About

T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the department of Political Science at McGill University. Paul specializes and teaches courses in international relations, especially international security, regional security and South Asia. He is the author or editor of 21 books and nearly 85 journal articles or book chapters. In September 2018, Paul became a Fellow (Elected) of the Royal Society of Canada.

In March 2019, Paul took the leadership role in forming the Global Research Network on Peaceful Change (GRENPEC). This network is aimed at promoting worldwide scholarship on this neglected subject. In August 2021, Oxford University Press published The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations with some 41 chapters by leading scholars on global, regional and national level research on peaceful change.

T.V. Paul was elected as the 56th President of International Studies Association and on March 17, 2016 he took charge as ISA President for 2016-17. He delivered the presidential address on the theme: "Recasting Statecraft: International Relations and the Strategies of Peaceful Change." In the presentation, he called for the International Relations discipline and its theoretical paradigms to devote more attention to strategies for achieving enduring peace among states. For the full text of the speech, see: ISA Presidential Address . For the Power point see: ISA Presidential Address PowerPoint .

Watch T.V. Paul's ISA Presidential Address, Atlanta, March 17, 2016

As ISA president, he spearheaded the Global South Task Force whose report and recommendations were adopted by the ISA Governing Council in San Francisco in March 2018.

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Paul was born in the Indian state of Kerala (Mevellor, Kottayam District) on November 10, 1956 and his early education was at institutions in Kerala. He completed his Masters in Political Science from Maharajas College, Ernakulum (affiliated to Kerala University) in 1980 and then worked as a journalist for the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency in New Delhi from 1980 till 1985. During this period, he completed his MPhil from the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University. From July 1985 till July 1986 he spent a year at the University of Queensland, Australia, as a research scholar. In July 1986 he was admitted to graduate studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from where he completed his PhD in Political Science in June 1991. In September 1991, he began his teaching career at McGill University where he was appointed as an assistant professor, promoted and tenured to associate professor in 1995, and full professor in 2000. In 2003, he was awarded the prestigious James McGill chair, instituted in the name of the university’s founder. He has been a visiting professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California (2002-03), visiting scholar at the APEC Study Center, University of California, Berkeley (2013), East-West Center, Honolulu (2013), Center for International Affairs (CFIA) and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University (1997-98), and James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey (2002-2003). He was the founding Director (2009-12) of the McGill-University of Montreal Center for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS), which originated from the Research Group in International Security (REGIS) which he co-directed for over a decade. Between 2009 and 2011 he served as the Chair of the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) of the International Studies Association (ISA) and during 2013-14 as ISA’s Vice-President. Currently, he serves as the editor of Georgetown University Press’ South Asia in World Affairs book series and on the editorial boards of many scholarly journals. He has travelled widely and given scores of seminars at leading academic institutions worldwide.

Paul has made a number of contributions to the study of international relations, especially broader international security and South Asia. He is especially known for rigorous puzzle-driven scholarship utilizing case studies as opposed to paradigms. He has been a proponent of eclectic modeling which he uses in several of his works. He is also a conceptual innovator and has made contributions to topics such as asymmetric conflicts, soft balancing, tradition of nuclear non-use, and status accommodation of rising powers. His first major book: Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers (Cambridge University Press, 1994) was pioneering as it addresses a neglected question of materially weaker powers starting wars against their stronger opponents. In his second authored book: Power versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000) he created a prudential realist model to explain the choices of many technologically capable states to forbear nuclear weapons. His third book: India in the World Order (co-authored with Baldev Nayar, Cambridge University Press, 2003) offers a rare theoretical exploration of India’s search for major power status and the constraints and opportunities that it has faced in that endeavor. Paul’s important policy-relevant contribution is the 2009 book: The Tradition of Non-use of Nuclear Weapons (Stanford University Press). This book explores the reasons why nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, especially against non-nuclear states. In March 2010 his co-authored book: Globalization and the National Security State (with Norrin Ripsman, New York: Oxford University Press) was published. It tests several of the globalization related hypotheses on state behavior in the security arena in a variety of regions and powers. In Fall 2013 his authored book: The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World will be released. It explores the question of Pakistan remaining a weak and insecure state despite expending enormous efforts to military security.

Paul has continued his scholarly contributions in nine edited volumes and over 55 journal articles/book chapters in venues such as International Security, Security Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Review of International Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, International Studies Review, and Millennium. The edited books are: Status in World Politics (with Deborah Larson and William Wohlforth, Cambridge University Press, 2014); International Relations Theory and Regional Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2012); South Asia’s Weak States: Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament (Stanford University Press, 2010); Complex Deterrence: Strategy In the Global Age (with Patrick M. Morgan and James J. Wirtz, University of Chicago Press, 2009); The India-Pakistan Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry (Cambridge University Press, 2005); Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (with James Wirtz and Michel Fortmann, Stanford University Press, 2004); The Nation-State in Question (with G. John Ikenberry and John A. Hall, Princeton University Press, 2003); International Order and the Future of World Politics (with John A. Hall, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 2000 (twice), 2001, 2002 & 2003); and The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (with Richard Harknett and James Wirtz, University of Michigan Press, 1998 & 2000). Five of his books have also been published in South Asia Edition editions by Cambridge and Oxford University Presses in India.

Conversations on Peaceful Change

Dr. G. John Ikenberry on Liberal Internationalism and World Order (GRENPEC)

Looking Ahead: The Liberal World Order After Covid-19 (GRENPEC)

New Book

Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era (Yale University Press, September 2018)

At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance-of-power theory—the bedrock of realism in international relations—other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the U.S.’s rising power. Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its Western border.

This does not mean balance-of-power politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T.V. Paul, but that it has taken a different form. Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in “soft balancing,” which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective from the post-Napoleonic era to today’s globalized world.

Reviews

“Both critics and proponents of the role of the balance of power in international politics treat it as depending on military instruments. The signal accomplishment of T. V. Paul’s book is to show that there is a much larger set of tools that states can employ to restrain troublemakers.” - Robert Jervis, Columbia University, author of How Statesmen Think

"In this sophisticated and sweeping historical survey, T.V. Paul shows how modern states have pursued various types of balancing behavior—short of war—to constrain potential hegemonic powers. Restraining Great Powers is a tour de force that should be carefully read and reflected on by scholars and practitioners alike." - David Shambaugh, George Washington University

Set of reviews in Roundtable, June 24, 2019, Published in H-Diplo ISSF

"The book is well written, cogently argued, and quite accessible to even non-experts." Steve Chan, University of Colorado, Boulder

"While some scholars will challenge Paul’s innovative elaborations of soft balancing in the past two hundred years of world politics, the real value of Paul’s work lies not only in his elegant theoretical articulations and convincing case studies; it also reflects a new wave of the soft balancing debate that will inspire in the field." Kai He, Griffith University

"One of the important contributions of the book is its demonstration of the use of soft balancing in very different historical eras, not just the current unipolar one. Paul highlights the use of soft balancing even in periods when the climate was highly unfavorable for its success, showing that institutional means of restraining expansionist or aggressive great powers are not limited to the post-Cold War era." Deborah Welch Larson, University of California, Los Angeles

"Building on his influential and widely-cited 2005 article on “soft balancing,” Paul broadens and refines the concept, responds to common criticisms, develops the concept of ‘limited hard balancing,’ and demonstrates how strategies of soft balancing and other forms of restraint have become increasingly common over time." Jack S. Levy, Rutgers University

"This book is one of the most important contributions to the balance of power theory in recent years. It is a convincing attempt to craft a legitimate space for soft balancing (as well as limited hard balancing) to exist alongside other balancing strategies, such as hard balancing, to explain how states address threatening powers." Bhubhindar Singh, Nanyang Technological University

"Paul’s Restraining Great Powers both advances a full-fledged theory of soft balancing and finds empirical support for the pursuit of soft-balancing strategies by great powers and other states over the past two centuries." Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, Tufts University

Interviews

University of Oregon PS Speaker Series: Professor T.V. Paul

At the University of Oregon, Professor Paul holds an informal discussion with students on the topic of restraining great powers.

Canada and the World, Ep. 18: Great power politics

For an interesting podcast discussion on changing great power relations, listen to my conversation with Professors Patricia Goff and David Welch at Balsillie School of International Affairs.

CIPS presents: A Conversation with Professor T.V. Paul

I conduct an interview with Professor Peter Jones from the University of Ottawa, discussing my latest book, Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era.

Professor Paul looks to "soft balancing" for the future of international politics

An Q&A with McGill's Arts Student ambassador Amy Hauer, in anticipation of my new book, Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era.

Book Promotional Videos/Podcasts

Griffith University March 2, 2020

UC Berkeley: Restraining Great Powers February 12, 2019

Podcast, King's College, London January 16, 2019

Podcast, London School of Economics: Restraining Great Powers January 16, 2019

Carnegie Book Discussion on Restraining Great Powers October 18, 2018.

Montreal Launch of Restraining Great Powers, September 27, 2018.

CIPS Welcomes Professor T.V. Paul

Book Promotion Articles

China-US Rivalry: Sleepwalking into War?, Madras Courier, October 29, 2018.

If confidence building measures and the adoption of an arms control regime in the South China Sea, China and the US risk stumbling into a catastrophic war.

Future of International Institutions and Soft Balancing, Yale University Press Blog, October 18, 2018.

Institutions have long been used as a means for soft balancing, including by the US. However, the US and its allies cannot ignore the norms of the rules based international order, for to do so risks undermining the shared norms soft balancing depends on.

The Power of Non-Alignment, The Hindu, October 11, 2018.

Finding themselves caught between the giants of the United States and China, small states of the Asia-Pacific are not destined to become pawns in the midst of great power competition; instead they can resurrect the ‘Bandung spirit’ and adopt a policy of non'alignment through the use of soft-balancing.

Soft Balancing vs. Hard Clashes: The Risks of War Over the South China Sea, Global Asia, September 21, 2018.

To minimize the risk of conflict in the South China Sea, all parties should consider measures to alleviate the dangers that arise from time pressures.

How India Will React to the Rise of China: the Soft-Balancing Strategy Reconsidered, War on the Rocks, September 17, 2018.

To restrain China India is likely to form both a soft-balancing coalition and limited hard balancing coalition, but the formation of a traditional hard-balancing coalition with the United States is very unlikely.

Asean and soft balancing: Time to declare South China Sea a zone of peace? The Straits Times, May 12, 2018.

Member states of ASEAN have been pursuing a strategy based largely on soft balancing and diplomatic engagement toward China for over three decades.

India's Strategic Roadmap The National Interest, August 9, 2018.

Today or tomorrow, China will likely turn against India. New Delhi must be ready for when the time comes.

How "soft balancing" can restrain Trump's America Policy Opinions Politiques, August 9, 2018.

To restrain Donald Trump's actions, "soft balancing," countering through international institutions, diplomacy and economic sanctions, holds promise.

Other

"In his book, Professor Paul analyzes power-balance theories by applying them to the real world. This is one of the best features of the book in that it builds bridges between theory and policy. Professor Paul, it was clear, is not naïve about the current fragile state of affairs and simply asked us to wait and see because we seem to be in a flux." -Canadian International Council

Page 99 blog reports on my new book