Geopolitical Relations Research Articles

Guest-Editors’ Introduction: Re-Worlding the Gulf: Anomaly as Geopolitical Function

The multi-vector development discourse about ‘the Gulf’ as booming in an emerging multi-polar world sets a very high bar for the scholars who sustain the function of this anomaly in the Global South. Recognizing that a variegated propaganda-for-sale is at play in the production of an ideological Gulf narrative, we have invested in this Special Issue, titled ‘The Gulf and the World.’ We have sought to identify the prevailing hegemonic discourse devised to render palpable the geopolitical relationship between a Western capitalist project and their allies in the Gulf. The resulting findings situate the myth of a selective group of Western-leaning states circulating within often disparate, even rival, scholarly approaches. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have not only monopolized scholarly notions of the Gulf, but also engendered in developmental terms a disjointed, if not crumbling, MENA region. At this juncture, its character as a contemporary ‘anomaly’ carries concrete function in creating a new analytical prism that reinserts the Gulf’s strategic value as a particular operational node for the imperialist fracturing of the wider region in terms of socio-cultural, economic and political cohesion. As hinted throughout, scholarship on the Gulf contraption requires new frames of analysis.

 New Regional Trade Architecture in the Emerging Balkans in the Book THE WESTERN BALKANS COOPERATION, GEOPOLITICS AND ECONOMIC TRANSITIONS AND RELATIONS 

 New Regional Trade Architecture in the Emerging Balkans in the Book THE WESTERN BALKANS COOPERATION, GEOPOLITICS AND ECONOMIC TRANSITIONS AND RELATIONS 

A Hypergame Model of Conflict Cusp Helix for Noncooperative Boundedly Rational Multi-Polar Actors Using Deep Adversarial Reinforcement Learning and Misperception Information Strategies

Abstract In the aftermath of the Cold War era, the world shifted from a tale of two competing superpowers, to a highly complex and multi-polar narrative. In a new world order, geopolitical relations, diplomacy, power plays and conflicts among countries became so perplex that any attempt to emulate realistic scenarios, conduct robust simulations, all the more so deduct foreseeable outcomes, would be nothing short of tenuous, if not practically infeasible. Besides, unlike physical systems for which universal uniformities factually and fundamentally exist, social systems do not obey implicit and exact “natural-laws-of-physics”. And while a plethora of modeling approaches have been deployed hitherto to tackle with the intrinsic complexity of warfare dynamics, however the required interdisciplinary synthesis has not been explored in the literature. In a first attempt to attain this fusion of cutting-edge methodologies, I propose a novel hybrid approach to conflict analysis.

Historical Cultural Interactions Between East and Inner Asia: The Manchurian Tenggeri, Japanese Shamisen, Tuvan Doshpuluur, And Chinese Sanxian

During the development of modern East Asian music, existing research on the Manchurian tenggeri has remained superficial, with few studies comparing it with other Asian three-stringed instruments. This paper primarily outlines the similarities and differences between the tenggeri and three other instruments, while also discussing their historical context and geopolitical relations. It first briefly describes the appearance and techniques of the four instruments. It then compares and discusses the relationships between the four instruments. Lastly, the paper outlines the geopolitical context and cultural flow in their historical backgrounds. The paper points out that in the historical development of East Asia and Inner Asia, there are population, linguistic, and cultural links or kinships, with musical instruments and culture being transmitted and inherited across different regimes. Finally, the paper concludes with the connections between the Manchurian tenggeri, the Japanese shamisen, and the Chinese sanxian, bringing the tenggeri back to the public view.

Objections to the “global harm principle” with regard to migration policy

This work points out problems that would arise from applying the “Global Harm Principle” (GHP), a non-ideal theory regarding global migrations. The Global Harm Principle derives from the “Harm Principle”, articulated by John Stuart Mill during the 19th century, expanded to include geopolitical relations and migratory flows. The article aims to refute GHP. Several objections are listed to demonstrate the unfeasibility of its implementation, through historical and socio-political reasoning, as well as thought experiments. We conclude by speculating that the deficiencies in GHP are due to its formulator, Shelley Wilcox, inadvertently falling into a fallacy of composition when expanding Mill’s reasoning to cover geopolitics and, afterwards, committing a fallacy of division when addressing harm compensation.

China–ASEAN Tourism Economic Relationship Network: A Geopolitical Risk Perspective

Despite extensive research on the network structure of tourism destinations, literature on the spatial network structure of cross-border tourism–economic connections is relatively limited, specifically the complex geopolitical relationship between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Thus, in this study we explored the relevant characteristics and influencing factors of the spatial structure of tourism economic networks. The results first indicate that the China–ASEAN tourism economic network exhibits distinct stage characteristics, with an ‘N’-shaped fluctuating growth trend, evolving from a point-like network to a multipolar development in spatial structure. In addition, China demonstrates a distinctive personality in the network and occupies a central leadership position. Secondly, an analysis of influencing factors shows that institutional distance and geographic distance have a significant impact on the network. Geopolitical risk plays a notable indirect moderating role in the network through its association with tourism policies and regulations, tourism promotion, and cooperation. This further reveals the diverse pathways through which geopolitical risk affects the network, providing a novel perspective for research on the tourism economic network.

The Role of Media Diplomacy in Shaping the State’s International Image

The article attempts to determine the role of media diplomacy in shaping the state's image in the international arena. Media diplomacy under the conditions of globalization transformed geopolitical relations and changed the hierarchical system of foreign policy decision-making, highlighting the competition among states for the opportunity to influence public opinion. The information policy of the state involves not only the dissemination of positive information about it in the international information space, but also the integration of politicians, state government structures, non-state actors, famous personalities, and opinion leaders into the brand management system of the state's national policy. At the same time, the use of social media platforms in the implementation of diplomatic activities has led to the fact that any user of a social network today is not only a consumer of information, but also a direct supplier and distributor of it, meaning they have the opportunity to influence the adoption of certain decisions at the state level and shape in this way the image of the state. The article analyzes the use of media diplomacy mechanisms in the formation of Ukraine's image, identifies positive and negative aspects, and discusses prospects for its development.

Post-9/11 Analysis of Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations (2001-2021)

In the post-9/11 era, Pakistan and Afghanistan share a closely interconnected geopolitical relationship characterized by a mutual prosperity that not only affects the well-being of their populations but also significantly influences regional and global developments. This study employs historical analysis and case studies to examine the bilateral interactions between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the political, security, and economic spheres since the events of 9/11. It finds that their relationship has long remained at a subdued level. The core thesis of this research is that border disputes, terrorism, strategic mistrust, issues with refugees and narcotics, and Indian interference are the principal barriers preventing an improvement in their bilateral ties. Strategic suspicions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have accumulated over many years. The return to power of the Afghan Taliban has once again made terrorism a major impediment in their relationship. In the short term, it remains unlikely that there will be any fundamental change in their bilateral relations.

The Geopolitical Imaginaries in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale and Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick

This paper explores the geopolitical imaginaries in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) and in the Japanese science fiction animation titled Hakugei: Legend of the Moby Dick (1997-1999) by the Japanese animation artist Osamu Dezaki. Although it is an adaptation of Moby-Dick, the setting of Hakugei has been creatively changed from the sea to space. In the mid-nineteenth century, when Melville chose the sea as the setting of his quest novel, the sea was inextricably intertwined with the nineteenth-century myth of U.S. expansionism. Melville presents a double vision of imaginary islands in the South Sea and the actual geopolitical relationships between existing transatlantic countries. Yet in the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the wake of Transpacific tensions, the sea as a place of quest among Japanese writers could not be delineated in the same kind of prefigurative language used by Melville, such as by drawing on symbolism. Instead, the animation reflects a Cold War psychology that was prevalent among Japanese after the defeat of World War II. As this paper suggests, Hakugei displays both fear and hope for the geopolitical transformation of the Pacific Rim countries and their future safety by choosing outer space as a site for the fable. It is in this way that the Japanese animator Dezaki draws on Melville’s Moby-Dick as a source text by engaging geopolitics, anti-war psychology, and uneasiness toward expansionism. Melville’s pacifism can be argued for as major transcultural influence, at the very least, driving Hakugei’s anime characterization. In fact, going beyond drawing on certain characters, including Ahab, Dezaki retains Melville’s anxiety over the proximity of creation and destruction in yet another era of increasing concern for world peace.

Embedding Externalisation: How Bordering Practices Transform Places

ABSTRACT Over the past twenty years, research into border externalisation has developed a rich spatial vocabulary to understand these bordering practices as well as critical analyses that challenge the often North-centric views towards externalisation. In this Special Issue, we emphasise that a place-based gaze can lend new mileage to border externalisation research. We emphasise that the place has been under-theorised and under examined in its relation to border externalisation. Existing work often has an implicit framing that understands externalisation as part of a migrant vs. border dialectic, or as part of geopolitical relations between states. By focusing on place, we argue that border externalisation: generates new contexts by connecting previously disparate sites into a border continuum; is place dependent, as its different forms are contingent on situated dynamics; and is place transformative, the border changes the social dynamics of the places where it is implemented.

What Are Sporty Sisters Talking About? A Textual Analysis of an All-Female Athlete Reality Show

This study explores the representation of female athletes cast in a South Korean reality show titled Sporty Sisters (Korean title: Nonun Unni). Though there have been attempts to understand the media representation of female athletes from diverse media landscapes, the analysis of Asian female athletes is limited. Such interpretations have been discussed through geopolitical relations or nationalistic representations, which lack in-depth understanding and exploration of Asian athletes. Therefore, this paper expands the narrative by analyzing the first season (54 episodes) of Sporty Sisters. It is observed that professional athletes who transition to the entertainment industry are identified as “spor-tainers” and implicitly follow norms and rules applied to public figures. In this reality show, female athletes express their opinions on marriage, menstruation, pregnancy, and domestic roles while displaying characteristics of a girl crush, manifesting a variety of the female attributes of sportswomen. Despite the social expectations to fulfill their roles as sports celebrities and Korean women, Sporty Sisters is an outlet for female athletes to an extent to freely expose and describe their experiences as athletes and individuals.

VOTES AND VALUATIONS: THE IMPACT OF LOK SABHA ELECTIONS ON STOCK MARKET

This paper investigates the impact of the 2024 Indian Lok Sabha elections on the stock market, a relationship of significant interest to economists, investors, and policymakers. Given the pivotal role of the Lok Sabha in shaping India's economic policies and legislative landscape, the outcomes of these elections are expected to have substantial implications for market dynamics. Historical data analysis reveals that past elections have consistently led to increased market volatility and activity, reflecting investor sentiment towards political stability and economic policy continuity. This study employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, including historical data analysis, event studies, and predictive modeling, to forecast potential market reactions. Key factors such as political stability, proposed economic reforms, global economic environment, and investor sentiment are examined to understand their influence on market behavior. The 2024 elections are especially significant as they occur during a period of post-pandemic economic recovery, technological advancements, and evolving geopolitical relations. By analyzing these factors, the paper aims to provide insights into how different election outcomes might affect various sectors, investment strategies, and overall market performance. The findings are intended to aid investors in navigating the election period, making informed decisions, and understanding the broader implications of political events on economic stability and growth. This comprehensive analysis contributes to the existing literature on political economy and market behavior, offering valuable perspectives for stakeholders involved in the Indian financial markets.

Impact of De-Dollarisation Move on Indian Rupee

Since the Russia-Ukraine war, it seems to be an era ofeconomic uncertainties and tense geopolitical relations. Could India reap some benefits arising out of these tense geopolitical scenario and uncertain geo-economic conditions? Post the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Russia and China entered into a strategic relationship which provides a window for a more multialigned India. India could really reap the benefits of this strategic relationship of Russia and China if it can utilise this as an opportunity and puts more emphasis on its economic growth and market-oriented reforms. This could be possible if India strives for driving service based exports besides extending the manufacturing sector and gaining a pivotal role on the economic front through major chunk of global trade. India can utilise this strategic alliance of Russia and China as an opportunity especially by strengthening its economic power by focussing on service based exports besides expansionary move in the manufacturing sector. India could really gain out of these opportunities since lot many events are occurring globally which are really aiding India. Recent complex notifications as being given by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, emphasised a few class of exporters and importers to execute trade transactions in the India Rupee. It is really a turning point amidst latest phenomenon of global trade promoting globalisation in almost every sphere of trade with a great hue and cry. These bilateral trade orders really made the citizens nostalgic about EXIM policy in the past before the globalisation move. But how this time these notifications deviate from the times when India used to have a closed economic system. At that time the dollar was king, imports were strictly regulated by tariffs, foreign exchange reserves were limited and above all these recent measures of foreign trade in India in Indian Rupee pose an important question whether this is a move towards de-dollarisation and if it provides a window for Indian Rupee to rise.

Chinese in the Kuwaiti linguistic market: language policy and political economy

ABSTRACT As China is building closer economic and geopolitical relations with oil-rich Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council countries, enthusiasm for learning and teaching Chinese is surging in the region. In Kuwait, whereas Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) education is emerging, research into this topical domain remains scarce, particularly on issues such as (1) how, beside English and Arabic, Chinese is construed as a means of employability and socio-economic mobility, and (2) what competencies and skills are thought to be essential. The present study adopted an exploratory qualitative design, collecting and analyzing document data from mainstream Kuwaiti media and narrative data through oral interviews and written surveys from 19 administrators in the foreign language centre at a Kuwaiti university. Results demonstrated that the rise of CFL education is strongly influenced by the bilateral economic cooperation between China and Kuwait. According to the participants, Kuwaiti learners invest in learning Chinese mainly based on their hopes to obtain economic benefit in the domestic job market. Administrators also exhibited limited knowledge of CFL education policies. These results provide insights for education policymakers, language instructors, and other stakeholders involved in CFL education in Kuwait. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.

Deep learning systems for forecasting the prices of crude oil and precious metals

Commodity markets, such as crude oil and precious metals, play a strategic role in the economic development of nations, with crude oil prices influencing geopolitical relations and the global economy. Moreover, gold and silver are argued to hedge the stock and cryptocurrency markets during market downsides. Therefore, accurate forecasting of crude oil and precious metals prices is critical. Nevertheless, due to the nonlinear nature, substantial fluctuations, and irregular cycles of crude oil and precious metals, predicting their prices is a challenging task. Our study contributes to the commodity market price forecasting literature by implementing and comparing advanced deep-learning models. We address this gap by including silver alongside gold in our analysis, offering a more comprehensive understanding of the precious metal markets. This research expands existing knowledge and provides valuable insights into predicting commodity prices. In this study, we implemented 16 deep- and machine-learning models to forecast the daily price of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent, gold, and silver markets. The employed deep-learning models are long short-term memory (LSTM), BiLSTM, gated recurrent unit (GRU), bidirectional gated recurrent units (BiGRU), T2V-BiLSTM, T2V-BiGRU, convolutional neural networks (CNN), CNN-BiLSTM, CNN-BiGRU, temporal convolutional network (TCN), TCN-BiLSTM, and TCN-BiGRU. We compared the forecasting performance of deep-learning models with the baseline random forest, LightGBM, support vector regression, and k-nearest neighborhood models using mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error, and root mean squared error as evaluation criteria. By considering different sliding window lengths, we examine the forecasting performance of our models. Our results reveal that the TCN model outperforms the others for WTI, Brent, and silver, achieving the lowest MAE values of 1.444, 1.295, and 0.346, respectively. The BiGRU model performs best for gold, with an MAE of 15.188 using a 30-day input sequence. Furthermore, LightGBM exhibits comparable performance to TCN and is the best-performing machine-learning model overall. These findings are critical for investors, policymakers, mining companies, and governmental agencies to effectively anticipate market trends, mitigate risk, manage uncertainty, and make timely decisions and strategies regarding crude oil, gold, and silver markets.

Landmarks

2023 marked the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, an event that casts a long shadow over Jananne Al-Ani’s practice as an artist. This article is an edited transcript of an artist’s talk delivered at the Fast Forward Women in Photography conference held at the Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb in November 2023. Al-Ani presented a selection of photographic and moving image installations highlighting preoccupations that have continued to inform her work over the last two decades, from the power of eyewitness testimony and the representation of contested landscapes marked by conflict, to the complex geopolitical relations that link Britain to the formation of the modern Middle East in the aftermath of the first world war. Alongside her own work Al-Ani presented a range of archival material, from reconnaissance photographs of the Western Front to the work of early pioneers of aerial photography and archaeology, in order to examine how historic visual material informs and influences how the present is represented and understood.

Cross‐border dimensions of Arctic climate change impacts and implications for Europe

AbstractThe Arctic has warmed almost four times faster than the rest of the globe during the past four decades. This has led to multiple impacts in the Arctic such as the melting of glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, sea ice retreat, permafrost thaw, altered species distribution and abundance, changes in hydrology and snow conditions, and altered wildfire regimes. These documented and projected impacts in the region can also propagate across borders, creating risks and opportunities requiring adaptation responses well beyond the Arctic. By undertaking a systematic literature review that uses a conceptual framework for cross‐border climate change impacts, we demonstrate how local impacts of the type described above, which are often analyzed separately in the literature, may initiate knock‐on effects that can be transmitted and transformed across borders. We illustrate examples of six categories of cross‐border risks resulting from this impact transmission and potentially requiring adaptation. These concern biophysical impacts, trade, infrastructure, finance, geopolitical relationships and human security and social justice. We examine potential adaptation options for responding to such cross‐border risks that are of relevance for Europe. The systemic approach taken in this paper promotes improved understanding of trade‐offs between potential benefits and risks, assists priority‐setting for targeting adaptation interventions, and can account for the important role of non‐climatic drivers in amplifying or dampening the cross‐border risks of climate change impacts in the Arctic.This article is categorized under: Trans‐Disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies

The ‘darkest history’ must live: narrating Sino-Japanese relations through museum geopolitics

While scholars have increasingly focused on the intersectional analysis of tourism and geopolitics, the material and affective dimensions underlying the geopolitical implications of tourism remain underexplored. This paper analyses the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders (MH-VNM-JI) in Nanjing, China, focusing on how it sustains and intensifies geopolitical narrations of militarism, fascism, and massacres inflicted by Japanese invaders during WWII through the creation of an affective environment while enacting dark tourism experiences. Drawing on the recent debates on the geopolitics of tourism, affective geopolitics, and the materiality of geopolitics, this paper delineates how the MH-VNM-JI significantly shapes popular geopolitical relations between China and Japan by engineering visitors’ affective experiences and, by extension, geopolitical subjectivities. The MH-VNM-JI serves not only as a static tourism infrastructure that transmits fixed and dogmatic geopolitical knowledge through its exhibits but also as a dynamic space that actively preserves and transforms Sino-Japanese geopolitical knowledge through the structuring of tourists’ embodied and affective experiences. In this vein, this study also contributes to the broader research agenda of exploring the connections between museums, tourism, and geopolitics.

Multi-scalar and diasporic integration: Kurdish populations in Europe between state, diaspora and geopolitics

Abstract This article challenges both methodological nationalist and decolonial approaches to ‘integration’ by drawing attention to how transnational factors—including trans-state diaspora networks and geopolitical relations between European states and Kurdish ‘homelands’—have direct impacts on the integration trajectories of newly arrived Kurdish displaced populations in Europe. Based on over 200 interviews with Kurdish immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers across seventeen sites in rural and urban regions in six European countries, our research suggests the need to move beyond local and national-level understandings of integration to one which is also transnational, diasporic, and multi-scalar, taking account of the enduring effects of homeland politics on integration determinants. Such a model of integration does not throw out the concept, but recognizes both the protective and empowering role that local and national policies can play in enabling refugee and diaspora populations to function autonomously in a broader transnational and global context.

The recent Sino-Danish film co-productions: soft power and transnational talent development

ABSTRACT In May 2017, Denmark and China signed a film co-production agreement, marking Denmark as the first and only Nordic country to establish such a treaty with China. Taking two recent China-Denmark film co-productions as examples, Bille August’s The Chinese Widow (2017) and Lin Jianjie’s Brief History of a Family (2024), this paper investigates why China chose to sign a film agreement with Denmark and vice versa. It also examines the cultural and film policies that catalysed the emergence and development of this new co-production partnership. This paper aims to address two emergent trends in transnational screen studies: conceptual engagement with soft power and transnational talent development. It discusses how cinema serves as an instrument for states, institutions, and corporations to mediate diplomatic and political goals, generate soft power, and engage in nation branding. This paper argues that the transformation in geopolitical relationships between these two countries and their respective film and cultural policies over the past decade has led to this new collaborative partnership. Furthermore, it suggests that the latest European cultural policies supporting Sino-European co-production and transnational talent development have facilitated Sino-Danish film co-production.