Harry Oppenheimer

Harry Oppenheimer is a political scientist and Postdoctoral Fellow in Technology and International Security at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) based in Washington, D.C. In 2024, he will begin as an assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Policy and School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (by courtesy). Harry’s research program focuses on the relationship between international security and the digital economy, incorporating research methods and approaches from computer science and political science. His work addresses issues such as how weaponized interdependence and international security shape data flows, how data flows influence regulatory cooperation, and how states develop institutions to respond to digital threats and harness growth. His work is forthcoming in Public Opinion Quarterly, under revision by multiple peer-review journals, and has been featured in popular avenues such as Newsweek.com and DefenseOne. He previously worked at the Council on Foreign Relations as research associate for national security, where he focused on U.S. counterinsurgency and counterterrorism policy. Harry earned his BA from New York University, his AM from Harvard University, and his doctorate in Government from Harvard University in 2023.

Plans for the Fellowship: Harry plans to build on his dissertation research with two new papers during his fellowship. In the first he will examine how the digital economy responds to sanctions, using the Russia-Ukraine war as a case study. He plans to leverage advances in internet measurement to understand how sanctions influenced the Russian digital space. His second paper will look at the relationship between the digital and physical battlefield in Ukraine. The new paper seeks to understand how militaries use control of data flows to consolidate territorial gains in conflict. He has also finished working papers he plans to publish over the next year. One paper examines the effects of the Snowden leaks on data flows and data interconnection, and another looks at how digital interdependence creates opportunities for global digital crime networks.