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South Africa, like most other countries, is in the process of reducing its carbon emissions to comply with COP26 and, hopefully, reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, because South Africa relies almost wholly on coal (93%) for electricity, and on coal for artificial gasoline, this is a huge task. Furthermore, its state-owned utility - ESCOM - is just recovering from a period of corrupt, "state capture," and requires state support to cover its debt service. Finally, because of the country's high unemployment and strong labor unions, a "just energy transition" is essential. Jobs and retraining for thousands of coal miners and energy workers, their families and communities, will dominate the process of energy transition.

Many of the West's political problems in the Middle East and in Iran in particular can be traced to the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh by military forces supported by the American CIA and the British MI6 in August 1953. Mossadegh, at the head of a newly-elected nationalist government, had nationalized the Iranian oil industry that had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), now known as BP. Since 1908, the AIOC had been producing enormous revenue for London, and control of Iranian oil was essential to the British Empire. In order to gain Washington's assent to the coup, the Americans had to be convinced that Mossadegh represented a geopolitical threat, not merely an economic one. Ever since, the overthrow of Mossadegh has been seen as evidence of the extent of the supposed neo-imperialist motivations of the West in the post-colonial world.

Sweden's model of capitalism rests on a unique social contract, in which social welfare priorities can co-exist within a vibrant capitalist system. In 2022, however, contemporary pressures were growing on the traditional Swedish model, including mounting calls for privatization of the welfare system and political backlash surrounding the country's immigration policy. This case examines the long-term sustainability of the Swedish model, and the extent to which it is (or is not) transferrable to other political contexts and nation states.

A year of political turmoil, capped by the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, presented new challenges to many corporations, including AT&T. The telecommunications giant's efforts to influence legislation and government administrators on topics from net neutrality to potential mergers had always been political, but expansion of the company's political activism to encompass subjects outside of telecommunications in recent years had brought additional scrutiny from customers, legislators, and, increasingly, employees. Corporate statements in support of social justice based on race, gender, and sexuality had raised questions about the company's political donations to candidates expressing policy preferences running counter to these values. The violent protests at the Capitol, which threatened the peaceful transition of power between presidential administrations, brought AT&T's political activity under fire once again. AT&T had strong lobbying relationships with many members of Congress that had objected to the election results and had even made political action committee (PAC) contributions to 98 of their campaigns. As the vote tallies and political donations came to light the next day, the company needed a plan to navigate the tense situation. Fictional protagonist Iyanna MacGregor, the top aide for AT&T's executive vice president for external and legislative affairs, was responsible for drafting AT&T's public statement and strategic political positions for the new Congress, set to take office in conjunction with the new presidential administration a few weeks after the insurrection events on January 6. It was essential for MacGregor's strategy to address whether and to what extent AT&T would continue to interact with various governmental actors, particularly the members of Congress who had attempted to undermine the democratic process.

This case covers TikTok's purchase of Musical.ly and the reaction of the United States government, including the review of the purchase by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the reaction of the presidential administration of Donald Trump. The case delves into the mechanics of CFIUS' legal mandate and its review process, in order to shed light on how the United States views data security in the context of rising geopolitical tensions, particularly with China and Russia. The case also looks at how China and Russia, among others, are seeking to establish their own versions of "internet sovereignty" in order to expand their domestic control and international influence. The case asks how these countervailing forces impact a company such as TikTok that seeks to become a global platform and how it can respond.

This case is the first of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communication decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship program of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases center on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to implement the SBM - focused on changing the behaviour of over 500 million people from open defecation to the usage of toilets. Case C discusses the team's strategy to promote sanitation behaviour change, accelerate progress in states with particularly recalcitrant rates of open defecation, and monitor progress at a national scale. A key theme is how the team employed methods unconventional for a historically low-profile government ministry, including personalized attention to certain states, harnessing the power of stardom to communicate key messages, and continuing to leverage political commitment from the Central (Federal) government. The case ends with a sense of achievement but outlines the issues that could threaten the sustainability of the gains made in toilet. Readers are challenged to analyse how lessons from SBM could inform public policies for eliminating open defecation in other countries.

This case is the first of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communication decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship program of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases center on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to implement the SBM - focused on changing the behaviour of over 500 million people from open defecation to the usage of toilets. Case B discusses the start-up challenges for SBM, including implementation in India's complex federal system, workplace culture, and the deep-rooted behaviour of open defecation in rural India and the managerial and communication strategies formulated to address them. The case concludes by framing the difficulties and challenges faced by the mission as it got scaled up.

This case is the first of a three-part series that follows the managerial, strategic, and communication decisions of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) or Clean India Mission, the flagship program of the Government of India to eliminate the practice of open defecation (i.e., not using a toilet) from 2014 to 2019. As of 2014, 550 million people in India practiced open defecation. This problem posed a massive public health hazard and economic drag for the country. Written from an insider's perspective, the cases center on the decisions made by a new Secretary of India's Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, who was hired to implement the SBM - focused on changing the behaviour of over 500 million people from open defecation to the usage of toilets. Case A sets the stage for addressing open defecation in rural India and discusses the human resources and strategic challenges to implementing SBM from the vantage point of the new Secretary. It ends with strategic dilemmas related to what the new SBM team should do once they had sized up the challenges to eliminating open defecation by 2019. The case provides an opportunity to deliberate the managerial and strategic decisions of a globally relevant public behaviour change and rural infrastructure development program as well as different forms of public sector implementation in the Indian context.

When Donald Trump announced his run for president in 2015, he placed immigration front and center in his campaign. He promised to drastically expand U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Immigration quickly became a critical and divisive issue in the 2016 presidential campaign. This case places students in the role of a fictional partner at McKinsey & Co. who must determine whether to pursue a multimillion-dollar contract extension with ICE. The potential extension comes in the weeks after Trump began pursuing a "zero-tolerance" border policy, which led to the separation of almost 3,000 children from their families in the span of a few weeks. The policies resulted in an international outcry, making the question of the contract extension controversial, even before a prominent New York Times article drew attention to McKinsey's previous questionable work with another country's government. The protagonist must weigh public perception, potential profits, staff morale, McKinsey's reputation among its other clients, and her own career advancement as she decides whether to extend the contract.

In 2013, two employees debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer, Uptown Bank, after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. Uptown Bank's Asset Management business disproportionately invested clients' money in Uptown Bank's mutual funds over funds managed by other banks, letting Uptown Bank collect additional fees-and the bank had not disclosed this conflict of interest to clients. Both employees agreed that failing to disclose the conflict was a problem, but beyond that, they saw the situation very differently. One employee, Neel, perceived the internal review as a good-faith effort by Uptown Bank's senior management to identify and address the problem. The other, Akash, thought that the entire business model was problematic, even with a disclosure, and believed that Uptown Bank may have even broken the law. They considered their options: Should they escalate the issue internally or report it to Uptown Bank's board of directors? Should they go even further and report their findings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission? What would the potential risks and rewards of speaking out be?

In the late 1920s and early 1930s when Joseph Stalin, leader of the world's first Communist state, sought to industrialize his largely peasant country on an unprecedented scale, he turned for help to those who had the most experience constructing on such a scale: American businessmen. The ultimate stated purpose of his industrialization program, however, was to end the capitalist system that those businessmen embodied. At the time, the Soviet Union was an international pariah, not recognized by Washington until 1933, surrounded by largely hostile states whose political systems Moscow was trying to subvert in a contest that both sides saw as existential. Despite this, it was American architects and engineers that gave the Soviets the advanced designs and technology they needed to build "socialism in one country," constructing the industrial base that would one day defeat Nazi Germany.

The First Opium War (1839-1842) symbolized the peak of the era of European imperialism, with a political and cultural legacy that remains potent to this day. The British Empire, "acquired in a fit of absent-mindedness" as one observer famously claimed, seemed to be financially dependent on the sale of illegal narcotics to China, which had banned the trade. Nevertheless, London was willing to go to war to force China to import its opium, and superior British military technology made resistance unfeasible. Ever since, China's political leaders have seen this even as the beginning of their "Century of Humiliation," and China's political objective ever since has been to upend the political and economic order that made such a humiliation possible.

In the fall of 2013, the people of Ukraine disagreed passionately whether their country should intensify ties with the European Union or Russia. After President Yanukovych rejected the free trade agreement with the EU in November, thousands of Ukrainians peacefully protested. But the protest movement morphed into a violent, deadly confrontation in January, culminating in February in mass slaughter, an overthrow of government, foreign invasion, and international crisis. The four months that shook Ukraine is a case study on the interrelated problems of geopolitical struggle, politics of economic pacts and clash of regional economic blocks, post-imperial disintegration and trade, and identity and interdependence.

In June 2021, Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president, surprised the world with the announcement that the country would adopt bitcoin as legal tender, becoming the first nation to do so. Bitcoin was mostly used for trading and had one of the most volatile track records among assets. Yet, crypto adoption as a medium of exchange was starting to gain pace worldwide. Bukele claimed it would be a boon for financial inclusion, investment, innovation, and economic development. El Salvador's $27 billion economy suffered from persistently low growth, high public debt, and a strong dependence on remittances, which could potentially become cheaper and faster to access in bitcoins. The Bitcoin plan was met with both enthusiasm from Bitcoin supporters and skepticism from credit agencies and multilateral finance institutions, which believed it could bring macroeconomic instability to the local economy. Was bitcoin a viable currency for Salvadorans? Or, as some observers pointed out, was Bukele's plan another sign of weakened governance in his administration?

This note provides an update on the space financing state of play in 2021.