Peace be upon you, wr. wb.
My name is Ahmad Auva …, and I would like to try to review and analyze the chapter of Populism and Modi’s Foreign Policy
So for me, Overall, the author has straightforwardly written the paper. They are using a clear and easy vocabulary, then it easy to be understood by the readers.
First, I want to review is About foreign policy written by the author, it can be concluded that populism does not seem to have much direct impact on the “substance” of foreign policy but has important outcomes for the “styl41ze” and process of making foreign policy itself.
At the beginning of the paragraph, the author explained that populism involves two fundamental and combined dimensions: anti-elitism and anti-pluralism. But unfortunately, this dimension does not apply to populist use in foreign policy. In this case, populism does not allow us to make predictions about specific foreign relationships or the more or less cooperative or conflictive character of a country’s bilateral relations with other states. If we want to understand the potential elements of change in India’s relations with for example Pakistan or China, a combination of anti-elitism and antipluralism will not be useful in the analytical approach. Thus, on issues of global governance, anti-elitism and anti-pluralism are not very important.
Then, in the following paragraphs, the author explains the four characteristics of Modi’s populism in foreign policy. The first is that Modi is known to use foreign policy to help him during the General Election, even though it was not seen or demonstrated in one of his manifestos. In this paragraph, the author illustrates that Modi uses third parties for his interests. And the second is, What is Modi’s leadership style and how he built relationships with other state leaders after his victory. The third is about Modi’s foreign economic policy, which is more interested in bilateral trade than multilateral trade. The last one is Modi’s role as a foreign policy actor. How Modi carries out a centralized decision-making process under his Prime Minister’s Office rather than through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the second paragraph, as I mentioned before, the author explains the characteristics of populism in Modi’s foreign policy during the General Election. Modi uses third parties like China and Bangladesh to get people’s attention and instill fear or anger of the people. I might like to suggest that maybe the author can add an example of modi populism in foreign policy that deals with multilateral problems, not just bilateral issues. So we have a better understanding of how populism brought by Modi applies not only to bilateral but also multilateral issues.
Furthermore, in the fourth paragraph, the author of Modi populism is the second. However, the author has explained two characteristics of Modi populism previously. The first is Modi is known to use foreign policy to aid him during the General Election, although it was not that apparent or shown in one of his manifestos. And the second one is, How Modi’s leadership style and the way he builds up his relationship with other state leaders. So, this should be point number 3, not point number 2 as the author wrote. However, in this paragraph, the author’s explanation is easily understood by the reader.
Last but not least, I noticed that the authors of this paper use the United States English format rather than the United kingdom English format, which I think, our campus, IIUM itself has arranged to use the United kingdom format in writing academic papers.