Constantino Xavier is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi. At CSEP he leads the Sambandh Initiative on regional connectivity. He is also a non-resident fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, in 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 neighborhood since the 1950s, based on declassified records and interviews with decision-makers in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.