Geopolitical/Geoeconomic Expertise as Dilettante Ethnography

An Everyday SportSitting in view of Spanish Point off the West coast of Ireland, Seamus articulated his lifeworld with great eloquence, not uncommon to Irish men of his generation.His day job, until recently, required that he be on top of whatever geopolitical uncertainty and risks his investment decisions had to weather.Current times felt no different in many ways: geopolitics was always a factor that affected his work, making him strive to be a good strategist.A former investment banker in his late-60s, Seamus now put his strategicthinking skills in the service of the Irish government.When not playing golf nearby, he joined people of his caliber, all well-educated and highly experienced in their fields, at an international expert group that was formed to adjudicate sustainable financing for energy and transport infrastructure projects.There they collectively played problem-solving around the current uncertainties and risks of geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamics.One such issue that preoccupied Seamus recently involved multi-level actors in his very neighborhood.One of the worldʼs biggest U.S.-based multinational engineering companies was interested in building an offshore wind farm in the North Atlantic Sea and planned to use the local area marred by an underutilized airport.Seamus advised the government and the local airport authorities on this deal, to help them get favorable terms, that would be equally sustainable for the local population, economy, and the environment.Meanwhile, at the expert group, he and his collaborators mulled over the combined geopolitical-geoeconomic costs of U.S. economic policy under President Trump, whose family also ran a golf course nearby, should the Irish defy the Americans.The Trump administrationʼs "New Deal" looked a lot like a "shake down of allies" from the other side of the Atlantic, ironically causing a second coming of European integration.In hindsight, no one in Europe, including expert strategists like Seamus, foresaw the audacity of and the speed with which the rules of the economic game were now being recast.This was the source of their unease and the mental joy they got from engaging in geopolitical economics as an everyday sport.