Jadavpur Journal of International Relations

Existing literature attributes the durability of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime (2009–2024) to authoritarian tactics such as personalistic rule, electoral rigging, restricted opposition participation, corruption, and extrajudicial disappearances and murders of opposition members, which exemplify the corrosive dynamics of power accumulation in an authoritarian system. However, this article addresses another aspect of the authoritarian puzzle: an alternative, noncoercive pathway to regime durability. It emphasizes how the prior government’s cultivation of a positive political image, contrasting with the previous political regime’s limitations, economic capacity-building, large-scale infrastructural projects, internal security assurances, growth of foreign currency reserves, elevated gross domestic product ratios, advancements in gender equality, and improvements in the Human Development Index, shows all these achievements have been constantly published through various means to ensure domestic political support, attract foreign investment, and be used in the form of a circle.

The Chakma refugees in India display a unique combination of humanitarian need, legal ambiguity, strategic statecraft, and regional diplomacy. During the Partition and the construction of the Kaptai Dam, the Chakmas were displaced from their ancestral lands in East Pakistan. They were relocated to Arunachal Pradesh by the Indian state. This act of the Indian government aimed to address both humanitarian concerns and national security purposes. However, they faced discrimination and political exclusion. Despite being eligible for Indian citizenship and repeated declarations by the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission, state resistance—due to endemic stress and politics—has prevented peaceful integration. My article revisits the Chakma issue through academic literature, policy analysis, and judicial decisions. It also studies the historical and legal aspects of the Chakma crisis. While still appreciating India’s approach in comparison to other nations, my article argues that the Chakma case exposes structural weaknesses in India’s refugee policy. It concludes with a call for legal reforms rooted in constitutional values and human dignity.

Indigenous women in Canada are systemically subjected to violence and marginalization by the franchises of colonial governance structures, and other forms of oppression, intersected with one another. This article takes a feminist and decolonial approach to the enduring impact of colonial policies, institutional racism, and the marginalization of Indigenous knowledge systems, leading to disproportionate levels of harm. Based on distinctions gleaned from community-based dialogues and a critical study of national policy structures, the article assesses recent government responses, including amendments to status legislation, the National Gender-based Violence Strategy, and the domestic implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While these initiatives constitute important steps, there are not enough without a broader structural change. The analysis highlights the need for Indigenous-led, intersectional, and epistemologically diverse responses to the hegemony of power. Sustained transformation must be grounded in Indigenous governance, cultural resurgence, and the recognition of Indigenous women’s authority in shaping justice and policy frameworks.

Major schools of thought in International Relations often overlook human lives in the larger scheme of things due to their misanthropic state-centrism. This article attempts to apply the philosophical tenets of the classical thinker Epicurus to theorize an Epicurean theoretical framework for International Relations and to place humans and their communities at the center of global politics. The author conducts a thematic analysis of Epicurean thought, drawing on Epicurus’s writings and modern scholarly works to construct a comprehensive view of his ideas on human nature, society, state, and justice. Using these postulations as tools, the author then provides a scheme for developing an Epicurean International Relations model that challenges mainstream theoretical developments in International Relations Theory by advocating for an approach that can keep up with the flux of global polity.

In the twenty first century, the idea of democracy has transcended its original conception of domestic governance to actively influence international relations. The nature of state—democratic or nondemocratic—has come to determine hierarchy, alliances, and status in international relations. It tends to bestow a degree of moral superiority to democratic states in dealings of international relations. This moral superiority in its most aggressive form, in the past two decades, has led to wars in the name of democracy. It has been used to justify military intervention in nondemocratic states by democratic nations. The use of force to bring about desired consequences has become the norm in inter-state relations. The focus is not on the action, but on its intent. This article studies the use of force and war by Western democratic countries to establish democracies through military intervention in other parts of the world. The article analyzes the widespread impact of foreign policies of the stronger nation-states and seeks to understand if the desired results are achieved or not. Beginning with the democratic peace theory that is held in high opinion by democracies of today, the article moves toward Immanuel Kant and his idea of perpetual peace. The democratic peace theory finds its base in Kant’s perpetual peace and finds an echo in Western democracies’ foreign policies. The article then sees how this theory is used to justify war, through the case study of Afghanistan, and what is the intention behind the wars. The article concludes that the desired aim of “positive peace” cannot be achieved via violent means. In the process of establishing peaceful and healthy democracy, Kant’s categorical imperatives are crucial.