The limits of 'geo-psychology'

The Geopsychology Theory of International Relations in the 21st century: Escaping the Ignorance Trap 

Author: B M Jain

Publisher: Lexington Books

Pages: 274

Price: Not mentioned

Scholars working on international relations have looked at the dynamics of geo-politics through the prisms of varied conceptual and theoretical frameworks and have explained and interpreted world events. Broadly, such approaches to studying international politics can be divided into two schools of thought: The realist school and the idealist school. Within these two variants, there are mutations (Covid-19 may well have influenced my use of this noun) like the normative approach, empirical approach, institutional approach and historical approach and so on and so forth. There is no contestation that each such approach to studying geo-politics has its inherent limitations. It is against this backdrop that the book under review has its traction as an alternative approach to studying geopolitics. The phenomenon of geo-psychology is not novel or unknown; but like geo-economics, Professor B M Jain, who has studied and followed geo-politics for a fairly long time and has internationally distinguished himself for his seminal contributions, has coined the new nomenclature of geo-psychology to study geo-politics. The author is founding editor-in-chief for Indian Journal of Asian Affairs.

Providing a “rationale” for his arguments, Dr Jain writes in the preface that geo-psychology is relevant for understanding how the forces of nationalism, religion, and ethnicity shape the resolve of the non-state actors to fight the mightiest nation states —cases in point being the Taliban in Afghanistan and the ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The book was written before the recent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban. The author adds that geo-psychology helps one understand the psyche of authoritarian regimes. For example, Syria has been afflicted by the worst kind of civil war under the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad since 2011. But the international community has been unable to offer a tangible solution to help end one of the worst civil wars in human history. He bemoans that military solutions have failed; so also diplomatic confabulations. He opines that perhaps the only hope lies in understanding hard-boiled realities embedded in the psyche of ruling leaders and appreciating the domestic conditions. This warrants, the author argues, fresh research into the causes of the ongoing civil wars and insurgencies in the different parts of the world. 

This approach may have its own traction, but it doesn’t take into account the interference of external forces, including those in western countries, in the internal affairs of countries, whether it is in Afghanistan or cross-border terrorism in India aided and abetted by both state and non-state actors. Of course, at a different place in chapter 1 under the sub-section “Why geo-psychology matters”, he writes that India has been reeling under cross-border terrorism in the Kashmir valley, primarily sponsored by Pakistan as its state policy. Kashmiri youth have been used as pawns by Pakistan in the name of religion to take up arms against India’s military and para-military troops. As a consequence, the Kashmir valley has been infected with anger and unrest with the launch of vitriolic internet-based propaganda by social media activists, including TV channels. Although the author writes about social alienation, the book is almost silent on various recent initiatives of the government to mainstream the people of Jammu & Kashmir. How one does explains the reduction of stone pelting in the valley. The book is silent on such issues.

Similarly in chapter 2 on “South Asian Geo-psychology”, the author is critical of India’s role in Nepal and Sri Lanka, alluding to intervention by the Indian Peacekeeping Forces during prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s time, which this reviewer feels was handled ineptly. But the author does not refer to India’s outreach and humanitarian developmental assistance to two of India’s immediate neighbours. The book doesn’t refer to China’s dubious mercantilist exploitation and the resentment that these predatory policies have aroused in the two countries.

A lacunae of the geo-psychology as conceptualised by the author is that it tends to look at complex social and political phenomenon through the prism of a single parameter which excludes other equally important variables. Yet another drawback of the book is that its contents and arguments, particularly those relating to India, borrow heavily from sources which are patently critical of India. The book abounds with empirical evidences and narration, but fails to construct a theoretical paradigm, such as, for example Samuel P Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Society, where he talks about how political institutions such as the Congress Party during India’s freedom struggle helped in interest articulation and aggregation, or for that matter Joseph Nye’s famous theory of soft power.

The reviewer is a senior fellow of Indian Council of Social Science Research at Indian Institute of Public Administration. Views are personal