Zhizhen Lu

Zhizhen Lu is a PhD candidate at the Department of Government, UT studying the intersection between international political economy and security. His research contributes to the understanding of multinational corporations (MNCs) compliance with economic sanctions. As sanction enforcement highlighting private self-regulation, he asks to what is the function of corporate sanction compliance programs in sanction compliance, given the possibility that these self-policing risk management structures can be merely “window-dressing”. He investigates the strategic role of private self-governance regime in the interactions between firms and sanction enforcement agencies. He uses game-theoretic models, observational data, experiments, and interviews (not all in one project) to address this research question. Prior to UT, he obtained an MA in International Trade and Investment Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.