Brief summary

For decades, global finance has relied on the payment messaging infrastructure provided by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). It is therefore an essential component for making cross-border payments globally. But not everyone is happy with this arrangement. Numerous countries, including Russia, China, and Iran, view the Brussels-based SWIFT as a strategic liability which exposes their economics to Western sanctions. For example, Russia was excluded from SWIFT following its recent invasion of Ukraine. To evade this risk, they have sought to create various SWIFT alternatives. We know little, however, about the nature of these alternative systems or the political, legal, and economic conditions which impact their success. This new project, an interdisciplinary collaboration between Leiden Law School and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, will fill this gap by investigating the politics of payment infrastructures. 

Its specific objectives are to (a) create a novel dataset of SWIFT alternatives; (b) conduct a comparative analysis of their features; and (c) investigate the political and economic dimensions of their implementation. By performing these tasks, this project will contribute to our understanding of international political economy and the politics of economic statecraft. Further, it will facilitate novel interdisciplinary insights on the interconnections between financial law and international relations.  

Interdisciplinary contributions

This project promotes the development of new interfaculty collaboration through the following contributions: 

• New interdisciplinary partnership: The project will facilitate a new interdisciplinary partnership between scholars representing different Leiden institutes: The Institute of Security and Global Affairs and the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law. These faculties have historically had minimal interaction, and thus the project will break new ground and establish a foundation for future collaboration on research, teaching, and service. 

• New interdisciplinary research approach: By combining insights from international relations and the law of finance, this project will facilitate a novel collaborative approach to the topic of payment systems. These fields have generally operated in silos with little theoretical or empirical interactions. This project will break these silos, identifying novel connections between both fields and laying the groundwork for future research on the interactions of law, finance, financial policy & regulation, and international security. 

• Opportunities for student research assistants to obtain interdisciplinary knowledge: By hiring 1-2 research assistants, this project will provide students with a unique opportunity to work on an interdisciplinary research project combining insights from law and international relations. Students are traditionally hired to perform assistance within only one of these fields. But the nature of the project and its team will create a unique opportunity for hired students to learn about their cross-disciplinary interconnections.  

Relationship to existing research

This is a new interdisciplinary project. But it builds on the expertise and research agendas of both authors. Dr. Ebbe Rogge specializes in financial services policy & regulation, capital markets and corporate governance. His work has been published in numerous outlets, including the Review of Banking and Financial Law, European Company and Financial Law Review, the Journal of World Energy Law & Business, and the Hastings Environmental Law Journal. Dr. Miles Kellerman’s research centers on the international politics of finance and has been published in outlets such as Regulation & Governance, the Journal of European Public Policy, and The Review of International Organization. 

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