This course is a capstone course that trains students to equip with the ability to identify different types of crises and assess their respective risk in terms of political economy. Variety of strategies to manage those crises will be introduced and discussed in related to their advantages and disadvantages. All analyses in this course will emphasize on three-level risk assessment: the business owner, the industry, and the state. Special attention is cast on crises with events of natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, and geoeconomic issues that affect Taiwan. Students are anticipated to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in previous courses, together with the crisis management and risk analysis expertise developed in this course, to examine and formulate appropriate responses and solutions for various scenarios of geopolitical challenges Taiwan faced. Students are expected to conduct an empirical case study as a personal essay project.

This course requires students to understand how different actors, specifically policy makers and international enterprises, respond to potential geopolitical crises that hamper the state economy and individual businesses. Theory of public management will be introduced to analyze the ascription process of relevant stakeholders that impact factual recognition and accountability perception. Weekly cases will be given and explicated as the topic choices of further study for the final group-report project.

•Attendance and Discussion (10%)。 •Midterm Personal Project (essay on an analysis of crises related to events of natural disaster, geopolitical conflict, or geoeconomic issues, 5 pages, 40%)。 •Final Group Project (case study on one of the weekly cases, 10 pages, 50%)。

1 hour

Week 1: Introduction •Gamso, J., Inkpen A., and Ramaswamy, K. (2024). Managing Geopolitical Risks: the Global Oil and Gas Industry Plays a Winning Game. Journal of Business Strategy, 45 (3): 190–198. Week 2: Typology of Crises •Bednarski, L., Roscoe, S., Blome, C., and Schleper, M. C. (2025) Geopolitical Disruptions in Global Supply Chains: A State-of-the-Art Literature Review, Production Planning & Control, 36 (4): 536-562 . Week 3: Concept and Method of Risk Assessment •Caldara, D., and Iacoviello, Matteo. (2022). Measuring Geopolitical Risk. American Economic Review 112 (4): 1194–1225. •Han, R., Xu, J., and Huang, M. H. (2024). Evaluation of COVID-19 Governance in China: The Effects of Media Use, Pandemic Severity, and Provincial Heterogeneity. Journal of Asian Public Policy, 17(2): 196-220. Week 4: Public Health Crises: COVID-19 •Mustafa Cagri Gurbuz, M.C., Yurt, O., Ozdemir, S., Sena, V., and Yu, W. (2023). Global Supply Chains Risks and COVID-19: Supply Chain Structure as a Mitigating Strategy for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, Journal of Business Research, Volume 155 (B): 113407. Week 5: Dissolution of International Alliances: Brexit •Philipp, B. (2024). Brexit Consequences on Supply Chains: Towards a Risk Management Framework. Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal, 26(3), 345–357. Week 6: Diplomatic Crises: Japan’s Semiconductor Sanction on South Korea in 2019 •Makioka, R., and Zhang, H. (2024). The Impact of Export Controls on International Trade: Evidence from the Japan–Korea Trade Dispute in Semiconductor Industry. Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 74: 101336. Week 7: Great Power Rivalry: US Sanction on Iran and China (Xuawei) •Tse, Y. K., Dong, K., Sun, R., and Mason, R. (2024). Recovering from Geopolitical Risk: An Event Study of Huawei's Semiconductor Supply Chain, International Journal of Production Economics, 275: 109347. Week 8: Trade War: Trump Global Tariffs •Becko, J. S., Gtrossman, G. M. and Helpman, E. (2025). Optimal Tariffs with Geopolitical Alignment. NBER working paper, available at https://www.nber.org/papers/w34108. Week 9: Technological Containment: Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act •Luo, Y., and Van Assche, A. (2023). The Rise of Techno-geopolitical Uncertainty: Implications of the United States CHIPS and Science Act. Journal of International Business Studies, 54: 1423-1440. Week 10: Human Right Violation: Xinjiang Cotton Controversy •Mok, W., and Choi, F. K. (2024). The Dilemma and Promotion of Chinese Nationalism: Xinjiang Cotton Incident as a Case Study. China Report, 60(2): 167-181. Week 11: Wars and Armed Conflicts: Russia–Ukraine War •Trollman, H., Jagtap, S., Tamakloe, S.D., and Trollman, F. (20250). Foraging Supply Chains: Investigating Disaster for Improved Food Provisioning. Ambio: A Journal of Environment and Society 54: 2060–2078. Week 12: Security Issue in International Waterways: Red Sea Crisis •Haralambides, H. (2024). The Red Sea Crisis and Chokepoints to Trade and International Shipping. Maritime Economics & Logistics 26: 367–390. Week 13: Weaponization of Trade: China’s Export Control on Rare Earth Elements •Schmid, M. (2019). Rare Earths in the Trade Dispute Between the US and China: A Déjà Vu. Intereconomics, 54: 378–384.