Robert Rogowsky
Office
Casa Fuente Building CF443B
Tel
(831) 647-3507
Email
rarogowsky@middlebury.edu

Dr. Robert Rogowsky is a professor in the International Trade program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. He also teaches as an adjunct or affiliate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, The Center of Asian and Pacific Cooperation at George Mason University (GMU) and GMU’s School of Public Policy. Dr. Rogowsky is president of the Institute for Trade and Commercial Diplomacy.

Dr. Rogowsky spent nearly two decades at the U.S. International Trade Commission, where he served as chief economist from 1995 to 1999, and as the director of operations from 1992 to 2010. During his tenure as director, he oversaw antidumping and countervailing duty investigations, as well as maintenance of the Harmonized Tariff System. Previously, he was the acting executive director at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection for the Federal Trade Commission.

Dr. Rogowsky has been called upon to testify before Congress on matters involving international trade and is a frequent speaker at academic, corporate, and governmental conferences and organizations worldwide. He was also the founder and executive editor of the Journal of International Commerce and Economics, and has published widely on the topics of international trade, competition policy, and regulation.

Courses Taught

Course Description

Students will choose a focal topic or challenge that is relevant to their degree. Under faculty member’s guidance, students will then implement a suitable plan of activities to shed significant light on this topic. Final products may take many forms including a traditional research paper, a guide or manual for practitioners, a video product, or alternative deliverable that would be of value to a well-defined audience of practitioners. Students must identify a faculty sponsor who has consented to supervise the project in order to enroll in this class. Work can be taken on-campus or in field settings. Credit is variable (4 or 6 units) and depends upon the scope, complexity and rigor of the project.

The B section is 3 credits and is only open to joint IEM/MPA students.

Terms Taught

Summer 2022 - MIIS, Spring 2023 - MIIS

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Course Description

Student must obtain a faculty advisor, complete a Directed Study proposal form, obtain signatures, and submit to the Associate Dean of Academic Operations for approval.

Terms Taught

Fall 2023 - MIIS

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Course Description

Student must obtain a faculty advisor, complete a Directed Study proposal form, obtain signatures, and submit to the Associate Dean of Academic Operations for approval.

Terms Taught

Summer 2022 - MIIS, Fall 2022 - MIIS, Spring 2023 - MIIS

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Course Description

In this course, students will learn to recognize the predisposing factors of a financial crisis and policy options for optimal financial crisis management by looking at historical case studies. But first, we will look at how the ForEx (foreign exchange) market works, who are the different players, how are typical transactions structured, different exchange rate regimes (e.g. pegs, crawling bands, free floats, monetary union), factors influencing exchange rate determination, balance of payments, and sovereign debt sustainability. Students will parse multiple financial crises from both emerging markets and OECD economies. In addition to readings related to cases, students will also have regular reading assignments of current events.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022 - MIIS, Spring 2023 - MIIS, Spring 2024 - MIIS

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Course Description

Terms Taught

Spring 2022 - MIIS, Spring 2023 - MIIS, Spring 2024 - MIIS

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Course Description

Economic Statecraft: Culture and Conflict Resolution

The growing dominance of economic relations among nations requires a keen understanding of economic statecraft. Statecraft is the resolution of conflicts between governments and private parties. An essential skill for economic statecraft is to understand conflict.

To facilitate our exploration of conflict, the course draws from the field of conflict analysis and resolution, a field which seeks to intervene constructively in conflicts. However, constructive intervention demands that we think critically about conflict in order to discern its underlying causes and to understand its dynamics. From such an understanding, you may develop meaningful objectives to address, resolve, or perhaps even transform the conflict into something constructive. Moreover, objectives grounded in a thorough understanding of the conflict should drive the intervention strategy. If the linkage between analytic findings, objectives, and strategy is present, then the likelihood of a constructive outcome increases substantially. The course is designed to help you to think more critically about conflict, providing you with some tools to structure your analysis, shape your intervention objectives, and develop your strategy to achieve those objectives.

This course is inherently multi and interdisciplinary, drawing on conceptual frameworks derived from psychology, sociology, anthropology, international relations, political science, economics, and other social sciences, but also informed by all fields of human inquiry. Students will critically apply theories to seek a better understanding of conflicts, to intervene constructively, and to advance theory and practice related to statecraft.

This course explores a wide range of conflict-related theories. We begin by considering conflict narratives and discourses and our ability to think critically about conflict. Then, we will examine the major, often overlapping theories at work in the field, loosely categorized as theories of social structure, theories of human nature, and theories of culture and meaning-making.

Theories of human nature and identity – viewing each individual as a unit of analysis; accounting for “what is inside of you” with an emphasis on what lies beneath the conscious level

Theories of social structure – viewing a social institution, typically comprising sustained, hierarchical, and multi-layered relationships, as a unit of analysis; accounting for “what you are inside of” 


Theories of culture – viewing an epistemological system of meaning-making as a unit of analysis; accounting for “what is inside us” with an emphasis on shared interpretive lenses with which to understand intercultural social phenomenon.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022 - MIIS, Fall 2023 - MIIS

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Course Description

The global marketplace has become more integrated, more vibrant, and more complex. As a result, it becomes more difficult to analyze, to negotiate, and to navigate. The complications and difficulties are increasingly housed and addressed within the ambit of trade policy. This course explores the changing structure of international commerce underlying and driving the trade relations evolving across the world and focuses on the most pressing trade issues that are looming for the next 5 years.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022 - MIIS, Fall 2023 - MIIS

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Course Description

The substance and practice of diplomacy are rapidly changing. The profession of representing nation states, companies and NGOs has collided with the 24-hour media cycle, terrorism and extremism, globalization and the global financial crisis, climate change, proliferation, disease, changes in demography and stresses on international institutions. This course focuses on three critical skill sets for Economic Diplomacy: Commercial Diplomacy, Trade Compliance, Strategic Export Control. The class divided in sections focusing on each and will include readings and guest lectures from practitioners prominent in their respective fields. Required research paper.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022 - MIIS

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Areas of Interest

International trade, trade economics, international strategic management, antidumping and countervailing, competition policy, and regulation.

Academic Degrees

  • PhD in Economics, University of Virginia
  • MA in Economics, University of Virginia
  • BA, Economics, Boston University

Professor Rogowsky has been teaching at the Institute since 2011.

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