To meet the immense challenges of a rapidly changing international world order, Dartmouth has launched a pilot program to fully integrate the vital intersection between International Security and Economics, incorporating Dartmouth’s resident expertise in international economics, government, business, and history.
The pilot program is the result of two years of careful planning and has the explicit goal of preparing Dartmouth students to be leaders in global issues while also contributing practical insights to policymakers and industry executives engaged in international affairs.
The four-year pilot aims to illuminate how countries use their economic strength and resources to achieve political and economic goals through a variety of new programs and resources. It builds on the success of Dartmouth’s Initiative for Global Security and expands its scope across the international economic landscape, from tariffs to global supply chains.
In bringing together the fields of international security and economics, Dartmouth is leveraging the unique expertise of its international economics faculty, offering both an academic perspective and real-world expertise for policymakers trying to understand tectonic shifts in the global economy.
“Global economic and security issues are inherently intertwined,” says Professor of Government Daryl Press, faculty director of the Initiative for Global Security. “Leaders of countries as well as global business leaders are looking for insights to help them navigate today’s complex geopolitical environment. This research initiative anticipated the current upheaval in the international order, and it brings together our deep bench of faculty from historically distinct fields to address critical questions.”
The pilot is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of Economics, the Tuck School of Business, and the Department of Government. The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding is a critical partner in supporting and hosting the program, convening faculty and students, and bringing international thought-leaders to campus.
“We’ve seen a real opportunity to bring a research focus in international trade and economics to the work the Dickey Center is already doing on global security,” says Interim Dean of Arts and Science Nina Pavcnik, the Niehaus Family Professor in International Studies and a professor of economics who helped spearhead the initiative. “Enabling undergraduates to partner with faculty in cutting-edge, policy-relevant research is special to Dartmouth. This is what we do exceptionally well and is at the core of how we educate our students for a life of leadership in a complex, global world.”
The pilot will draw on Dartmouth’s wide breadth of faculty expertise in international economics, including Tuck Associate Professor of Business Administration Emily Blanchard, former chief economist for the U.S. Department of State; John French Professor in Economics Douglas Irwin, former economist for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an expert on tariffs; Pavcnik, former editor of the World Bank Economic Review; Matthew Slaughter, the Paul Danos Dean of the Tuck School of Business and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and Professor of Economics Robert Staiger, a former senior staff economist with the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Among other activities, the pilot program will intensify Dartmouth’s leadership in pioneering this interdisciplinary work and amplify the expertise that currently resides here by:
- awarding seed grants to support innovative Dartmouth faculty research;
- sponsoring a postdoctoral fellowship and two fellowships for recent college graduates;
- hosting two distinguished visitors and two visiting researchers per year;
- and providing distinctive student experiences at the nexus of international security and economics.
Some of the opportunities for students in the program include a fall fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the World Trade Organization; internships; and an international immersion trip or a cross-disciplinary course with faculty in government, economics, and at Tuck.
The goal of the pilot is to demonstrate the rich opportunity for collaboration and innovation at the intersection of the two disciplines and to forge at Dartmouth a distinctive research and learning environment in higher education that anticipates the geopolitical realities of the new global order. The pilot also aims to prepare students for careers in a wide-range of fields with deep exposure to the complex and dynamic forces of geoeconomics.
Slaughter says Tuck’s participation is in line with its goal of “bettering the world.”
“Students are hungry to understand changes in geopolitics and globalization and their political and economic roots,” Slaughter says. “This pilot can offer them nonpartisan analysis and information about pressing security and economic issues, built on deep expertise rather than shifting news cycles.”
The International Security and Economics pilot and the Initiative for Global Security are also supporting the upcoming Tuck National Security Conference, which will take place in early May.
In year three of the pilot, Dartmouth plans to host a culminating conference on solutions related to international trade, climate, and security issues.
“This pilot fits well with the growth of our Initiative for Global Security, which we launched in 2021 to support scholarship, student engagement, and informed policymaking on global peace and security issues,” says Victoria K. Holt, the Norman E. McCulloch Jr. Director of the Dickey Center. “We’re excited to host this new pilot and extend our focus to embrace economics and business questions in a new way as Dartmouth brings original thinking, clarity, and engagement to these subjects.”
More than $1.5 million in private support has been raised to date to make the program possible from alumni and parents who support the long-term promise of the pilot: Audry Ai and Thomas Morrow ’92; Jonathan Lourie ’83; Lori Niehaus and Chris Niehaus ’81; Karen Niehaus, Tuck ’89, and Joe Niehaus ’85; Virginia Edwards Wood ’95 and Thomas Wood.
“We are delighted to support Dartmouth faculty and students as they research and explore the inextricably linked relationship between global security and international economics,” Joe Niehaus says. “This involves complex questions related to foreign and economic policy in an increasingly multipolar world, while taking advantage of Dartmouth’s excellence in studying such interdisciplinary issues.”