Marshall M. Bouton

Marshall M. Bouton was Acting Director & Visiting Scholar at CASI from July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2020.

Dr. Bouton is past chairman of CASI's International Advisory Board (2004-12) and a member of the Board continuously since 2003.

He is president emeritus of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, having served as its president from 2001 to 2013. The Chicago Council is a leading, independent, nonpartisan organization committed to influencing the discourse on global policy issues through contributions to opinion and policy formation, leadership dialogue, and public learning.

A nationally known expert on India and Asia, Dr. Bouton came to The Chicago Council from the Asia Society, New York, where he was executive vice president from 1990 to 2001.

Dr. Bouton’s previous positions include Director of Policy Analysis for Near East, Africa and South Asia in the U.S. Defense Department, special assistant to the U.S. Ambassador to India, and founding U.S. executive secretary of the Indo-U.S. Sub-commission on Education and Culture.

On June 21, 2013, Dr. Bouton was awarded the Friend of India Award from India Abroad to commemorate his five decades of diplomatic service and scholarly work on India. He was the third person to receive that honor as part of India Abroad's annual Person of the Year Awards program.

Dr. Bouton speaks and writes frequently on India, Asia, and U.S.-Asia Relations. His writings include: “The Trump Administration and India,” ASPI Policy Brief, May 2017; “America’s Interests in India,” published by the Center for a New American Security in October 2010; and “We Need India’s Help in Afghanistan,” published on Forbes.com on November 24, 2009. Dr. Bouton has taught on India and Asia at Northwestern University.

Dr. Bouton is the author of Agrarian Radicalism in South India (Princeton University Press), co-author of The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don’t Get (Benjamin I. Page with Marshall M. Bouton, The University of Chicago Press), which was awarded the American Political Science Association Gladys M. Kammerer Book Award in 2007, and editor/co-editor of several editions of India Briefing (The Asia Society with Westview Press/M.E. Sharpe). He holds an A.B. in history from Harvard College, an M.A. in South Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago. He is married and has two grown children and four grandchildren.