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
Associate Professor in International Relations
Biography
Simon is Associate Professor in International Relations, and a Principal Fellow at the People Centred Institute for AI at the University of Surrey.
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).
His current research examines how technological infrastructures, cities, and urbanisation shape international order and great power competition. His work bridges international relations theory, political economy, science and technology studies, and urban studies.
Current work focuses on geopolitical competition between the United States and China over AI, clean energy, and the infrastructures of technological diffusion. It explores how states compete not only through technological innovation, but through building the infrastructures that enable those technologies to spread across societies and international systems. He is open to proposals from new doctoral candidates.
He is a WISC Global Fellow at the Development Research Institute at New York University. He was previously a Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics.
His research appears in peer reviewed journals, including: Review of International Studies; Millennium: Journal of International Relations; Global Studies Quarterly; International Relations; Cambridge Review of International Affairs; Global Society; New Global Studies; RUSI Journal. He writes for general audiences in outlets such as Foreign Affairs; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Conversation; Diplomatic Courier; La Vanguardia; The Word Economic Forum; The Global Parliament of Mayors.
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.