May 11, 2006

Dr. Walter Andersen
Associate Director of the South Asia Studies Program; Professorial Lecturer
Johns Hopkins University

Topic:  India and the United Stated: A New Strategic Relationship.

   Born in New York City, Dr. Walter Andersen received his Bachelor of Science degree from Concordia College, and did his graduate work at the University of Chicago, where he received a Ph.D. in Political Science.  His area of specialization was Comparative Politics.  Research for his Ph.D. thesis, Mobilization and Party Building, was carried out on a Carnegie Grant in India.

     Dr. Andersen was a teaching fellow at the University of Chicago, followed by an appointment in the Political Science Department of the College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio.   Besides teaching Comparative Politics and International Relations at the College of Wooster, he managed an overseas junior-year-abroad program for the Great Lakes Colleges Association, a consortium of 12 liberal arts colleges in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. He took leave to work as a special assistant for a member of the U.S. Congress  in Washington D.C., and was responsible for the congressman’s work on technology policy questions.    He joined the State Department in the late 1970s as an analyst on India and Indian Ocean affairs in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.  From 1983-85, Dr. Andersen was on deputation at the East Asia Institute of the University of California, Berkeley, working with Professor Robert Scalapino on a study of Indian Ocean security issues.  He subsequently served in the State Department’s Policy Planning staff and was an Executive Fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.   From 1988-91, he was assigned to the U.S. Embassy New Delhi and was special assistant to the Ambassador, writing analyses of policy options.  On his return to the U.S., Andersen headed the State Department’s South Asia Division in the Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia.  He joined the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University in the summer of 2003 as the Associate Director of its South Asia Studies Program.  He had previously served as a teaching adjunct at the Nitze School.

     Dr. Andersen has written a book on the politics of Hindu revivalism, The Brotherhood in Saffron, as well as an extensive number of journal articles and chapters in books analyzing Indian domestic politics as well as the international politics of South Asia.  He is now in process of writing a new edition of this book.  His other research project is a work on the politics of market reforms in India and their impact on India’s foreign policy.

    Dr. Andersen is married and the father of one son.  His wife is a designer of children’s clothing and has her own line and a factory that manufactures the clothing that she designs for an American and Canadian market.