USINPAC and the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal: Lasting Influence or One Shot Victory?

While a significant amount of scholarly literature has been written on whether ethnic lobby influence has a positive or negative impact on U.S. foreign policy, what has not been well explored is the way these ethnic lobbies are organized to influence policy, whether the organizational structure successfully advances their objectives, and the potential for future successful ethnic lobby influence through changing administrations. To achieve these objectives, this investigation develops a case study around Indian-American lobbying efforts in the United States, particularly that of the U.S.-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC). It analyzes what has been deemed as USINPAC’s recent success in influencing Congress with regard to passage of the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal and uses the Deal as a starting point to examine how such a success occurred and postulate whether this success foreshadows continuing influence in the future. It is clear that, due to its organizational strength, USINPAC did indeed play a role in influencing passage of the Deal and has the capacity to influence U.S. congressional policy in the future. However due to the ambiguities inherent in the Deal, it will be up to the Obama administration to follow through on the commitments of the Deal. Thus, what lies ahead for this lobby will be, in large part, contingent upon future administrations’ decisions about how they will treat the U.S.-India partnership.