Cross-Regional Initiatives
Great Powers Game On: Competition and Cooperation
Effective American foreign policy is grounded in an understanding of the global system and the role the United States plays within it. Hostility to globalization, changing attitudes toward American international leadership, and the emergence of China as a peer competitor of the United States have eroded the legitimacy of the world order that prevailed after 1945. Today, the United States and China, often with Russia at its side, are competing to shape security architectures, as well as norms and practices worldwide, including trade and investment regimes and the development and regulation of new technological infrastructures. These frictions will play out over decades, not only in Beijing, Washington, and Moscow, but across the globe, in outer space, and in cyberspace. The Center’s programs will expand their collaborative research and public education activities to help American policymakers and citizens understand and reassess these strategic relationships as they unfold across Eurasia and around the globe in their relevant historical context and from regional perspectives.
Brave New Digital World: Governance, Commerce, and Security
Technological tools are today a vital component of modern statecraft. Nations hack into each other’s computer networks to collect intelligence, prepare the battlefield, and carry out sabotage. They also invest heavily in technologies that promise to fundamentally change the way we communicate and that will automate major functions currently conducted by humans. Who are the major strategic competitors and what progress have they made? What battles are being waged ‘under the radar’? What is the risk that cyber or AI tools will cause escalation and miscalculation? What are the ethical concerns, what are the normative and policy challenges and how can they be addressed? This initiative will evaluate the risk of miscalculation in the digital age, identify possible solutions and investigate policy options for addressing future challenges.
Emerging Polar Landscapes: Security and Commerce in a Changing Environment
The Arctic is no longer an isolated or remote region; it is a critical component of the global political, economic, social, physical, and national security landscape. The region is experiencing rapid change in: commerce, climate, commodities, cooperation, competition, communities, and connectivity. Therefore, navigating the Arctic’s 7 C’s requires regional expertise as well as purposeful interdisciplinary approaches.
World Disorder: Challenges to Democratic Values and the Rule of Law
This initiative assesses a wide array of current global rule-of-law challenges—in particular governance, public accountability, human rights, judicial independence, and anti-corruption efforts. Programmatic activities will convene multiple stakeholders—government officials, lawyers, NGO experts, social scientists, the business community—to explore and discuss common obstacles to legal reform and to identify innovative strategies that have been employed around the world to address rule-of-law issues.
Office Location
Scholars and Academic Relations Office Woodrow Wilson Center One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027
Fellowships@wilsoncenter.org
202-691-4000