Abhishek Saxena is a doctoral candidate at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar University. His doctoral thesis examines the intellectual history of Indian thinking on nuclear weapons in the early decades of the atomic age. His broad research interests sit at the intersection of intellectual history, modern political thought, and international security, with a particular focus on intellectual responses to thermonuclear anxiety, the role of strategic ideas and narratives in legitimizing nuclear weapons as rational instruments of state policy, and the lessons and challenges that technoscientific developments of the last century pose for contemporary nuclear politics. He has presented his academic research on the intellectual history of Indian strategic nuclear thought and on the ethnography of India’s nuclear testing site at international conferences and workshops. Before starting his PhD, Abhishek worked as a Research Associate at the Centre for Aerospace Power and Strategic Studies (CAPPS). He completed his undergraduate studies at Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi in 2019, and master’s studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, in 2021. Abhishek is also an alumnus of the Kissinger Summer Academy, organised by the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He can be reached at as153@snu.edu.in.
Nuclear Issues