Professor Varun Sahni,
D.Phil. (Oxon)
Professor in International Politics,
Centre for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament (CIPOD),
School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi -110 067
INDIA
(+91 11) 2670-4349 [work];
(+91 11) 2671-7592 [fax]
Varun Sahni is Professor in International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He is the Editor of South Asian Survey and lectures at the National Defence College and the Foreign Service Institute in New Delhi. He has also lectured at the College of Naval Warfare, Mumbai; Army War College, Mhow; Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich; Australian Defence College, Canberra; and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie.
Before joining the JNU faculty in 1995, Varun Sahni was Junior Research Fellow in Politics and Junior Dean at Lincoln College, Oxford; Resident Fellow of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi and Reader in Latin American Politics at Goa University. He has held visiting fellowships/professorships at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico (1997), CIDE, Mexico City (1997-1999) and the National Defense University, Washington, DC (2003), the last under the Fulbright Military Academies Initiative.
Professor Sahni has been “Personnalité d’Avenir” at the French Foreign Ministry (1995) and was a Member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Investigadores [National System of Researchers] (1999-2002). He serves on the editorial boards of The Chinese Journal of International Politics (Oxford University Press), Asian Security Series, Stanford University Press and Contemporary Politics (Taylor & Francis), and will join the editorial board of International Studies Quarterly in 2009. He also serves on the following bodies: Governing Body, Indian Council for South Asian Cooperation (ICSAC), New Delhi; Executive Committee, Indian Pugwash Society, New Delhi; Consultative Committee, Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), New Delhi; and Research Committee, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. He was a Member of the Executive Committee, Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi (2002-2008).
Originally a student of military politics in Latin America, Varun Sahni wrote his doctoral thesis on the political history of the Argentine Navy at the University of Oxford (1991), where he was an Inlaks scholar. He has written 75 journal articles, book chapters and research papers on nuclear deterrence issues, regional security, emerging balances in the Asia-Pacific, evolving security concepts, Indian politics, emerging powers, international relations theory and Latin American military politics. His research articles have been published in Current History, Contemporary South Asia and Journal of Latin American Studies, amongst others.
Professor Sahni is on sabbatical from JNU in 2008 as a Fellow of the New India Foundation and is currently writing a book on India’s external security. In recognition of his “outstanding achievements in research and teaching”, the Institute for Social and Economic Change and the Indian Council of Social Science Research have conferred upon him the VKRV Rao Prize in Social Sciences for the year 2006.
A thematic listing of Professor Sahni’s publications is given below:
Asian Security Architecture
“India and the Asian Security Architecture”, Current History, April 2006, pp. 161-166.
“A Continent Becomes a Region: Future Asian Security Architectures”, in R.R. Sharma (ed.), India and Emerging Asia (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005), pp. 80-101.
“From Security in Asia to Asian Security”, International Studies 41 (3), July-September 2004, pp. 245-261.
Nuclear Deterrence
“The protean polis and strategic surprises: do changes within India affect South Asian strategic stability?” Contemporary South Asia 14 (2), June 2005, pp. 219–231.
“The Stability-Instability Paradox: A Less Than Perfect Explanation”, in E. Sridharan (ed.), The India-Pakistan Nuclear Relationship: Theories of Deterrence and International Relations (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 185-207.
“A Dangerous Exercise: Brasstacks as Non-Nuclear Near War”, in Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur (eds.), Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: Crisis Behavior and the Bomb (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 12-35.
“Explaining India-Pakistan Crises: Beyond the Stability-Instability Paradox”, in Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema and Imtiaz H. Bokhari (eds), Arms Race and Nuclear Developments in South Asia (Islamabad: Islamabad Policy Research Institute/Hanns Siedel Foundation, 2004), pp. 133-149.
“India and Missile Acquisition: Push and Pull Factors”, South Asian Survey 11 (2), July-December 2004, pp. 287-299.
“India y Pakistán: Pruebas nucleares en el Sur de Asia: las razones y las repercusiones”, in Eugenio Anguiano Roch (ed.), Asia Pacífico 1999 (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1999), pp. 221-242.
“Pruebas Nucleares en el Sur de Asia: Las razones y las repercusiones”, Documento de Trabajo EI-53, División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 1999.
“The Southern Cone and the Subcontinent”, Himal: The South Asian Magazine 12 (5), May 1999, pp. 44-47.
“Going Nuclear: Establishing an Overt Nuclear Weapons Capability”, in David Cortright and Amitabh Mattoo (eds), India and the Bomb: Public Opinion and Nuclear Options (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), pp. 85-106.
Emerging Powers / India – Brazil – South Africa (IBSA)
“Ancla flotante o plataforma de lanzamiento? Dinámica regional de los poderes emergentes”, in Juan Tokatlian (ed.), India, Brasil y Sudáfrica: El impacto de las nuevas potencias regionales (Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal, 2007), pp. 97-125.
“Tangential yet tangible: IBSA in the context of India’s security concerns”, in Alcides Costa Vaz (ed.), Intermediate States, Regional Leadership and Security: India, Brazil and South Africa (Brasilia: Editora Universidade de Brasília [University of Brasilia Press], 2006), pp. 87-113.
“Primacy, dominance and supremacy: A comparison of the regional security contexts of Brazil, India & S. Africa”, in Prospects of Peace, Stability and Prosperity in South Asia (Islamabad: Institute of Regional Studies, 2005), pp. 274-290.
“Brazil, India and South Africa: Three pathways to regional (in)security”, Documento de Trabajo EI-46, División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 1999.
“Manifest Destiny? India’s Coming Great Power Role in Global Security”, Global Forces 2005, ASPI Strategy, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, April 2006, pp. 31-38.
“India as a Global Power: Capacity, Opportunity and Strategy”, in Indian Foreign Policy: Agenda for the 21st Century, Vol. 1 (New Delhi: Foreign Service Institute/Konark Publishers, 1997), pp. 21-42.
Hegemony in International Politics
(With Kanti Bajpai), “Hegemony and Strategic Choice”, in Chandra Chari (ed.), War, Peace and Hegemony in a Globalized World: The changing balance of power in the twenty-first century (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 93-108.
“US Hegemony in the Context of Broad International and Geopolitical Trends”, in South African Yearbook of International Affairs 2005 (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs, 2006), pp. 261-266.
“The Capacity for Conquest: The strategic impact of US victory in Iraq on South Asia”, Himal: The South Asian Magazine, May 2003.
Political Violence / Terrorism
(With Shamuel Tharu), “Subversion, Secession and the State in South Asia: Varieties of Violence”, in Itty Abraham, Meredith Weiss and Edward Newman (eds.), Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2009, forthcoming).
“Subordinate, Subsumed and Subversive: Sub-national Actors as Referents of Security”, in Hans Günter Brauch, Úrsula Oswald Spring, Czeslaw Mesjasz, John Grin, Pál Dunay, Navnita Chadha Behera, Béchir Chourou, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, P. H. Liotta (eds.), Globalisation and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualizing Security in the 21st Century (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2008), pp. 431-437.
“Between Cause and Consequence: Down the Slippery Slope of ‘Global’ Terrorism”, in Kulwant Kaur (ed.), Global Terrorism: Issues, Dimensions and Options (New Delhi: Kanishka, 2005), pp. 77-83.
Border Management / Siachen
“Technology and Conflict Resolution: The Siachen Conflict”, in P. Sahadevan (ed.), Conflict and Peacemaking in South Asia (New Delhi: Lancer’s Books, 2001), pp. 236-271.
(With Samina Ahmed), “Freezing the Fighting: Military Disengagement on the Siachen Glacier”, Cooperative Monitoring Center Occasional Paper No. 1, Cooperative Monitoring Center, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, March 1998.
“Preventing Another Kargil, Avoiding Another Siachen: Technical Monitoring of The Line of Control in Kashmir”, in Kanti Bajpai, Afsir Karim and Amitabh Mattoo (eds), After Kargil: Challenges for Indian Policy (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2001), pp. 147-163.
“Using Technical Monitoring to Manage India’s Land Borders”, CSNS Policy Paper 1, Core Group for the Study of National Security, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, January 2001.
(With Samina Ahmed), “Frozen Frontline”, Himal: The South Asian Magazine 11 (12), December 1998, pp. 12-21.
Indian Security Policy
“The Agent-Structure Problem and India’s External Security Policy”, in Navnita Chadha Behera (ed.), International Relations in South Asia: Search for an Alternative Paradigm (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2008), pp. 209-234.
“Why Policy (Sometimes) Falters: Structural Constraints on India’s External Security Policy”, Security and Society 1 (1), Winter 2004, pp. 72-91.
“India’s security challenges out to 2020”, Shared Interests: Australia–India relations into the twenty-first century, ASPI Strategy, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, December 2005, pp. 17-27.
(With Kanti Bajpai), “Secure and Solvent: Thinking About an Affordable Defence for India”, RGICS Paper No. 11, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi, May 1994.
Indian Foreign Policy / Foreign Relations
“India’s Foreign Policy: Key Drivers”, South African Journal of International Affairs 14 (2), Winter/Spring 2007, pp. 21-35.
“Limited Cooperation between Limited Allies: India’s Strategic Programs and India-US Strategic Trade”, in Sumit Ganguly, Brian Shoup and Andrew Scobell (eds.), US-Indian Strategic Cooperation into the 21st Century: More than Words (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 173-191.
“China-India Partnership: Defining an Agenda”, China Report 41 (1), January-March, pp. 33-39.
“India and Latin America”, in Indian Foreign Policy: Agenda for the 21st Century, Vol. 2 (New Delhi: Foreign Service Institute/Konark Publishers, 1998), pp. 76-90.
(With Jenelle Bonnor), “Australia-India Reengagement: Common Security Concerns, Converging Strategic Horizons, Complementary Force Structures”, Strategic Insights 11, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra, October 2004.
“New Zealand, India and the emerging Asian order”, New Zealand International Review, vol. XXXII, no. 4, July/August 2007, pp. 6-9.
“India in American Grand Strategy”, in Kanti Bajpai and Amitabh Mattoo (eds.), Engaged Democracies: India-US Relations in the 21st Century (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2000), pp. 32-50.
“Bill Clinton en la India: resultados de su viaje”, Istor: Revista de historia internacional 1 (1), Summer 2000, pp. 117-122.
“Decision Making in Foreign Policy: Exploring the Democratic Peace”, in M. L. Sondhi (ed.), Democratic Peace: The Foreign Policy Implications (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 2000), pp. 63-82.
Indian Regional Policy / South Asia
“Change and Stasis in India’s Regional Policy: Bypassing and Surpassing South Asia”, in N. Jayaram and R.S. Deshpande (eds.), Footprints of Development and Change: Essays in Memory of Professor V.K.R.V. Rao Commemorating his Birth Centenary (New Delhi: Academic Foundation, 2008), pp. 225-255.
“India in Asia: An Emerging Power in a Proto-Region”, in Hans J. Giessmann (ed.), Security Handbook 2008: Emerging Powers in East Asia: China, Russia and India: Local Conflicts and Regional Security Building in Asia’s Northeast (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008), pp. 138-156.
“A Índia emergente: rejeitar a região, alcançar o mundo?” Relações Internacionais 15, September 2007, pp. 21-34.
“Fractured, Frightened and Frustrated: South Asia after 11 September”, in Dipankar Banerjee and Gert W. Kueck (eds), South Asia and the War on Terrorism: Analysing the Implications of 11 September (New Delhi: India Research Press, 2002), pp. 85-100.
(With Amitabh Mattoo), “Non-Military Threats to Security in South Asia”, USI Seminar 17, United Service Institution of India, New Delhi, 1996.
Indian Strategic Thought
“Just another Big Country”, in George Tanham, Kanti Bajpai and Amitabh Mattoo (eds.), Securing India: Strategic Thought and Practice (New Delhi: Manohar, 1996), pp. 160-173.
Indian Politics / Democracy
“Necessary Changes in Indian Polity”, in Polity and Governance: The Golden Jubilee of India’s Independence (New Delhi: Rajiv Gandhi Foundation/Frank Brothers, 1998), pp. 10-30.
“Democracias no occidentales”, Istor: Revista de historia internacional 1 (4), Spring 2001, pp. 4-9.
Military Politics in Latin America
“Not Quite British: A Study of External Influences on the Argentine Navy”, Journal of Latin American Studies, Volume 25, Part 3, October 1993, pp. 489-513.
“Coexistence, Consensus, Competition, Conflict: Interservice Contestation in Military-Dominated Argentina”, Documento de Trabajo EI-54, División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 1999.
“The Resurgence of Naval Political Power in Argentina, 1976‑1983”, Euro‑Latin American Research Paper No. 6, Research Unit on Euro‑Latin American Relations, University of Bradford, March 1991.
“The Military in Latin American Politics since 1930”, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America VI (2) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 632-654.
“The Military in Politics”, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), The Cambridge History of Latin America XI (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 596-617.
“Los militares en la política latinoamericana desde 1930”, in Leslie Bethell (ed.), Historia de América Latina 12 (Barcelona: Crítica/Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 386-404.
“The Military in Latin America Today”, Research-in-Progress Papers “History and Society”, Third Series, Number XV, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, March 1997.
Foreign Policy in Latin America
“Peripheric Realism versus Complex Interdependence: Analyzing Argentine and Mexican Foreign Policies since 1988”, International Studies, Volume 38, Number 1, January-March 2001, pp. 17-27.
“Realismo periférico vs. interdependencia compleja: Dilucidando las políticas exteriores de Argentina y México desde 1989”, Documento de Trabajo EI-47, División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 1999.
“Latin America and Other Regions”, in Oxford Analytica, Latin America in Perspective (Boston: Houghton Miflin, 1991), pp. 293‑303.
International History
“Three and a half Centuries of the Westphalian State System”, Documento de Trabajo EI-52, División de Estudios Internacionales, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, 1999.
Teaching International Relations / Textbooks
“International Relations Teaching in Indian Universities”, in Teaching of International Relations in South Asian Universities (New Delhi: The United States Educational Foundation in India, 2003), pp. 13-23.
Contemporary World Politics: Textbook in Political Science for Class XII (New Delhi: National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2007). [Member, Textbook Development Committee]