Does geopolitical risk impact sustainable development? A perspective on linkage between geopolitical risk and sustainable development research

Abstract

The impact of the geopolitical crisis radiates into the area of sustainable development, it has become a major challenge hindering the process of sustainable human development. Thorough research is necessary to determine how global geopolitical concerns affect sustainable development. Based on the methodology and paradigm of bibliometrics, this study incorporated the research of geopolitical influences on sustainable development into the analytical framework, creating and comparing structural changes in the field before and after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and systematic basic research using data from relevant publications included in Web of Science core collection. The results indicate that the study of geopolitical influences on sustainable development has attracted widespread interest among scientists and that the number of publications on the subject has been on the rise, Environmental Sciences Ecologic have become the most dominant subject in the research field of the topic. The geographical distribution of publications shows that developed countries have more publications in this field. The evolution of the dynamics of international collaboration reveals heterogeneity in the patterns of country and author collaboration before and after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a decrease in the clustering of country collaboration, and the replacement of the United States by China as the country with the highest intensity of collaboration after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and author collaboration networks show a lack of high-impact author groups in the subject. Thematic clustering results reveal that geopolitical risks have influenced economic, social, and environmental sustainability, which include impacts on economic development, energy security, global supply chains, the water environment, and many others. At the end of the article, relevant suggestions are proposed for achieving sustainable development goals under geopolitical threats.