The geopolitics of infrastructure
The shaping of infrastructure has become a critical arena of global power competition, with infrastructure development at the core of new forms of strategic contestation between great powers over the future of the international order.
This project examines the ways in which large-scale infrastructure and urbanisation are becoming central to evolving approaches to strategic competition among powerful states today, focusing primarily on initiatives from China, the United States, and the European Union, which are all seeking to influence connectivity and urban spaces across and beyond their own borders.
Research outputs
- Kitchen, Nicholas, and Simon Curtis (2025) '"If you build it, they will come" Infrastructure, hegemonic transition, and peaceful change', Global Studies Quarterly
- Curtis, Simon; Klaus, Ian (2024) The Belt and Road City: Geopolitics, Urbanisation, and China's Search for a New International Order
- Curtis, Simon; Klaus, Ian (2024) The New Corridor Competition Between Washington and Beijing, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Curtis, Simon (2023) The Emerging Geopolitics of Infrastructure Competition, Chicago Council on Global Affairs
- Curtis, Simon; Klaus, Ian (2023) 'China’s Path to Power Runs Through the World’s Cities', Foreign Affairs
- Curtis, Simon (2016) Global Cities and Global Order, Oxford University Press.
Project Director
Dr Simon Curtis
Senior Lecturer in International Relations
Biography
Simon joined the University of Surrey in 2023. He had previously been an Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of East Anglia, and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.
His books include Global Cities and Global Order (Oxford University Press), which was awarded the 2018 Hedley Bull Prize by the European Consortium for Political Research, and The Belt and Road City (Yale University Press, 2024).
Project Experts
Dr Nicholas Kitchen
Associate Professor in International Relations; Executive Director, Centre for the Study of Global Power Competition (CGPC)
Biography
I joined Surrey in 2018 from the London School of Economics, where I had been Assistant Professorial Research Fellow and Head of Analysis at LSE IDEAS. I am a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Visiting Fellow at LSE IDEAS, and Treasurer of the US Foreign Policy Working Group of the British International Studies Association.