Mikael Wigell, Research Director in the Finnish Institute of International Affairs has received funding from the Academy of Finland for the GERI research project. A panel set by the Academy of Finland’s Research Committee on Culture and Society rated the GERI funding application as the second best application out of a total of 19 applications. The GERI project develops a pioneering approach to analyze the use of geoeconomic power and its implications in world politics.
States increasingly practice power politics by economic means, as demonstrated by the accelerating use of economic sanctions against Russia and the Sino-Western trade and technology wars. In this new reality geoeconomics has emerged as a central aspect of contemporary strategic competition.
Although the topic has been increasingly addressed in policy analysis and international debate, more in-depth research on how geoeconomic power can be measured and exercised and how it impacts global economic order has not yet been done.
GERI research project
- develops an empirically grounded understanding and measurement of geoeconomic power, including a novel Geoeconomic Power Index
- explores how geoeconomic power is exercised in practice by major states and economic actors; and
- investigates how the rise of geoeconomics is affecting the international economic order.
Through academic publications, social media and events, among other things, the GERI project develops and disseminates a repeatable analytical framework that can be utilized when measuring geoeconomic power across different regimes and contexts. The project will add value to the burgeoning body of geoeconomics literature by grounding insights on its organizing principle – geoeconomic power – in a new empirical approach and a comprehensive set of data, including on trade, investments, currencies and sanctions. Finally, as great-power competition is rapidly escalating, GERI offers a timely contribution to policymakers by providing insights into how states’ use of different forms of geoeconomic statecraft is reshaping economic governance.
FIIA received funding totalling 500 000 euros for the period from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2027.
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