William Vlcek
Lecturer
Room: 304
Office Hours: Thu 15.00 - 16.00; Fri 12.00 - 13.00
Tel: 2913
Email: wbv2
st-andrews.ac.uk
About
After nineteen years working with computer systems for the US military and then in the automotive industry I redirected my focus back to the subject I first set out to study when I entered university, international relations. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in Political Science, Computer Science and Military History I completed a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006. Previous teaching experience includes Aerospace Studies at the College of the Holy Cross and Worchester Polytechnic Institute, Vehicle Communications Networks to automotive industry engineers and technicians in North America and Europe, Foreign Policy Analysis at the LSE and Globalisation and Development at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London.
Teaching
IR3004 - International Political Economy
IR4534 - Terrorist Finance
IR5039 - Political Economy of Conflict
And I contribute lectures on IR1005, IR2005, IR2006, IR3008 and IR5003.
Research
Keywords: Offshore financial centres, small states, money laundering, terrorist finance, international political economy, migrant remittances
My research investigates questions in global finance and the global governance of financial criminality. Central to this work are the offshore financial centres of the Caribbean and the international campaigns to suppress international tax competition, counter money laundering and combat terrorist finance. There is more to the offshore financial centre than banks and the offshore bank accounts that establish them for some people as ‘tax havens’. The widespread use of an international business company, registered in the British Virgin Islands or Cayman Islands, as an investment vehicle behind foreign direct investment to China and elsewhere also situates the offshore financial centre in a global financial network between developed economies and developing economies. Aspects of this research work are presented in publications investigating the impact of money laundering and terrorist finance regulation on banking in the Bahamas and migrant remittances in the United Kingdom; analyses of the connections between Caribbean offshore financial centres and China; and with normative reflections on the location of small states in the global political economy and financial surveillance in the European Union and United States.
Future research:
My current research activity considers offshore financial centres beyond the Caribbean (Ghana, Hong Kong and Mauritius) and the network of relations between offshore financial centres and economic development in China, India and elsewhere. Beyond offshore finance I am intrigued by the promotion of casinos and gambling as a path to economic development. The political economy of Macau is used as a role model for the establishment of new casino complexes in Singapore, the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia. This development strategy raises interesting questions about the efficacy and appropriateness of gambling as an economic policy as well as the cross-border diffusion of development strategies. Moreover, how does this strategy compare to the increased use of lotteries in Europe and the United States to raise revenue, while the United States simultaneously attempts to prevent Internet-based gambling?
Books
Offshore Finance and Small States: Sovereignty, Size and Money, in the Palgrave Macmillan International Political Economy series (2008).
Articles
2011; "Global anti-money laundering standards and developing economies: the regulation of mobile money", Development Policy Review; 29(4): 415 - 431. Link.
2011; "Offshore finance in Ghana: why not?", a contribution to the Debate section of Review of African Political Economy; 38(127): 143 - 149.
2010; "Byways and highways of direct investment: China and the offshore world", Journal of Current Chinese Affairs; 39(4): 111 - 142.
2010; "Along-side global political economy–a rhizome of informal finance", in the special issue "Deleuze and Guattari and International Relations", Journal of International Relations and Development; 13(4): 429 - 451. Link.
2010; "Money laundering prevention and small state development: insights from the case of the Bahamas" Commonwealth and Comparative Politics; 48(3): 373 - 391.
2009; "A Level Playing Field and the Space for Small States"; Journal of International Relations and Development; 12(2):115 - 136.
2009; "Behind an offshore mask: sovereignty games in the global political economy"; Third World Quarterly; 30(8):1465 - 1481.
2009; "Hitting the right target: EU and Security Council pursuit of terrorist financing" Critical Studies on Terrorism; 2(2): 275 - 291.
2008; "A Leviathan Rejuvenated: Surveillance, Money Laundering, and the War on Terror"; International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 20(1 - 4): 21 - 40. Link.
2008; "Competitive or coercive? The experience of Caribbean offshore financial centres with global governance" in the special issue "The Competitiveness of Small Vulnerable Economies: Insights from the Caribbean"; The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs; 97(396): 439 - 452.
2008; "Development vs. Terrorism: Money Transfers and EU Financial Regulations in the UK"; British Journal of Politics and International Relations; 10(2): 286 - 302. Link.
2007; "Why Worry? The Impact of the OECD Harmful Tax Competition Initiative for Caribbean Offshore Financial Centres"; The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 96(390): 331 - 346.
2007; "Surveillance to Combat Terrorist Financing in Europe: Whose Liberty, Whose Security?"; European Security, 16(1): 99 - 119.
2006; "Acts to Combat the Financing of Terrorism: Common Foreign and Security Policy at the European Court of Justice"; European Foreign Affairs Review, 11(4): 491 - 507.
2004; "The OECD and Offshore Financial Centres: Rearguard Action Against Globalisation?"; Global Change, Peace & Security, 16(3): 227 - 242.
Book Chapters
2010; W Vlcek; "Development – Great and small: “Greater China”, small Caribbean islands and offshore finance"; Greater China in an Era of Globalization; Sujian Guo, Baogang Guo (ed); Lexington Books; 205 - 220.
2009; W Vlcek; "The Caribbean Confronts the OECD: Tax Competition and Diplomacy" in The Diplomacies of Small States: Between Vulnerability and Resilience, Andrew F. Cooper and Timothy M. Shaw, eds., Palgrave Macmillan International Political Economy series, 2009; 264 - 278.
2009; W Vlcek; "A Semi-Periphery to Global Capital: Global Governance and Lines of Flight for Caribbean Offshore Financial Centres"; Globalization and the ‘New’ Semi-peripheries; Owen Worth, Phoebe Moore (ed); Palgrave Macmillan; 177 - 197.
2009; W Vlcek; "Governing the offshore: non-independent Caribbean jurisdictions, the EU and the International"; Governance in the non-independent Caribbean: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century; Peter Clegg, Emilio Pantojas (ed); Ian Randle Publishers; 98 - 118.
2008; W Vlcek; "Action and consequence: the predicament of EU measures against the financing of terrorism", in Europe and Transnational Terrorism: Assessing Threats and Countermeasures, Franz Eder and Martin Senn, eds., Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008; 145 - 171.
Administration
School Examinations Officer
Member, Teaching Learning and Assessment Committee
Affiliations
British International Studies Association (2002 - present)
International Studies Association (2007 - present)
European Union Studies Association (2007 - present)
Society of Automotive Engineers (1996 - 2001)
Grants
Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (2010) - £1750.00 awarded for fieldwork in support of the project "Sovereignty under stress: (re)negotiations in the British Caribbean".
Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2008) - £8006.00 awarded towards research expenses for fieldwork in support of the project "Global governance of international corporate firms".
Forthcoming
‘Power and the practice of security to govern global finance’ Review of International Political Economy (2012), available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09692290.2011.611049.
