Sunil Sahu, Leonard E. and Mary B. Howell Professor of Political Science, has been a member of the Department of Political Science since 1988. A naturalized citizen of the United States, Sahu is a native of India. He received his Bachelor's degree in Political Science (honors) and History from Bihar University in India, his Master's degrees in Political Science from Bihar University and the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Before starting his Ph.D. program, Sahu received advanced graduate training in international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. His teachers at the University of Chicago included Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, Philip Schmitter, Leonard Binder, Adam Przeworski, Tang Tsou, Ira Katznelson, and Bernard Silberman in comparative politics; Charles Lipson and Morton Kaplan in international relations; David Easton and Joseph Cropsey in political theory.
Sunil Sahu specializes in (a) Comparative Politics, with a focus on the developing nations, including China and India, and (b) International Politics (terrorism and international cooperation and conflict). He offers a number of courses at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels: Comparative Politics and Government (POLS 150, a required course for political science majors and minors), International Politics (POLS 170), Contemporary Political Ideologies (POLS 240), China and India in the 21st Century (POLS 253), Politics of Developing Nations (POLS 352), International Terrorism (POLS 390), and Conflict and Cooperation in the Post-Cold War World (POLS 450, offered periodically as a senior seminar course).
Sahu is the author of the book Technology Transfer, Dependence and Self-Reliant Development in the Third World: The Machine-Tool and Pharmaceutical Industries in India (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998) and book chapters "Religion and Politics in India: The Rise of Hindu Nationalism and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India," in Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few, and the Many, edited by Ted Jelen and Clyde Wilcox (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and "Changing Regimes in Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property in India," in C. Steven LaRue (ed.), The India Handbook (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997). He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and reference books and encyclopedias. He is currently working on a book titled Democracy in the Third World: Why it has succeeded in India and failed in Nigeria and a monograph on Nuclear Security in South Asia.
Sahu is married and has two children and lives in Avon, IN. He is a member of two Indian religious and cultural organizations in greater Indianapolis--Gita Mandal and Sikh Satsang. He is a political "news junkie" and his hobbies include photography and Bollywood oldies--films and songs.