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The purpose of this paper is to examine how changes in the global geopolitical climate have created new and more acute reputation risks for multinational corporations.

This viewpoint examines recent shifts in the global geopolitical claims covered in international media and analyzes variety of instances in which these shifts have created new and more intense reputation risks. From this analysis, the authors derive insights into how companies can prepare for and manage their operations to mitigate potential reputation risks.

The author finds that the increases in reputation risk created by shifting global geopolitical structures expose weaknesses in the infrastructure and skill sets by which companies manage their corporate reputation and makes recommendations about overcoming these weaknesses.

The geopolitical issues analyzed and the reputation risks exposed are selective; therefore, this is not a comprehensive review of all the potential risks.

Companies can do a great deal to protect themselves from new reputation risks created by the geopolitical shifts discussed by setting up a new infrastructure for managing and reporting on these risks and hiring communications professionals with the appropriate capabilities for analyzing and managing the risks.

If these new risks are well managed, the potential for significant business disruption and the safety and security of corporate employees could be significantly reduced.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first discussion of geopolitical shifts and corporate reputation.

Recent decades have witnessed great interest in Leon Trotsky’s idea of uneven and combined development (UCD) by Marxist scholars of International Relations (IR). A burgeoning literature has argued that one interpretation, Justin Rosenberg’s U&CD, resolves the question of ‘the international’ by offering a single, non-Realist theory capable of uniting both sociological and geopolitical factors in the explanation of social change across history. Evaluating this claim, this paper argues that the transhistorical ways in which U&CD has been developed reproduce, reaffirm and reinforce some of the more important shortcomings of Realist IR. I develop my argument through an internal critique of Rosenberg’s conception of U&CD, which, I argue, is illustrative of larger shortcomings within the literature. I conclude that the political and geopolitical economy of UCD and their dynamics must be grasped through the specific social and historical relations in which they are immersed.

This paper situates geopolitical economy in light of a broader rethinking of the history of capitalism and international power. It discusses why the ideas of British and American hegemony are problematic. Specifically, it argues that categorizing these powers as hegemonic leaves out a more complex history that theories of hegemony have excluded, and cannot include, else the concept of hegemony would collapse. Finally, I suggest geopolitical economy may be a starting point for writing a new history of capitalism and world order.

This study aims to investigate the influence of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and geopolitical risk (GPR) on the relationship between internal cash flow and external financing in an emerging market, Saudi Arabia. It also examines the role of asset tangibility and financial crisis in establishing this relationship.

The sample was taken from non-financial sector companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange between 2002 and 2019. The data were analyzed using panel data regression analysis, including ordinary least squares and fixed effects model. The author addresses potential endogeneity through the generalized method of moments.

This study found that both EPU and GPR reduce the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow. This implies that firms depend more on internally generated funds during periods of increased EPU and GPR. Besides, this study found that the influence of EPU and GPR on the sensitivity of external financing to internal cash flow is more (less) negative for more tangible firms (during the financial crisis period). This result implies that Saudi firms boasting a higher level of tangibility are more flexible when it comes to seeking external financing. However, the presence of uncertainty during the crisis period makes the external financing costly, and therefore, firms will be less likely to raise funds from external sources.

This study has important implications for managers, policymakers and regulators. First, the paper findings provide insights for corporate decision-makers in helping them to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during uncertain times. Second, the findings help managers to understand the role of asset tangibility in raising external funding when firms face financial constraints due to uncertainty. Third, this study also helps corporates to focus on internal funds to finance their investment during the crisis period because EPU and GPR increase the cost of external finance. Finally, the results provide guidelines for policymakers and regulators to make appropriate policy measures to increase the easy availability of external finance during periods of increased EPU and GPR.

This paper is the first to shed light on the impact of internal funds on external financing while paying close attention to the role of EPU and GPR.

This article aims to provide a timely examination of and reflection on the impact of COVID-19 on the neo-liberal paradigm that has been prevalent in international higher education (HE) for two decades since the late 1990s.

Methodologically, this paper deploys conceptual mapping as an analytical tool to explore and examine the global news updates that provide timely (i.e. early 2020) record of the fast-moving pandemic.

It unfolds four pairs of contradictions occurring in the Western universities during the pandemic outbreak, i.e. HE as cross-border services vs border control, the state's shrinking public funding vs universities under financial threat, increased reliance on foreign students' tuition fee vs decreased international enrolment and the user-pays philosophy vs the rising force of user says.

It is argued that the pending crises facing Western universities are not merely financial issues; they reveal the shortcomings that are inherent in business model of HE driven by economic globalisation but triggered by coronavirus pandemic to erupt. The pandemic should be temporary, but its spill-over effects may alter the overarching landscape of the international HE relations, which is part and parcel of the changing geopolitical order featured as de-globalisation.

The paper has practical implications for acting on international HE in the time of coronavirus pandemic. They mainly consider four aspects: (1) travel distance as new determinant of study abroad, (2) the renewed significance of a state's role in policymaking and financial undertaking, (3) shortcomings in market mechanism and (4) East Asia as an emerging regional hub of study abroad.

This paper is expected to leverage three lessons learned from the upending situation. First, it is conceptually misleading to define international HE as a form of market-led “transnational service” and cross-border tradeable product undermining a state's control. Second, a state's supervising model needs to be reviewed, to embrace the renewed relationship between a state and universities in the new context of global pandemic. Third, the global landscape of international HE may be altered.

This conceptual paper provides a timely critique of the neo-liberal paradigm in HE and shedding light on the changing global landscape of international HE along with the changing geopolitical relations reshuffled by COVID-19 and its spill-over effects.

The Finno-Ugric identity, originally formulated by 19th century academics and nurtured as part of national-identity movements, has revived since the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991). This chapter explores the transnational vitality of the Finno-Ugric identity for Estonians in the post-Soviet era. In particular, I ask, “How has the Finno-Urgic identity remained meaningful in the contemporary geopolitical context?” I draw on Schiffman's (2006) “linguistic culture” framework to understand the renewed relevance of the Finno-Ugric identity. I argue that the identity's continuing significance and renewed vitality stems from the new meanings that Finno-Ugric culture has taken on in the particular post-Soviet geopolitical context. I examine the key role of Finno-Ugric identity in Estonian efforts to sustain lesser-used-language (LUL) instruction domestically and to support its development internationally. By analyzing Estonia's varied experiences with LUL advocacy and development, I explore how Finno-Ugric linguistic culture functions as a rich resource in developing Estonian national identity, in making statements of ethnic solidarity, and in providing new methods for language revitalization.

This study aims to investigate how the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese outward foreign direct investments (FDI) impact the Belt and Road countries (BRCs). It draws on postcolonial theory to investigate the (geo)political objectives behind the financial and economic means.

In line with the nature of postcolonial studies, the study applies a discourse analysis integrating it with empirical data on indebtedness and trade.

This study finds that FDI and the BRI, as a development project, need to be considered a double-edged sword for the receiving countries. The authors provide evidence that China has instrumentalized financial and economic means to gain political influence and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Moreover, investments into sensitive sectors (e.g. energy, infrastructure), combined with the BRCs’ inability to pay back loans, could eventually lead to China gaining control of these assets.

The study investigates the financial and economic means that are instrumentalized to gain political influence while not considering flows of technology and know-how. It also limits itself to the study of FDI coming from one specific country, i.e. China. Therefore, no comparison and evaluation are made of FDI from other countries, such as the USA or European countries.

By revealing noncommercial objectives and geopolitical ambitions that China pursues through the BRI, the authors derive policy implications for the BRCs, third countries and China.

The study contributes to postcolonial theory and neocolonialism by investigating how China uses financial and economic means to achieve noncommercial objectives and pursue geopolitical ambitions. Additionally, the authors enhance the understanding of FDI by highlighting more subtle aspects of the complex and contextual nature of FDI as a social phenomenon, which have been overlooked thus far. The authors challenge the predominant positive framing of FDI and provide a counterpoint to the way FDI is often coined.

This paper aims to offer a unified economic interpretation of the existing evidence on the Manila Galleon. It intends to be an introduction to the Manila Galleon for economists curious about long-term patterns in global trade, but who are not experts on economic history.

The paper jointly presents quantitative and qualitative data to analyze in a critical way the existing work on the Manila Galleon. It proposes a conceptual model from the world-systems approach to reflect on the impact of this trade route. Evidence from two case studies, New Granada and Korea, accompany the model.

The paper finds that the Manila Galleon was only possible because of the temporary coincidence of a quite singular set of international circumstances and favorable local market conditions. The paper also finds that, despite its large effects on the global integration of silver markets, the Manila Galleon was a profoundly asymmetric activity that brought minor consequences to most of the world.

This paper shows the importance of additional studies providing systematic quantitative evidence on the Manila Galleon. The long tradition of an archival collection developed by historians offers a huge potential to this line of research. In addition, studies in regions different from Mexico, the Philippines, Spain and China would contribute to a better understanding of the Manila Galleon’s global consequences.

This paper provides a series of reflections useful to think about the future challenges of global trade. These challenges require understanding the transformations that will come from profound technological change, massive reconfigurations of the geopolitical order and transitions in the long-term cycles of commodities. Because of their rare occurrence, these are forces hardly visible in recent history, making it necessary for the existence of long-term points of reference such as the Manila Galleon.

This paper brings together widespread evidence on the Manila Galleon and provides a unified interpretation of it. This opens the door for audiences who are not experts on the economic history of the period to discuss the topic, allowing them to reflect on its lessons for the modern world.

This chapter shifts contemporary debates on Eurocentrism from its focus on European social theory to an analysis of its moorings in non-Atlantic sociological traditions and especially those within ex-colonial countries. It discusses the sociological/anthropological visions of two first generation sociologists/anthropologists from India, G. S. Ghurye (1893–1983) and D. P. Mukerji (1894–1961), within Orientalist-Eurocentric positions and explores how these are reinvented in the work of contemporary sociologist T. N. Madan (1933–). It suggests that colonial processes and its institutions together with “derivative” nationalist ideas have played and continue to play important mediatory role in organizing these Orientalist-Eurocentric visions.

The chapter presents three sets of arguments. First it suggests that in order to understand postcolonialism it is imperative to lay out the organic links between Orientalism and Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism and its mirror Orientalism mediated to frame social science language in terms of the binaries of universal (the West) and particular (the East). The particular was represented in India through the discipline of anthropology. The latter studied “traditions” through the themes of religion, caste, and family and kinship. When sociology emerged as a discipline in India in the early twentieth century, it continued to use the language organized by anthropology to analyze the particular cultural traditions of the country. Second, I suggest that these binaries also framed nationalist thought and the latter mediated in framing the sociological ideas of G. S. Ghurye and D. P. Mukerji which were embedded in Eurocentric-Orientalist principles. Third, I analyze the ideas of the contemporary social theorist T. N. Madan to indicate how his perspective continues to derive its positions from Orientalist-Eurocentric positions and ignores an engagement with critics who have questioned Orientalist Eurocentrism. Disregarding these arguments implies the legitimation of the latter perspective derived from the disciplines of sociology/anthropology.

The chapter contends that a decolonized critique of colonial social science has existed in other regions of the world including India, and that this perspective needs to be retrieved by social theorists to reformulate the sociological discourse as a study of modern India. It also suggests that contemporary analysis of Eurocentrism needs to move out from within the circuits of knowledge defined by received colonial geopolitical enclaves in order to assess the way production, distribution, and consumption of Orientalist-Eurocentric perspectives have organized sociological traditions across the world including the Global South.