| Summary/Abstract |
use the policy feedback literature to present an argument regarding the new politics of reform consolidation in India. India’s reform trajectory can be understood in terms of three distinct phases of reforms interspersed by periods of slowdown. In this narrative that goes beyond 1991, an analysis of struggles, opponents, and reversals become important, revealing a more contested pathway. In the 2000s India has moved beyond the initial, crisis-driven phase to a deeper external integration with the global economy and structural reform within. I call this phase an era of strategic internationalization. Reforms of 1985, 1991, and 1998–2000, in different ways, have begun to create new constituencies of support across India, which underlies the consolidation phase of reforms. During this long trajectory, the opponents of reforms could delay reforms but failed to reverse the direction of economic reforms. The purpose of this article is to provide a temporal framework that pays attention to mechanisms underlying different phases of reforms and how new supporters and opponents of reforms were created across different phases of the reform trajectory. Policies, the social bases of the Indian economy, and classes have been re-configured as a result.
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