Geoeconomics, statecraft and international security

Basic interest in international relations issues and interest in international economics.

This course provides students with an understanding of the interplay between international security and international economics issues, and the current challenges for statecraft.

News cycles are replete with information about how China is weaponizing access to its market to obtain political concessions from other states, or how Russia aims at evading economic sanctions. The neoliberal globalization that followed the end of the Cold War and spread across the Globe in the 1990s has accelerated the mutual interdependence of national economies, but has not eliminated political competition. In the context of a return of great power rivalries, states are now incentivized to use economic tools for political objectives, and in return try to protect themselves from such vulnerabilities. But this politicization of economics creates a dilemma between prosperity and security, which many states are struggling to solve. This class will discuss such dilemmas, the ways economic issues are used for political gains, and the instruments that Denmark and the EU are developing in order to protect themselves in this new geoeconomic context. 

Students will learn to address key issues such as:

• The transformation of global politics and its consequences for global economics
• The theoretical and conceptual tools required to make sense of those changes
• The role of economics as a tool of statecraft for states
• The strategies and approaches that key actors such as the US, the EU, Russia and China adopt in order to foster their geoeconomics agenda
• The policy instruments that are being developed to conduct offensive or defensive economic measures
• The consequences for companies, in terms of management challenges

Students will learn to transfer this knowledge to analyse and identify key issues for both governments and companies such as:

• What is the trade-off between security and prosperity?
• What are the key instruments useful to achieve the proper balance between the two?
• How to assess geopolitical risk and tailor economic activities accordingly? 
• How to include geopolitical risk assessment and foresight in business processes?

Precisely understand and formulate key dilemmas in security policy-making, and develop the intellectual and practical tools to hierarchize priorities among conflicting economic and security incentives. 

Be mindful of the geopolitical risks for businesses when engaging in commercial activities.

Examples of the literature used in class include:

• Robert D. Blackwill et Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means. Geoeconomics and Statecraft, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
• David Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, Princeton, Princeton University Press
• Henry Farrell and Abraham Newmann, Underground Empire. How America Weaponized the World Economy, Allen Lane
• Condoleeza Rice and Amy Zegart, Political Risk. How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, Twelve Publishers

The pensum will amount to 600 pages.

Intensive summer course (last weeks of August 2024). This course will be taught in the form of an intensive summer course with normally two two-hour sessions per day. Each session will normally start with a standard lecture, after which there will be extensive joint class discussion. 

Co-taught with "Geoeconomics, statecraft and international security (B380005101)".

Scheduled classes:
Intensive summer course during the weeks of 32 and 33: 7 lessons of 2 hours, 1 lesson of 1 hours, plus 3 hours of additional learning activities 

Workolad:
A 10 ECTS course entails a total workload of 270 hours. These are divided between different learning activities and below follows an estimation for the average student:

Face-to-face lectures:                 15 hours
Additional learning:                       3 hours
Preparation for lectures:             40 hours
Exam (preparation):                    77 hours
Total:                                         135 hours

New course

The course will also be open for ‘advanced bachelor’ students, if they meet the pre-requisites.