Nikhil Kalyanpur
Biographic Data
| ID | 4085527 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nikhil Kalyanpur |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nikhil |
| FAMILY NAME | Kalyanpur |
| SIGNATURE | KALYANPUR N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6200-1509 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Weaponised legal dependence
States increasingly confront security threats from exiled economic elites who retain power through offshore wealth, political influence, and informational leverage. This paper introduces the concept of weaponised legal dependence to explain why and how states file commercial lawsuits against their own citizens in foreign courts – particularly in global legal hubs like London – to neutralise these transnational plutocratic threats. While conventio…
Financial Sanction Spillovers and Firm Interdependence
States increasingly outsource coercion to the market, using sanctions to deter private actors from dealing with blacklisted entities. Despite the key role of such intermediaries, research on economic statecraft is ambiguous about the effect and boundaries of such actions on market participants. We analyze the impact of the Trump administration’s actions against Chinese tech giant Tencent. Leveraging an event-study, we find that sanctions negative…
Twilight of the oligarchs
The hyper-wealthy are increasingly, blatantly influencing politics both at home and abroad. Despite multiple paths to plutocrat-status, and perpetual infighting within the very top of the economic hierarchy, political economy scholarship largely treats plutocrats as possessing the same sources of power and facing similar threats to their wealth. Drawing on comparative political economy and international relations theory, this Commentary develops …
An illiberal economic order
Globalization did not negate state power. It changed the toolkit. We expected the norms and incentives of the liberal economic order to push regimes in places like China and Russia to democratize. Instead, authoritarianism appears to be thriving. This article argues that authoritarians have learned how to take advantage of the institutions underpinning globalization for their own illiberal ends. They use courts in major economic powers to negate …
The Financialization of International Law
We investigate how the international investment regime turned into an investment vehicle. Through the process called third-party funding, financiers back international legal claims by firms against countries and in turn seek a share of any potential award. More generally, we add to debates on how international regimes evolve and at times generate unanticipated consequences. Building off work on the sociology of fields, we argue that institutional…
Domestic courts, transnational law, and international order
This article revisits the relationship between law and international order. Building on legal research concerned with transnational law, we argue that domestic courts are endogenous sites of international political change. National courts are constitutive of international order by generating new rules, adjudicating transnational disputes, and bounding state sovereignty. We illustrate the ways in which national courts create new political opportun…
The MNC‐Coalition Paradox
While the EU takes on an increasingly global regulatory role, we have only a limited understanding of how or when foreign firms influence EU regulation. Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have many of the power resources that determine lobbying success. We argue, however, that high salience blunts foreign corporate power. High salience generates legitimacy concerns for EU institutions, creating a political opportunity structure that favours plural…
Mobilizing Market Power
States with large markets routinely compete with one another to shield domestic regulatory policies from global pressure, export their rules to other jurisdictions, and provide their firms with competitive advantages. Most arguments about market power tend to operationalize the concept in economic terms. In this paper, we argue that a state's ability to leverage or block these adjustment pressures is not only conditioned by their relative economi…
Hegemony, Inequality, and the Quest for Primacy
How does maintaining international primacy affect a hegemon's domestic political economy? Debates on hierarchy, retrenchment, and structural power in the global economy are dominating international relations, yet scholars pay limited attention to the second-image reversed consequences of America's global role. The three books under review begin to correct this deficit. Combining their insights uncovers the effects of power politics on an area of …
Form over function in finance
Dominant perspectives in International Relations start from the assumption that the problem-constellation determines international institutional design. Given the difficulty these ends-oriented approaches face when explaining institutional inefficiencies and pathologies, this article develops an alternate perspective based on anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept of bricolage. Design by bricolage starts from the premise that actors are mea…
Networked liabilities
The proliferation of production networks and cross-border contracting is frequently cited as empowering globally active corporations to skirt, and shape, national regulations. While scholars often focus on the political gains from these new forms of business organization, we shift the conversation to the potential political costs of global firm reorganization. The spread of corporate subsidiaries and global supply-chain networks leave firms vulne…
The MNC‐Coalition Paradox
While the EU takes on an increasingly global regulatory role, we have only a limited understanding of how or when foreign firms influence EU regulation. Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have many of the power resources that determine lobbying success. We argue, however, that high salience blunts foreign corporate power. High salience generates legitimacy concerns for EU institutions, creating a political opportunity structure that favours plural…
Mobilizing Market Power
States with large markets routinely compete with one another to shield domestic regulatory policies from global pressure, export their rules to other jurisdictions, and provide their firms with competitive advantages. Most arguments about market power tend to operationalize the concept in economic terms. In this paper, we argue that a state's ability to leverage or block these adjustment pressures is not only conditioned by their relative economi…
Form over function in finance
Dominant perspectives in International Relations start from the assumption that the problem-constellation determines international institutional design. Given the difficulty these ends-oriented approaches face when explaining institutional inefficiencies and pathologies, this article develops an alternate perspective based on anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept of bricolage. Design by bricolage starts from the premise that actors are mea…
Domestic courts, transnational law, and international order
This article revisits the relationship between law and international order. Building on legal research concerned with transnational law, we argue that domestic courts are endogenous sites of international political change. National courts are constitutive of international order by generating new rules, adjudicating transnational disputes, and bounding state sovereignty. We illustrate the ways in which national courts create new political opportun…
The Financialization of International Law
We investigate how the international investment regime turned into an investment vehicle. Through the process called third-party funding, financiers back international legal claims by firms against countries and in turn seek a share of any potential award. More generally, we add to debates on how international regimes evolve and at times generate unanticipated consequences. Building off work on the sociology of fields, we argue that institutional…
Hegemony, Inequality, and the Quest for Primacy
How does maintaining international primacy affect a hegemon's domestic political economy? Debates on hierarchy, retrenchment, and structural power in the global economy are dominating international relations, yet scholars pay limited attention to the second-image reversed consequences of America's global role. The three books under review begin to correct this deficit. Combining their insights uncovers the effects of power politics on an area of …
Networked liabilities
The proliferation of production networks and cross-border contracting is frequently cited as empowering globally active corporations to skirt, and shape, national regulations. While scholars often focus on the political gains from these new forms of business organization, we shift the conversation to the potential political costs of global firm reorganization. The spread of corporate subsidiaries and global supply-chain networks leave firms vulne…
An illiberal economic order
Globalization did not negate state power. It changed the toolkit. We expected the norms and incentives of the liberal economic order to push regimes in places like China and Russia to democratize. Instead, authoritarianism appears to be thriving. This article argues that authoritarians have learned how to take advantage of the institutions underpinning globalization for their own illiberal ends. They use courts in major economic powers to negate …
Form over function in finance
Dominant perspectives in International Relations start from the assumption that the problem-constellation determines international institutional design. Given the difficulty these ends-oriented approaches face when explaining institutional inefficiencies and pathologies, this article develops an alternate perspective based on anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss's concept of bricolage. Design by bricolage starts from the premise that actors are mea…
Networked liabilities
The proliferation of production networks and cross-border contracting is frequently cited as empowering globally active corporations to skirt, and shape, national regulations. While scholars often focus on the political gains from these new forms of business organization, we shift the conversation to the potential political costs of global firm reorganization. The spread of corporate subsidiaries and global supply-chain networks leave firms vulne…
Hegemony, Inequality, and the Quest for Primacy
How does maintaining international primacy affect a hegemon's domestic political economy? Debates on hierarchy, retrenchment, and structural power in the global economy are dominating international relations, yet scholars pay limited attention to the second-image reversed consequences of America's global role. The three books under review begin to correct this deficit. Combining their insights uncovers the effects of power politics on an area of …
The MNC‐Coalition Paradox
While the EU takes on an increasingly global regulatory role, we have only a limited understanding of how or when foreign firms influence EU regulation. Multinational Corporations (MNCs) have many of the power resources that determine lobbying success. We argue, however, that high salience blunts foreign corporate power. High salience generates legitimacy concerns for EU institutions, creating a political opportunity structure that favours plural…
Mobilizing Market Power
States with large markets routinely compete with one another to shield domestic regulatory policies from global pressure, export their rules to other jurisdictions, and provide their firms with competitive advantages. Most arguments about market power tend to operationalize the concept in economic terms. In this paper, we argue that a state's ability to leverage or block these adjustment pressures is not only conditioned by their relative economi…
Domestic courts, transnational law, and international order
This article revisits the relationship between law and international order. Building on legal research concerned with transnational law, we argue that domestic courts are endogenous sites of international political change. National courts are constitutive of international order by generating new rules, adjudicating transnational disputes, and bounding state sovereignty. We illustrate the ways in which national courts create new political opportun…
The Financialization of International Law
We investigate how the international investment regime turned into an investment vehicle. Through the process called third-party funding, financiers back international legal claims by firms against countries and in turn seek a share of any potential award. More generally, we add to debates on how international regimes evolve and at times generate unanticipated consequences. Building off work on the sociology of fields, we argue that institutional…
An illiberal economic order
Globalization did not negate state power. It changed the toolkit. We expected the norms and incentives of the liberal economic order to push regimes in places like China and Russia to democratize. Instead, authoritarianism appears to be thriving. This article argues that authoritarians have learned how to take advantage of the institutions underpinning globalization for their own illiberal ends. They use courts in major economic powers to negate …
Weaponised legal dependence
States increasingly confront security threats from exiled economic elites who retain power through offshore wealth, political influence, and informational leverage. This paper introduces the concept of weaponised legal dependence to explain why and how states file commercial lawsuits against their own citizens in foreign courts – particularly in global legal hubs like London – to neutralise these transnational plutocratic threats. While conventio…
Financial Sanction Spillovers and Firm Interdependence
States increasingly outsource coercion to the market, using sanctions to deter private actors from dealing with blacklisted entities. Despite the key role of such intermediaries, research on economic statecraft is ambiguous about the effect and boundaries of such actions on market participants. We analyze the impact of the Trump administration’s actions against Chinese tech giant Tencent. Leveraging an event-study, we find that sanctions negative…
Twilight of the oligarchs
The hyper-wealthy are increasingly, blatantly influencing politics both at home and abroad. Despite multiple paths to plutocrat-status, and perpetual infighting within the very top of the economic hierarchy, political economy scholarship largely treats plutocrats as possessing the same sources of power and facing similar threats to their wealth. Drawing on comparative political economy and international relations theory, this Commentary develops …
Politics (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political economy (5 works) · Global Financial Regulation and Crises (4 works) · Law and economics (4 works) · Market economy (4 works) · Business (3 works)