Journal of Contemporary Politics
Year: 2026, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 90-99
Review Article
Sainandan Sridhar Iyer1, 2*
1Part-Time PhD Scholar in International Relations, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani – K.K. Birla Goa Campus, Goa
2Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, DCT’s Dhempe College of Arts and Science, Miramar, Panaji, Goa
*Corresponding Author
Email: [email protected]
Received Date:19 April 2026, Accepted Date:04 June 2026, Published Date:16 June 2026
This paper examines how India deploys oceanographic science as an instrument of normative and epistemic statecraft in the Indian Ocean Region. Moving beyond conventional security-centric interpretations of maritime strategy, it develops a three-stage analytical framework—knowledge production, knowledge circulation, and norm entrepreneurship—to explain how technical capacity is translated into regional authority. Drawing on constructivist international relations theory and qualitative analysis of policy documents, institutional reports, and multilateral engagements between 2015 and 2025, India’s role in tsunami early warning systems, marine data-sharing platforms, and agenda-setting is traced within regional institutions. It argues that legitimacy emerges not merely through rhetorical claims but through institutional recognition, operational routinization, and multilateral uptake of governance priorities. By conceptualizing science diplomacy as infrastructural and epistemic power, the paper demonstrates how India embeds maritime leadership within regional governance architectures, contributing to broader debates on foreign policy transformation, norm diffusion, and political authority in the Indo-Pacific.
Keywords: Science diplomacy, Indian Ocean Region, Soft power, Maritime governance
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© 2026 Published by Bangalore University. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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