The Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance (GTG) examines how emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and smart devices—are redefining power, economies, and policies worldwide. Our research addresses the complex challenges these advances pose for international security, and how governments, businesses, and individuals adapt to shifting landscapes of risk and opportunity.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping economies, security, and governance worldwide, raising urgent questions about how to distribute its benefits equitably while managing risks. GTG examines how democracies can leverage AI innovation to advance shared prosperity and security, with particular attention to infrastructure requirements, Global South perspectives, and mechanisms for international cooperation.
Related projects:
AI for Peace
This research initiative investigates how the United States and its allies and partners can leverage their comparative advantages in AI innovation to equitably distribute the benefits of AI while incentivizing trustworthy deployment. The research focuses on three key areas:
Infrastructural requirements for deploying AI at scale for countries at all levels of economic development and multilateral, multi-stakeholder mechanisms for meeting those requirements.
Global South perspectives on promising use cases for AI and governance approaches for facilitating AI deployment while managing risks.
Prospects and options for international collaborations to address cross-border security, environmental, and other externalities.
The Future of Decision-Making Project (FODM) is a multi-year, interdisciplinary research initiative examining how emerging technologies—particularly artificial intelligence and advanced decision-support systems—are reshaping human decision-making in high-stakes domains such as national security, defense, and crisis management. Rather than focusing solely on technological capability, the project centers on the human dimension: how judgment, responsibility, and accountability evolve as machines increasingly inform, shape, or constrain human choices. The project brings together scholars and practitioners from academia, government, and industry to develop empirically grounded, policy-relevant insights into the future of human-machine decision systems.
GEOPOLITICS OF TECHNOLOGY
Emerging technologies are becoming central to great power competition and regional security dynamics. GTG examines how technological advantages translate into geopolitical leverage, how U.S. strategy can balance competition with innovation and alliance partnerships, and how technology is reshaping power dynamics across critical regions like East Asia.
GTG's annual conference and ongoing research initiative brings together leading regional experts, policymakers, and industry leaders to examine how technological developments are reshaping geopolitical dynamics across East Asia. The research focuses on critical technology supply chains—particularly semiconductors—regional responses to U.S.-China competition, and opportunities for multilateral cooperation on technology governance.
CHINA & DIGITAL COMPETITION
China's rapid digital development and distinct governance approaches have profound implications for global markets, security, and technology standards. GTG analyzes Chinese technology policy and corporate strategies through original-language sources, providing insights into how China's digital trajectory shapes international competition and governance debates.
The DigiChina project, led by Graham Webster, enhances understanding of China's digital policy developments through translating and analyzing Chinese-language sources. Since 2017, DigiChina has published translations of primary sources, contextual explanation, and analysis on China’s technology policy landscape, covering topics including the Cybersecurity Law regime, data governance, artificial intelligence, and China’s official push for greater technological independence.
CYBERSECURITY & INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Effective governance of technology challenges requires sustained dialogue and cooperation across borders. GTG facilitates Track II exchanges with international partners, building relationships and shared understanding that can lay groundwork for broader policy cooperation on cybersecurity and technology governance issues.
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China Agricultural Economic Review,
February 12, 2021
Purpose:
Internet use has become particularly prevalent among adolescents, prompting much thought and concern about both its potential benefits and adverse effects on adolescent learning outcomes. Much of the empirical literature on the impact of Internet use on adolescent learning outcomes is mixed, and few studies examine the causal relationship between the two in rural China. In order to bridge these gaps, we use empirical analysis to investigate the effect of Internet use on the learning outcomes of adolescents in rural China.
Design/methodology/approach:
We use fixed effect models with samples drawn from a large nationally representative dataset (the China Family Panel Studies—CFPS) to identify the causal impacts of Internet use on the learning outcomes of three cohorts (Cohort A (N = 540), Cohort B (N = 287) and Cohort C (N = 827)) of adolescents in rural China.
Findings:
The results of the descriptive analysis show a continued increase in the number of adolescents accessing the Internet and the amount of time they spend online. The results of the fixed effect models show that Internet use has positive (in many of the analyses), but mostly insignificant impacts, on the learning outcomes of adolescents. In the sets of results that find significant associations between Internet use and learning outcomes, the measured effects are moderate.
Originality/value:
This study investigates the causal relationship between Internet use and adolescent learning outcomes in rural China. The findings claim that there is not a great need to worry about adverse effects of Internet use on adolescent learning development. Attention, however, should focus on seeking ways to improve the positive effects of the Internet use on adolescent learning outcomes. The study will provide a reference and experience for the development of education and the Internet in rural areas and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas in China.
Many studies document low rates of financial literacy and suboptimal levels of participation in financial markets. These issues are particularly acute among women. Does this reflect a self-reinforcing trap? If so, can a nudge to participate in financial markets generate knowledge, confidence, and further increase informed participation? We conduct a large field experiment that enables and incentivizes working-age men and women---a challenging group to reach with standard financial training programs---to trade stocks for four to seven weeks. We provide no additional educational content. We find that trading significantly improves financial confidence, as reflected in stock market participation, objective and subjective measures of financial knowledge, and risk tolerance. These effects are especially strong among women. Participants also become more self-reliant and consult others less when making financial decisions.
American Purpose editorial board member Patrick Chamorel draws parallels between two French presidents of the center, Giscard and Macron. Can Macron modernize the economy, keep the EU together, and stop his country from falling apart?
This article examines the AKP’s youth politics in the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi Protests. It focuses on a seemingly mundane cultural practice of essay writing and student essay competitions to investigate the party’s message and methods in addressing young people. In particular, it examines the politics of history and emotional politics in the party's effort to construct and administer youth publics. The article argues that the AKP’s power is embedded in and reproduced by the articulation of political differences and mobilization of emotions, which play a significant role in the party’s broader bid to reorganize society, redefine collective identity, and control dissent.
This chapter reconnects modes of futures-making with the requirements of democracy by focusing on the naturalization of nuclear weapons and their removal from the realm of democratic choice at a particular point in time.
National Bureau of Economic Research,
February 1, 2021
A burgeoning literature has documented the importance of elite colleges. Yet, little is known about access to elite education and its labor market implications in China, a country that produces one in every five college graduates in the world. College admission in China is governed by a single exam—the national college entrance exam, and the government sets admission cutoff scores for elite colleges. We examine the impacts of scoring above the elite-tier cutoff on a student's access to elite colleges and wage outcomes after graduation, using the discontinuity around the cutoff score. By employing hand-collected survey data, we find that scoring above the cutoff not only increases the chance of entering an elite college but also raises a young person's first-job wages after graduation. We also find that those just above the cutoff have peers with higher scores and better social networks than those below the cutoff, but it is less clear whether the two groups use their time differently in college.
Crop yield maps estimated from satellite data increasingly are used to understand drivers of yield trends and variability, yet satellite-derived regional maps are rarely compared with location-specific yields due to the difficulty of acquiring sub-field ground truth data at scale. In commercial agricultural systems, combine harvesters with onboard yield monitors collect real-time yield data during harvest with high spatial resolution, generating a large ground dataset. Here, we leveraged a yield monitor dataset of over one million maize field observations across the United States Corn Belt from 2008 to 2018 to evaluate the Scalable Crop Yield Mapper (SCYM). SCYM uses region-specific crop model simulations and climate data to interpret vegetation indices from satellite observations, thus enabling efficient sub-field yield estimation across large regions and multiple years without reliance on ground data calibration. We used the ground dataset to compare alternative SCYM model implementations, define minimum required satellite observation criteria, and evaluate the sensitivity of satellite-based yield estimates to on-the-ground variation in management, soil, and annual weather. We found that smoothing annual time series data with harmonic regression increased 30 m pixel-level accuracy from r2 = 0.31 to 0.40 and reduced dependency on specific satellite observation timing, enabling robust yield estimation on 97% of annual maize area using only Landsat data. Agreement improved as the assessment was aggregated to field-level (r2 = 0.45) and county-level (r2 = 0.69) scales, demonstrating the need for fine-resolution ground truth data to better assess sub-field level accuracy in high resolution products. We found that SCYM and ground data showed a similar yield response to management and environmental variation, particularly capturing linear and nonlinear responses to sowing density, soil water holding capacity, and growing season precipitation. However, sensitivity to factors like soil quality and planting date was muted for SCYM estimates compared to ground-based yields. Random forest models were able to match SCYM performance when trained on at least 1000 ground observations, but performed poorly when tested on years and locations not represented in the training data. Our results demonstrate that satellite yield maps can provide much-needed information on multidecadal yield trends and inform yield gap analyses.
An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics.
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy,
February 1, 2021
I study team decisions among physician trainees. Exploiting a discontinuity in team roles across trainee tenure, I find evidence that teams alter decision-making, concentrating influence in the hands of senior trainees. I also demonstrate little convergence in variation of trainee effects despite intensive training. This general pattern of trainee effects on team decision-making exists in all types of decisions and settings that I examine. In analyses evaluating mechanisms behind this pattern, I find support for the idea that significant experiential learning occurs during training and that teams place more weight on judgments of senior trainees in order to aggregate information.
Climate change and human activities exert a wide range of stressors on urban coastal areas. Synthetical assessment of coastal vulnerability is crucial for effective interventions and long-term planning. However, there have been few studies based on integrative analyses of ecological and physical characteristics and socioeconomic conditions in urban coastal areas. This study developed a holistic framework for assessing coastal vulnerability from three dimensions - biophysical exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity - and applied it to the coast of Bohai Economic Rim, an extensive and important development zone in China. A composite vulnerability index (CVI) was developed for every 1 km2 segment of the total 5627 km coastline and the areas that most prone to coastal hazards were identified by mapping the distribution patterns of the CVIs in the present and under future climate change scenarios. The CVIs show a spatial heterogeneity, with higher values concentrated along the southwestern and northeastern coasts and lower values concentrated along the southern coasts. Currently, 20% of the coastlines with approximately 350,000 people are highly vulnerable to coastal hazards. With sea-level rises under the future scenarios of the year 2100, more coastlines will be highly vulnerable, and the amount of highly-threatened population was estimated to increase by 13–24%. Among the coastal cities, Dongying was categorized as having the highest vulnerability, mainly due to poor transportation and medical services and low GDP per capita, which contribute to low adaptive capacity. Our results can benefit decision-makers by highlighting prioritized areas and identifying the most important determinants of priority, facilitating location-specific interventions for climate-change adaptation and sustainable coastal management.
Journal of Political Science Education,
January 26, 2021
The policy memo is particularly suited for introducing basic methodological concepts to upper-division undergraduate students of political science, argues Oriana Skylar Mastro.
