Democratic Backsliding as a NTS Challenge: India’s Nationalism and the Changing Dynamics of Power in the Indo-Pacific

Abstract

This article examines how democratic backsliding in India is reshaping non-traditional security dynamics in the Indo-Pacific, with broader implications for governance, power, and regional stability. While democratic erosion is often treated as a domestic political concern, this paper argues that it constitutes a critical non-traditional security challenge by altering societal cohesion, state capacity, and patterns of external engagement. Focusing on developments under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Modi government, the article analyzes how majoritarian nationalism, institutional weakening, and rising polarization are transforming both India’s internal governance landscape and its external strategic behaviour. Drawing on a non-traditional security framework, the paper demonstrates that India’s democratic recession generates layered security implications. At the domestic level, identity-based tensions and the marginalization of minority communities undermine human security and social stability. At the regional level, these internal dynamics are reflected in a more assertive and, at times, unpredictable foreign policy posture toward neighbouring states, particularly Pakistan and China, thereby contributing to strategic uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific. These shifts complicate existing patterns of regional governance and challenge assumptions about India’s role as a stable democratic partner within emerging security architectures. The article further argues that as a key middle power embedded in regional balancing strategies and multilateral initiatives, India’s domestic transformation affects its credibility, alignment choices, and capacity to contribute to cooperative security frameworks. By linking democratic backsliding to non-traditional security outcomes, this study highlights the need to reconsider how internal governance transformations shape broader regional security dynamics. In doing so, it contributes to the special issue’s focus on the intersection of governance, power, and non-traditional security in an increasingly contested and uncertain global order.

Keywords: democratic backsliding, non-traditional security, Indo-Pacific