4.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Geopolitics is not the exclusive domain of governments. The private sector is thoroughly entangled, often as the agents—willing or unwilling—of government policy, others times as collateral damage or profiteers in the clash of competing national interests, and increasingly as powerful independent actors on the world stage that are not easily manipulated by governments. This course will survey the key concepts and roles of the private sector in geopolitics. Specific topics that student will cover include export controls; industrial and supply-chain policies; outbound and inbound investment screening; geopolitically motivated interventions in financial markets (incl. currency manipulation); and government’s efforts to deal with the critical technology systems that are privately controlled (e.g., communications, social media, surveillance, biotechnology, critical minerals, and the commercialization of space). Students who complete this course will acquire a broad understanding of the U.S. government’s power to compel and block private-sector activities, and the key constraints thereon, as well as the ways in which private companies gain and suffer from geopolitical forces. Students will learn to analyze geopolitically motivated government interventions in the economy from the perspective of a senior official as well as a senior private-sector executive, differentiating national interests from corporate interests, and appreciating the information asymmetries that always exist. Through discussions of topical case studies and a final research paper on a current topic, students will demonstrate the ability to assess the efficacy of the different ways in which a government can engage with a private-sector entity to advance its policy objectives.