Constantino Xavier

Constantino Xavier is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi. He is a visiting faculty at Ashoka University and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC.

His research expertise is on India’s role as a regional power and the intersecting dimensions of security, connectivity and democracy across South Asia and the Indian Ocean. He also works on India’s relations with the European Union and other democratic powers in the Indo-Pacific, and has published widely in academic books and journals on India’s foreign and security policies with a focus on state capacity, regional institutions, economic and infrastructure diplomacy and soft power. He is writing a book on India’s democratic realism and involvement in the neighbourhood since the 1950s, based on declassified records and interviews with decision-makers in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

He regularly teaches, lectures and supervises research on foreign policy and strategic affairs at international universities and also at India’s diplomatic, administrative and military training institutions, including the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service Institute, the Naval War College and the National Defence College. He has held fellowships at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses and at the Observer Research Foundation, in New Delhi, and previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution. He received research grants from the United States Fulbright program and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), Ministry of External Affairs, of which he is a Distinguished Alumni awardee.

Dr. Xavier holds a Ph.D. in South Asian studies from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, an M.Phil. and M.A. in International Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a B.A. with undergraduate studies at Nova University Lisbon and Sciences Po Paris.