Karthik Nachiappan

I am a Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore.  

My research sits at the intersection of technology governance, economic security, and climate diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific, emphasising India’s geoeconomic strategy and its evolving role in the Indo-Pacific. My work also covers how governments in the Indo-Pacific manage and navigate trade-offs between national security and economic interdependence across digital systems, energy transitions, and critical supply chains. 

My book Does India Negotiate? (Oxford University Press, 2020) revises existing views on India’s multilateral behaviour that scholars generally claim is prickly, obstructionist and defensive. By empirically unpacking how India negotiated four particular international rules – Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Framework Convention on Climate Change, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Uruguay Round Trade Agreement, the book shows that India’s multilateral record since the early 1990s is more nuanced than understood.

I am an alumnus of the Bucerius Summer School on Global Governance (2013) and regularly write on foreign policy issues for outlets like The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Mint, The Print, The Hindustan Times, The Globe and Mail, and Open Canada.

I received my PhD in Political Science from King’s College London and have a B.A in Public Policy and Politics from the University of Toronto.

Previously, I worked for the Global Issues Team at UNDP China in Beijing and the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the National University of Singapore.

I am currently based in Singapore with my spouse, daughters, and chocolate labrador, and hail from Vancouver, Canada.