CREDITS 2 (LV) 3 (ECTS) - 32 Contact Hours
This course introduces students to the concept of geo-economics and the field of economic statecraft. It will explore how changes in the international environment have affected foreign policy decisions and the ways in which States increasingly practice power politics by economic means. Seven economic tools are considered suitable to geostrategic application: trade policy, investment policy, economic and financial sanctions, cyber, aid, financial and monetary policy, and energy and commodities. Each carries its own leading cast of countries and institutions and its own levers of state control and determinants of success. All will be covered in this course. Some academics consider geo-economics to be a genus of geopolitics. Others see the former more as an evolutionary transformation of the latter — a position that will be challenged In this course. Teaching is based on (a modern law school version of) the Socratic method. As a consequence the course is highly interactive — blurring the strict distinctions between “lecture” and “seminar”.
Tjaco Theo van den Hout studied law at Leiden University and economics as an extracurricular at Harvard. A former ambassador, he temporarily left the diplomatic service mid-career to take the helm for almost ten years of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. After retiring from diplomatic service in 2011, he moved to Riga to be with his family and, in the academic year of 2012-2013, joined RGSL as a member of its visiting faculty.
- Teacher: Tjaco Theo van den Hout