MONEY
&
POWER
ABOUT
money and power
To answer the question of who gets what, when and how – Lasswell’s famous notion of politics – following the money and the energy is key. Money and energy are respectively the social and the physical backbone of all modern economic activity. The current moment of impeding climate crisis is one where both undercurrents of the economy are subject to such fundamental changes that it is displacing politics as we know it. It appears only proper, then, to dig deep and assess how money and energy and their interaction shape political power and social distribution.
Currently I do this – in cooperation with a great team – via two projects.
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My Freigeist Research Group "Geopolitics in the Age of Offshore Finance" at Freie Universität Berlin examines the political, economic, and legal structures of global offshore financial services. The project analyzes how states, corporations, and wealthy individuals use offshore financial centers—and how this affects global power relations.
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The research project "Powering Wealth", done in cooperation with Colmex (link) and GPPi (link), expands this perspective by exploring how wealthy families shape energy transitions from the 19th century to today, focusing on the energy history and politics of Germany and Mexico.
