international community, where the international community comes in for supporting on different domains of the peace process. For emerging powers, the Focus has really been on national stakeholders are key to driving their process and regional powers are stakeholders because it implicates their very secure team. And here I just wanted to practically give an example from an interview. So I interviewed an Indian ambassador in Nepal who was posted in Nepal and one of the examples that he gave was when Nepal was writing its constitution, there were some members of the international community who came to the Indian embassy and said, well, would you have a recommendation for a constitutional expert who could help Nepal Nepal's constitution writing process? And the Indian ambassador as a recounted, said that, well, Nepal's had prior consultations and they've written it themselves, so they're very capable of writing them this themselves. So I think this, this focus on some of the micro level aspects of the peace process needs to be led by national stakeholders and was very, very central to some of the thinking by India and China. And fourth, they also differ on norms. Liberal peacebuilding, like the prefix goes, is centered around liberal norms and values, whether it's democracy, liberal economy, rule of law, etc. However, in rising towers of rather silent or ambivalent on these norms, it's not a rejection, like I said, but ambivalent to these norms. And unless these norms have an immediate effect on their own regional security, they've been fairly silent about some of these norms. And finally, I think there's also a difference in the levels of institutionalization. So liberal peace buildings projects, whether it's led by the UN but also by the various bilateral and multilateral donors, the there's a raft of policies, there are institutions, there are white papers and templates that can be gleaned on and that sort of almost anchor the practices on the ground. Of course, practices can differ from what is articulated, but the goal is stated in these templates and institutions and policies. And however, rising powers do not have some such white papers. There's no peace building policy by India or China. And what we see on the ground is pragmatically changing policies as things evolve in conflict affected states with very little institutionalization. What that also means is the people driving some of these engagement on the ground are actually diplomats by India and China. So the ambassadors, the special envoys are very central. Whereas for liberal peacebuilding projects, the chief emissions or the project lead of this project and that project. So I think that level of institutionalization is also very different and very noticeable on the ground.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, those are really some key differences there. So thank you for expanding that from your mention of it earlier. Another thing I was hoping you could expand on is we Talked a bit about Nepal but you did mention in Myanmar a little bit. So do we want to talk more about India and China's involvement there?
- [35:13]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. So you know, China was being. China was the most dominant actor with India rather playing a marginal role. So I sort of, I wanted to sort of highlight some of the differences or China's distinct engagement in Myanmar's Peace Process 2011-2021 which was of course on cut short by the coup in 2021. And so I think some of the differences is for one, one of the most striking was the levels of conditionalities. So a distinctive aspect of China's engagement was the absence of details, conditionalities or prescriptions attached to its support. Despite, despite having a lot of influence and almost an unparalleled position in mediation and facilitation processes between the various ethnic organizations and the government, China's only concern was to bring parties to the table, sign some sort of an agreement that sort of ends the violence. But what is in that agreement was left for domestic parties to sort of decide on. As long as there was some form of stability in the border areas, China stayed out of the very tenets of water. These agreements sort of engaged and detailed out on. So at that at one level you could say that this is a more non interventionist approach but in another level you could also say that this is a very parochial and even a transactional form of view of peace processes. China is only concerned about things that implicated its own domestic security. While sort of was sort of kept a distance from some of the key agendas such as federalism or inclusion of different ethnic groups in the peace process and beyond. It was absent from some of these key debates. And the second thing that really stood out, I remember thinking about this as I was doing interviews in Myanmar as well was that China's engagement was very much focused on formal and informal engagement with different ethnic armed groups, especially across the northern areas, northern borderlands, the China Myanmar borderlands and the government at the center. Now it is to note here that of course some of these areas in the north have been governed by different armed groups for decades. And so engaging with these groups in the north, north and the government, the military because I military government until 2050 and a democratic government between 2015-2020. At the center was China's way of engagement. And this in contrast of course this contrasted with the peace builders who were much more who prioritized engagement with civil society groups and even at some point point were categorically opposed to dispersing aid from government through government channels. In light of its undemocratic nature, at least under 2015, there was a sense of caution about not engaging too much with state channels. So I think there was a difference in this kind of stakeholders that both these engaged with. The other thing was I think the sense of pragmatism that sort of drove China Chinese engagement. It was so pragmatic that before the breakdown of the ceasefires in the late 2000s, which led to the conflict spilling over across to Chinese borderlands, China was not interested in the war or in attempts to make peace in Myanmar. Interest in war and the need for some form of peace only sort of came through when its own stability was at stake. And China, China itself has linked its own stability to its engagement in the peace process. Further, the engagement, its peace process in 2011 was seen to intensify only because of China's preoccupation with a possible loss of dominance in Myanmar since opening up. Myanmar opened up in 2011, which led to a raft of peace builders coming into the country. Until then it was sort of a lot of stuff, sanctions. And China was the dominant actor in the, in the wider political economy. So until these factors of losing its dominance or its own stability was at stake, it wasn't quite interested in the peace process per se. I think the other differences that sort of really comes to the fore, especially in Myanmar, is that contrary to the peacebuilders who like the, the different ethnic armed organizations have seen exclusion of a large number of ethnic minority groups at the hands of the Burmar majority as the driving force behind the conflict, China has consistently framed the problem as being developmental. So as a response, China's Belt and Road Initiative and the China Myanmar Economic Corridor, which is one of the primary corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative, has been pitched by Chinese sources as a solution that will sort of, sort of incentivize different armed groups to give up arms and join the economic, the fold of economic development. So the normative ideas are very much. The normative ideas of development being the pathway to peace is very much, very much evident in Myanmar. So of course this depoliticizes the conflict, but it also obscures the political intent of these decades old insurgencies. It also I think, ignores the fact that even in areas under a ceasefire where development activities have been ongoing, these activities have been flash points of low scale conflict. So yes, the differences, and there's also the impact of those differences on the ground.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's definitely worth emphasizing.
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Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
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- [42:44]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes me slow when network is busy. See Terms now obviously if we take your answers about Nepal and Myanmar, they're sort of India's more involved in one, China's more involved in the other. So there's some differences there in terms of kind of their own interests. But a lot of what you've described is sort of similar in terms of the emphasis on development, in terms of kind of the positioning as the regional power, that sort of thing. But we should make sure that we don't just sort of assume that India and China are approaching conflict management exactly the same way. Yes, of course there are similarities, but can you maybe talk through some of the key differences as well?
- [43:22]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. And I think there are differences and something that I also detail out in the book. So I think that I think the first thing to note and the first, perhaps the most notable difference and globally, but also regionally, is the capacity of engagement. The China has a significantly larger economic and political asymmetry with India in terms of how it wants to engage. China's focus on development is backed by Millions and billions of dollars of investments in infrastructure. And I think that is evident on the ground as well as so India played a central role in Nepal's peace process and a peripheral role in Myanmar's. Now contrast this with China's where China plays a significant role in Myanmar but also an increased role in Nepal. And I think that is to say that that also says something about China's engagement both in South Southeast Asia, while India's engagement is much more prominent in South Asia, not so much in Southeast Asia. And so there is that the capacity and intensity spread across different geographic regions. The second difference that sort of is visible is also the nature of engagement and internal politics. So China, India has been invested in internal political developments across South Asian countries. These have included regime change in the pretext of security implication or to offset a target country's unfriendly strategic choices. And this has become, this has of course brought about a lot of anti India sentiment regionally, but it goes back to the very nature of engagement in internal politics. Now this is not to say that China has not been engaged in internal developments, but it's not as intense as in the seating and unseating of governments. And I think that also implicates the nature of popular sentiments across these two countries. And also this China, of course in Nepal as we speak and since the peace process has been much more involved in internal developments as well. But the history is not as long as India's and it's not that intrusive in terms of a direct correlation to seating and unseating of government. And like I mentioned before, China has continued to engage with the ethnic armed groups in the borderlands and the military state, whoever it is, military led state in the center or in the brief period between 2015 to 2020, also the Democratic government. So I think this has been an unchanged sort of a pattern of engagement for China. So there is that difference in how it relates to internal political developments and how it engages internal politics. The third is also this level of engagement with Western states and global institutions dominated by the state. So armed with a Security Council veto, China seems to be more comfortable working with the UN rather than with individual Western states. And this is also evidenced by the fact that China was only willing to share space with the UN as the other a formal observer in the peace process in Myanmar. And there were proposals to have other. China was seemingly sort of wary of proposals by different actors to have more Western states become observers in the peace process, but was happy and content with the un. Now contrast this with India India had a very uncomfortable relationship with the UN mission in Nepal. It of course goes back to its own, the peacekeeping mission in Kashmir and the discomfort that has continued but was more comfortable with us, UK and even eu. So this is not to say that it was comfortable and had the coordinated role, but there were instances of joint press releases in which Nepal was mentioned. So I think there's this hostility towards the United nations mission in Nepal, but also also some sort of working level engagement with UK and EU demonstrates that it's slightly more comfortable with working with individual Western states than the un. And lastly, I think in terms of the kind of institutional models that both countries sort of both countries leave for conflict affected states, those are very different. Right. So both in Nepal and Myanmar the idea of federalism was so central as a federalism as a form of inclusion, so as a form of devolving power to the margins, as a form of devolving power to different marginalized groups and areas was so central to the peace process. And China and Indian domestic examples offered very different forms of learning to different parties in Nepal and Myanmar. So China's India. So India's identity based federalism centered on linguistic identity was seen by different Nepali actors as a source of, a source of inspiration and even emulation by many actors also in Myanmar. China's domestic model, where provinces enjoy immense economic decentralization, but political decision making on special and social issues remain very centralized, both offer very competing models that different groups have sought to learn from in Nepal and Myanmar. And I think this is important because I think often we ignore the role of learning and borrowing from other countries in peace processes. But that China and India offer very different roles models is, I think something to be noted.
- [49:27]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, no, definitely a key point indeed, and one that is applicable obviously to Nepal and Myanmar, as you've been discussing. But pretty much everything we've been talking about could also apply kind of more broadly certainly to other conflicts and to this kind of idea of the competing models not just between India and China, but also between this post liberal conflict management and the liberal peace project that we've been discussing. So can we talk about kind of what the fact of these now sort of two models existing, what that means on a more global level?
- [50:03]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. So first, I think the increased engagement, especially of China at a global level suggests for one, the crowding of this marketplace of global peacebuilding. Right. So the dominance of liberal peacebuilding as the predominant mode of Western international engagement is being challenged by increased engagement of different non Western states. And I think that that's the first thing to note, the second is that as countries like China, but also many others come to the fore and the new norms and being practices now being introduced. And what that means really is it fractures the global consensus on international support which different conflict affected states could manipulate and use to their advantage. So they, so there's a fracturing of global consensus. But there's also this question of so what does this mean for liberal peace building engagement in conflict affected states. And I think this is not merely a negative thing. So sometimes as noted by the literature on peacemaking, so this rising diversification of actors has energized some peace building initiatives. Right. There are country contexts were like Myanmar even where liberal peacebuilders are so marginal that if you didn't have engagement of different non western powers, it would just be a forgotten ignored conflict. But negatively, it has also meant that peace building can become more fragmented, more competitive and more transactional with different conflict parties navigating between competing forums and interests of different extreme external actors. But I think it also means that the multiplicity of international actors and the differences between them has also really emboldened the agency of conflict, especially the political elites in conflict affected states, to sort of and the strategies available to them to sort of leverage and choose between different international partners, select different institutional agendas that suit them and get some concession between from competing international actors to their advantage. So what we really see is the scene sort of moving away from the carrot and sticks of liberal peace building really. But it also means that positively it can induce and energize some forgotten initiatives or perhaps ignored initiatives. Peacebuilding initiatives.
- [52:32]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I mean it definitely could have that benefit. But I want to talk more about this sort of strategic calculation aspect, the hedging. You talk about this towards the end of the book. Could we discuss more what sorts of hedging this can enable kind of what that aspect of this might be in terms of a consequence.
- [52:51]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Absolutely. So I think in the book I highlight that the multiplicity of actors involved and the normative and practice based differences between them mean that there is no coordination, which means that the actors on the ground, especially political elites, can really manipulate these differences and use them to their advantage. And of course hedging as a concept has long roots in international relations and it's been used to mean different things. And I borrow from that debate to sort of look at hedging in three forms that are evident in Nepal and Myanmar. So one, it allows elites, political elites in countries to receive benefits from both liberal peacebuilders and regional States. Because both peace builders and regional states bring different forms of benefits. And because the benefits, the incentives brought forth by these actors are distinct, it allows elites to sort of receive benefits from both of these. And so, for instance, in Nepal, Nepali elites benefited through India's high level diplomacy, including India becoming an implicit guarantor of the peace process, which was critical because India was seen to be the only external actor to be able to restrain both the Maoist and the democratic opposition. So this was the benefit that they needed from India, which they sort of received. By the same token, peace builders not only brought in material dividends, but also and funded different key aspects of the peace process, but also brought in international legitimacy to the overall process. So if you look at it in fiscal terms, financial aid to support deliverables of the peace process annually accounted to 5 to 6% of Nepal's gross national income. And that was largely by different liberal peace builders supporting and funding different aspects of the peace process. So while at one level we see elites being able to receive benefits, at another level we find elites being empowered to choose from institutional prescriptions that suit them by exploiting the differences between various models. Because like we've been talking since the beginning, the rising powers have guided their engagement through a very different set of norms. And because there's no normative coherence per se, it allows elites to choose and tailor different institutional prescripts to suit their own needs. So for instance, if you look at, again, going back to the Nepali example in Nepal, the security sector reform, which was called the management of arms and armaments domestically, focused on two agendas. One was the management of arms and armament. So what do you do with the Maoist ex combatants and what do you do with their arms? And the other aspect was the broader vision of a civilian control of the Nepal army. So the UN mission in Nepal sought to reinforce this agenda. The latter that civilian control of the Nepal army and that the Nepal army had to be democratized and as well as had to integrate a certain number of Maoist rebels into the Nepal army because it was a part of the commitment of the comprehensive Peace agreement. India, in the contrary, was of the view that integration of the Maoist combatants would dilute the Nepal Army's provincial professional credentials and agendas, like democratizing of the army or the right sizing of the army would compromise its institutional integrity. What that really meant was the elites was Nepali political elites were able to sort of choose between these. So what they ended up doing was to satisfy the UN and gain some international legitimacy. The political Elites responded to unmanned scorpions with a modest integration of only 1422 Maoist combatants in the Nepal army. But also they emboldened by this Indian vision that Nepal armies should be left untouched. It also adopted an Indian stance of leaving the Nepal army fundamentally untouched by the democratizing the army agenda. So we see that political elites are able to exploit the differences and exploit and choose between different institutional prescripts by rising powers and by liberal peace builders. And lastly, I think it also enables when there is a difference between rising powers and liberal peace builders, it also enables elites to reach out to one to offset or balance the other. When there is a dominance of one either Libra peace building or rising powers, you go and go to the other. And a prime example here perhaps could be the example from Myanmar. So in 2011, a core reason for the Kusai civilian government of Tencent to embark on a peace process was attributed to redeeming from the excessive dependence on China which had accumulated over years for everything diplomatic and economic. Throughout the decades of Western sanction, China had been the more the key diplomatic and economic partner. And the political elites were aware of this, this intense dependency on China. And they decided that this peace process could become a springboard for loosening sanction, greater Western engagement and also which can radically alter Myanmar strategic options and change its asymmetry with China and peace process did exactly that. Now this policy option reversed in 2015 in the aftermath of the Rohingya crisis as peacebuilders called for international investigation on human rights violation. As a part of the Rohingya crisis, Myanmar limited its engagement with the west and went back to seeking more diplomatic support from China. So what we see at both levels is seeking to sort of balance one form of engagement with the other when one becomes very dominant. And I think the key here is to say really disaggregate conflict affected states and ask so who does it really benefit? And it really benefits the political elites and really not different marginalized groups. So hedging options really benefit political elites, but often often comes at the stake of different marginalized groups.
- [59:38]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I think I want to talk a little bit more about kind of who does or doesn't benefit from this. Because when we talk about things like hedging and international relations, the connotation is often kind of that this is maybe not a good thing. But if we translate this idea of kind of choosing from which one meets your interests best, if we translate that into sort of consumer business side, that's what capitalism says is a good thing for consumers to have More choice and kind of not have one thing imposed. When we talk about peace building, we will talk about things, as you mentioned earlier, around kind of local agency and local ownership of the peace process. So is this hedging bad? Is it a problem that these options are open more?
- [60:21]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
I don't think that it's a strictly negative or a positive thing. Like I mentioned before, hedging especially receiving benefits from both actors have sort of kept the peace process, had kept the peace process in Nepal afloat. But it has also impacted outcomes of the peace process in more illiberal ways than liberal ways. And like I mentioned with the example of the security sector reform process in Nepal, it has benefited elites at this, at the end, at the, at the expense of different marginalized groups. So it is important the Nepal army in the case, going back to the example that I gave, believe it emboldened the Nepal army, which meant that all the groups talking about transitional justice or all the rebel groups talking about a much more dignified forms of integration of combatants into the army have really sort of lost their stance on some of these agendas. And so it is important to sort of disaggregate who does it benefit? And from the examples of Nepal and Myanmar, I think it is significant, safe to say that it does benefit national elites at the expense of different marginalized groups. And it does so because it allows the elites to negotiate the terms, timing and the scope of competing forms of international engagement in their favor. It allows domestic actors to extract benefits from international support without adhering to the institutional prescripts posed by international players. And this is more for international institutional prescripts like inclusion or security sector reform, particularly democratizing of armed forces or ideas of civilian supremacy that have been proposed by, promoted by liberal peace builders which either seek to decentralize power from the most powerful groups and devolve it to more marginalized groups or make them more accountable because at the very least these, these agendas are sort of detrimental to elite interest. So hedging strategies actually benefit elites because some amount of sort of negotiating elite interests that peace processes yearn to do have sort of been compromised because of hedging options on the ground.
- [62:40]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Thank you for clarifying that. I think it's important to specify sort of, as you said, who exactly is or is not not benefiting from that so that we don't fall into the trap of going well, obviously more choice is just great, right? Everything you've told us is that actually the picture is a lot more nuanced and that is going to kind of continue to be true given that we've now got these different actors involved and multiple, you know, now more than just the liberal peace project model to think about. So lots to add into discussion and literature there. So thank you for taking us through your argument and kind of key points. What, may I ask, are you working on now that the book is done?
- [63:20]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Thank you. So three things really. So I've just finished a project called the Peace and Conflict Evidence Platform, also called Peace Rep, and it was a five year long project where I led the Myanmar work. So now that the project is finished, I'm writing up from the data from the project project on themes including citizen perceptions on dialogue and inclusion of armed forces in peace process and actors in peace processes, as well as what opportunities and challenges do technology or online peace processes mean for women's participation. So themes that we've sort of been working on over the last five years or so. And secondly, I'm also starting a new UKRI funded project which examines how security institutions of South Asian countries, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, which are some of the top contributors to UN peacekeeping missions, how do they domesticate and engage with peacekeeping norms such as gender mainstreaming, human rights and rule of law. So I start this in September, so I'm sort of really laying down the building blocks to get it off the ground. And lastly, I think something that I talked to you. I'm sort of trying to design a project on learning and borrowing in peace processes, really leaning onto this idea of constitutional borrowing and trying to sort of think through that in the domain of piece processes. So really those are the three things that I've been working on.
- [64:53]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, they all sound very exciting, so best of luck with the projects. And of course, while you are pursuing them, listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled A Post Liberal How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management, published by Cornell University Press in 2026. Monalisa, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [65:13]
Dr. Monalisa Adhikari
Thank you so much for having me.
- [65:15]
New Books Network Host/Outro
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- [65:57]
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