Raphaëlle Khan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York – City College, and an Associate at the Harvard University Asia Center. Her research focuses on the international relations of South Asia from a historical and contemporary perspectives. Her interests include the role of decolonised states in contesting the world order, international organisations and decolonization, the foreign policy of emerging powers, and the geopolitical reconfiguration of the Indo-Pacific region.
She previously worked or collaborated with the Institut de Recherche Stratégique in Paris, the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, and the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania. She also taught at Sciences Po Paris.
Education
- PhD King’s College London
- MSc The London School of Economics and Political Science
- MA Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po Paris)
Courses
- PSC 23700 Political Systems of Asia
- PSC 10300 Introduction to World Politics
- PSC 25700 Globalization and Global Governance
- PSC 25600 Contemporary World Conflicts
Monograph
- Decolonization and the Global Order: India and International Organisations, 1919–1960s. New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming Fall 2027.
Edited Volumes:
- Theorizing Indian Foreign Policy. Co-edited with Mischa Hansel and Mélissa Levaillant. London: Routledge, 2017.
Peer-Reviewed Articles:
- “Between Territory and Worldmaking: The Evolution of India’s Double Conception of Sovereignty from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi.” Indian Politics & Policy 5, no. 3 (Winter 2025): 121–157.
- “Signalling through Implicature: How India Signals in the Indo-Pacific.” Co-authored with Kate Sullivan de Estrada. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 27, no. 1 (February 2025): 43–68. Open access.
- “India and Overseas Indians in Ceylon and Burma, 1946–1965: Experiments in Post-imperial Sovereignty.” Co-authored with Taylor C. Sherman. Modern Asian Studies 56, no. 4 (July 2022): 1153–1182.
- “Disrupting the Empire and Forging IR: The Role of India’s Early Think Tanks in the Decolonisation Process, 1936–1950s.” The International History Review 44, no. 4 (August 2022): 836–855.
- “Sovereignty After the Empire and the Search for a New Order: India’s Attempt to Negotiate a Common Citizenship in the Commonwealth (1947–1949).” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 49, no. 6 (December 2021): 1141–1174.
Book Chapters
- “India in the Indo-Pacific: Ordering at the Margins.” Co-authored with Nicolas Blarel, Isabelle Saint-Mézard, and Thibault Fournol. In Order in the Indo-Pacific, edited by Patrick Köllner and Christophe Jaffrelot. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.
- “L’Inde et l’Indo-Pacifique.” In L’Indo-Pacifique, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot and Delphine Allès. Enjeu Mondial. Paris: Sciences Po Press, 2024.
- “The Rise of New-Generation Foreign Policy Think Tanks in India: Causes, Contours, and Roles.” Co-authored with Patrick Köllner. In From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Diplomacy in a Contested Region, edited by Robert Patman, Patrick Köllner, and Balazs Kiglics, 207–234. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
- “Between Ambitions and Caution: India, Human Rights, and Self-Determination at the United Nations.” In Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics, edited by A. Dirk Moses, Marco Duranti, and Roland Burke, 207–235. Human Rights in History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
- “India as a Norm Claimer: Normative Struggles and the Assertion of Sovereignty at the San Francisco Conference (1945).” In Theorizing Indian Foreign Policy, co-edited with Mischa Hansel and Mélissa Levaillant. London: Routledge, 2017.
Review Essay
- “Intellectual History or Philosophical History? The Indian Century as Global Miniature.” Co-authored with A. Dirk Moses. Review essay on Shruti Kapila, Violent Fraternity: Indian Political Thought in the Global Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021). Global Intellectual History 10, no. 8 (2025): 694–700.
Book Reviews
- Review of Building States: The United Nations, Development, and Decolonization, by Eva-Maria Muschik. H-Diplo Roundtable, 2024.
- Review of India, China, and the World: A Connected History, by Tansen Sen. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021.
- Review of “An Asian Drama: The Asian Relations Conference, 1947,” by Vineet Thakur, The International History Review 41, no. 3 (2019): 673–695. H-Diplo, February 2020.
- Review of East of India, South of China: Sino-Indian Encounters in Southeast Asia, by Amitav Acharya. Revue Défense Nationale, Summer 2018, 176–178.
Selected Policy Papers
- “Building EU-India Synergy: Allying Sustainable Modernisation and Strategic Autonomy.” Co-authored with Mihir Sharma, Arnaud Koehl, Pooja Jain, Swati Prabhu, and John-Joseph Wilkins. Report. IRSEM/ORF, 2022.
- “La stratégie Indo-Pacifique de l’Inde.” Co-authored with Christophe Jaffrelot. Observatoire de l’Indopacifique, 2021. Republished in Après-demain, 2022.
- “L’Inde, une grande puissance militaire?” In “L’Inde, une puissance singulière.” Questions Internationales, no. 106. Paris: La Documentation Française, 2021.
- “L’Inde, la souveraineté et la Responsabilité de Protéger.” Research note. IRSEM, 2020.
- “UN’s 75th Anniversary: India’s Past Leadership in Promoting Human Rights at the UN.” India in Transition. Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), 2020.
- “Le Sri Lanka, l’Inde et le Pakistan à la Belt and Road Initiative chinoise.” Research paper. IRSEM, 2019.
- “Foreign Policy Think Tanks in India: New Actors, Divergent Profiles.” Co-authored with Patrick Köllner. GIGA Focus Asia, 2018.
Media Engagement
- Regular contributor to France Culture and Radio France Internationale on topics ranging from India’s foreign policy to the evolution of Asian geopolitics.
