IB Geography • Section HL6.1
Geopolitical & Economic Risks
How technological and globalising processes create new geopolitical and economic risks for individuals and societies
Restored from the original AdornGeo Weebly page • syllabus order preserved
Hacking, Identity Theft and Surveillance
Hacking, identity theft and the implications of surveillance for personal freedoms.
Digital networks create enormous economic and social opportunities, but they also expose individuals and societies to fraud, cybercrime and state or corporate surveillance. The original AdornGeo sequence moves from personal identity theft to China's nationwide surveillance infrastructure and the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
- Personal data have economic and political value, making identity a target for criminals, firms and governments.
- Surveillance can support security and service delivery while weakening privacy, freedom of movement and freedom of expression.
- Facial recognition, connected cameras and large databases allow monitoring at a scale that was previously impossible.
- Digital risk is unequal: exposure and the capacity to protect data vary between people, businesses and states.
From convenience to control
- Watch the identity-theft report and identify the data, actors and vulnerabilities involved.
- Use the four China films to construct a benefits-versus-risks table for large-scale surveillance.
- Read the original long-form Xinjiang article and identify how technology changes state power and individual freedom.
- Write a reasoned judgement: when, if ever, is mass surveillance geographically and ethically justified?
Watch: UK identity theft rises by 30%
Watch: China: the world's biggest camera-surveillance network
Watch: China: facial recognition and state control
Watch: Life inside China's total-surveillance state
Watch: China's social-credit system and travel restrictions
Watch: China's social-credit score explained
Political, Economic and Physical Risks to Supply Chains
Political, economic and physical risks to global supply-chain flows.
Global production networks increase efficiency by linking specialised suppliers, assembly plants and markets. They also transmit disruption rapidly. The original case study uses Thailand's 2011 floods to show how one physical hazard interrupted automobile and computer production far beyond Thailand.
- Just-in-time production lowers storage costs but leaves little buffer when a supplier fails.
- Clustering specialist firms creates economies of agglomeration and a shared exposure to local hazards.
- Political conflict, trade restrictions, exchange rates, infrastructure failure and natural hazards can interrupt flows.
- Resilience strategies include diversification, redundancy, inventories, nearshoring and better risk mapping.
Follow the 2011 Thailand flood shock
- Locate Thailand's flooded industrial estates and identify the industries concentrated there.
- Use the original presentation, visual and news reports to trace one disruption from Thai factory to global consumer.
- Classify the causes and consequences as physical, economic or political and distinguish direct from indirect impacts.
- Recommend three resilience measures, then evaluate their likely costs and trade-offs.
Watch: Thai flooding raises global computer prices
Watch: Supply-chain risk management
Profit Repatriation and Tax Avoidance
Profit repatriation and tax avoidance by TNCs and wealthy individuals.
Transnational firms can legally organise subsidiaries, intellectual property and internal payments across jurisdictions. This makes the geography of recorded profit different from the geography of production and consumption, limiting the tax base available to some states.
- Profit repatriation moves earnings from a foreign subsidiary back to the parent company's home country.
- Tax avoidance is legal tax planning; tax evasion conceals or misrepresents income and is illegal.
- Tax havens combine low taxation, secrecy and legal structures that allow profits or wealth to be booked there.
- Avoidance creates sovereignty questions because nationally based tax systems regulate globally mobile firms and capital.
Map where value is created and taxed
- Use the tax-haven film to explain why firms and wealthy individuals shift profits or assets between jurisdictions.
- Examine the Starbucks example and annotate the likely flows of sales revenue, royalties, profit and tax.
- Use the Paradise Papers and Davos films to compare arguments made by firms, governments and civil society.
- Evaluate whether international coordination can protect national tax sovereignty without stopping useful investment.
Watch: Tax havens explained
Watch: Rutger Bregman at Davos: talk about tax
Watch: What are the Paradise Papers?
Disruptive Technology: Drones and 3D Printing
Disruptive technological innovations, such as drones and 3D printing.
A disruptive technology changes costs, locations, relationships or business models. The original page contrasts drones, which alter how information and goods move, with additive manufacturing, which may move production closer to consumers and reduce some traded flows.
- Drones support logistics, mapping, agriculture, disaster response, research and surveillance, while creating safety, privacy and regulatory risks.
- Additive manufacturing builds objects layer by layer from digital files, reducing the need for some components, inventories and long supply chains.
- Digital design files may cross borders even when finished products do not, shifting trade from material goods toward data and intellectual property.
- Technological disruption creates winners and losers among workers, firms, transport systems and places.
Test the claim that distance is becoming less important
- Use the drone films to classify economic, social, environmental and political applications and risks.
- Interpret the original 3D-printing infographic and identify which supply-chain stages could shrink or disappear.
- Read the original trade article and construct one optimistic and one pessimistic 2060 scenario.
- Decide whether these technologies reduce global interdependence or simply create new kinds of connection.
Watch: Elevation: how drones will change cities
Watch: How drones could revolutionise the economy
Watch: SnotBot: drones advancing whale research
Watch: What is 3D printing and how does it work?
Watch: Will 3D printing change the world?
Watch: 3D printing and its impact on trade
Globalisation, Nationalism and Tribalism
Increased globalisation and renewed nationalism or tribalism as sources of geopolitical tension.
Globalisation connects societies but does not distribute benefits, security or cultural influence equally. Perceived loss of control, economic insecurity and identity politics can strengthen nationalism and in-group loyalty, creating new tensions within and between states.
- Nationalism links political identity and sovereignty to the nation; tribalism prioritises loyalty to an in-group over wider institutions or evidence.
- Economic change, migration, cultural anxiety, disinformation and declining institutional trust can intensify polarisation.
- Globalisation can provoke resistance when people perceive that decisions, jobs or cultural authority have moved beyond national control.
- Political actors may amplify fear and difference to mobilise support, turning social divisions into geopolitical risk.
Explain the geography of belonging
- Use the original films and reading to distinguish patriotism, nationalism and tribalism.
- Construct a causal chain linking globalisation to insecurity, political mobilisation and geopolitical tension.
- Apply the chain to one contemporary place and identify evidence that supports or challenges it.
- Evaluate the statement: globalisation creates nationalism rather than replacing it.
Watch: US rejects globalism and embraces patriotism at the UN
Watch: Amy Chua: revenge of the tribes
Watch: Charlottesville: race and terror
Geopolitical Tension: US–China Trade War and Brexit
Examples that illustrate geopolitical tension and conflict arising from globalisation and renewed nationalism.
The original AdornGeo page closes with two located examples. The US–China trade war shows how tariffs, strategic industries and great-power rivalry disrupt global flows. Brexit shows how sovereignty, identity, uneven development and migration reshaped the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union.
- Trade conflicts use tariffs and restrictions to alter the price and direction of international flows.
- US–China tension combines economic competition with technology, security and geopolitical influence.
- Brexit was driven by multiple and unevenly distributed concerns, including sovereignty, identity, migration and regional economic change.
- Both examples reveal a tension between national political control and deep economic interdependence.
Compare two tensions within globalisation
- Map the principal flows affected by the US–China trade war and by Brexit.
- Use the films to identify actors, motivations, actions and consequences at local, national and global scales.
- Complete a comparison table covering sovereignty, identity, economic risk and effects on supply chains.
- Write an HL synthesis judgement: do these examples represent deglobalisation, regionalisation or a reorganisation of globalisation?
Watch: Trade wars explained
Watch: US–China trade war: why it matters
Watch: How trade wars can spark geopolitical conflict
Watch: Brexit as a backlash against globalisation
Watch: What Brexit means for globalisation
National control in an interdependent world
Compare an international trade conflict with the withdrawal of a state from a regional political and economic bloc.
- Locate the major actors and map the most affected flows.
- Separate economic causes from political and identity-based causes.
- Identify consequences for individuals, businesses, states and global institutions.
- Judge whether national action successfully restores sovereignty when economies remain interconnected.