Description
Amid increasing scepticism towards the functioning of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), especially given the state of bilateral affairs between India and Pakistan, as well as the domestic situation in Afghanistan. This paper aims to address the debate, concerning the future of regional cooperation in South Asia, through new empirical insights drawn from fieldwork based in Kathmandu, Nepal and beyond including time spent as an intern in the SAARC Secretariat based in Kathmandu. Through data collected from semi-structured interviews, the study looks at the status of SAARC too, and how it continues to operate.
Overall, the study contributes to an understanding of South Asia’s collective agency in a regionally neutral way helping reveal how cooperation, especially through SAARC is in a state of transition owing to a number of factors including political will, administrative mandate, inter-state and domestic issues, role of non-state actors, dissemination of information and many more. Also, revealing how in order to deal with these factors, the SAARC Secretariat is pragmatically moving on with more policy coordination through its regional centres and specialised bodies, as well as through adaptive ways of promoting regional cooperation with the help of its partner inter-governmental organisations.
