Global Geopolitics Research Articles

Potentials for alternative energy in Nigerian cities and remote communities

The energy sector of Nigeria’s economy constitutes a critical challenge. This sector has defied all efforts for its reform and restoration largely due to ineffective and poor policy implementation. In the 20th century, oil was the main driving force in global geopolitics and the main force behind massive industrialization. However, oil is moving in a downward trend. In its place will be an array of technologies, in the form of alternative energies with long term prospects. The standard of living of a given country can be directly related to per capita energy consumption but energy crisis is on the increase due to population and improved standard of living especially in developing cities. The aim of the study is to identify alternative energy potentials for Nigeria in view of her current energy challenges. The methodology applied in this study include case studies and review of existing literature on the subject. Identified energy crises include, incessant power outage, shortage and scarcity of petroleum products, high electricity bill, vandalization of pipelines and oil installations. The paper discussed the energy crises in Nigeria, the potentials of alternative energy technologies, and the challenges of its development for Nigerian cities and recommends that renewable energy and energy efficiency are necessary factors to achieve sustainable development in Nigeria.

Media Coverage of the Peacekeeping Activities of Pope Francis' Support of Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian Full-Scale War

The relevance of the study is due to the significance of the influence of Pope Francis’ peacekeeping activities as the head of the Catholic Church on global geopolitics. This influence is being actively implemented within the framework of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Thus, the study of the international diplomatic activity of the pontiff in the context of supporting Ukraine is aimed at establishing the features of the peacekeeping work of the Holy See. The study presents an analysis of news coverage on the stated issues in popular Ukrainian and foreign publications from December 2021 to October 2022. The Washington Post, Politico, Vatican News highlighted positive, dubious, and negative precedents by Pope Francis in the context of supporting Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale war. Also, special attention is paid to the special nature of the encyclicals of Pope Francis, in particular Evangelii gaudium 2013, Lumen Fidei 2013, Laudato si' 2015, and Fratelli Tutti 2020, where the priority thematic areas are current problems and conflicts. The results of the study indicate the inconsistency of the views, understandings, and actions of the pontiff, which is obviously due to the flexible diplomatic strategy of the Vatican. The overall picture points to the hesitation of the head of the Catholic Church during a tense situation on the European continent. Key words: Pope Francis, the Pope's peacekeeping activities, the war in Ukraine, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Pope's support for Ukraine.

지정학의 신사고와 그레이트 게임

Traditional geopolitics is a geopolitics of concentration based on nation states and military power. The competition for space has been a struggle in behalf of possession for good territory. Sovereign states have been a physical and legal violence historically. Geopolitics is an academic discipline of super powers only that have a dominant position in a global world. This means balance of power system among nations and it causes the murder of a human life and destruction of a human dignity in a real world. Globalization does need transformation of a traditional geopolitics because of its multi-level orders. This paper pursues to change from military power centered geopolitics with hard resources to human centered it with soft resources composed of economy, culture, thought, information, and intelligence technology. The era of new thinking on geopolitics is coming beyond geopolitics by violence and war. From perspective of upon geopolitics of intervention-diffusion and the more, the better space to human life can be formed via peaceful methods and devices. In this respect, the possibility of human centered global geopolitics is searched through reinterpretation process of great games as an ideal type.

The New Evolutionary Trajectory of University Libraries: The Editor-in-Chief’s View

The paper provides a brief overview of the events/issues that the authors of the 7(2022) issue of the UniLibNSD journal cover in their articles. The authors' many issues are highlighted through evidence of the nature of these challenges, as well as theoretical and concrete examples of how to address them. At a time of tectonic shifts in global geopolitics, climate change, digital development, the fight against the COVID 2019 pandemic, social transformations, librarians have witnessed russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine and against world democracy, including the terrible destruction of Ukrainian libraries and archives by russian terrorists who continue their fierce offensive against the world's documentary heritage. That is why most of the authors challenge traditional concepts of librarianship, argue that libraries are not neutral, and call on the world's librarians to take active measures to prevent genocide, anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices for the benefit of both users and the profession itself.

Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media

Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media

International Health and Global Health: Reconfigurations of a Disputed Field

International health is an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, research, and action that deals with the health of populations beyond their national borders. Latin America established itself as a pioneer in international health during the 20th century, inducing an unprecedented dynamic in the field. In this sense, a process of analysis, reflection, and interpretation from a Latin American perspective is required to overcome its image as a mere replica of European health development. This article has the double objective of analyzing the historical development of the field of International Health and, secondly, reflecting on the concepts of International Health and Global Health, in the new regional and global geopolitics. Through a historical journey that begins in 1851, this analysis accounts for the disputes, tensions, and rivalries that have shaped the field of international health and some of its main organizations. Particularly, the World Health Organization -with the supremacy of neoliberalism- has been impacted by mercantilist interests of new non-health actors, such as the World Bank, the pharmaceutical industry, and philanthropic organizations. In this context, the passage/transition from the field of International Health to the denomination of Global Health represents - much more than a simple linguistic shift - a political-ideological shift. In Latin America, on the other hand, the influence of critical Latin American thought has pushed toward an understanding of International Health based on human rights and regional health sovereignty, implemented through more horizontal cooperation and emancipatory policies. The advent of the pandemic has shown that health is an unquestionable international issue, demanding coordinated and comprehensive policies. Instead, it occurs in a world fragmented by disputes and interests and, particularly in Latin America -with the dissolution of UNASUR- it arrives in a context of savage/wild health system reforms and at a time of marked weakness in some of its processes of integration. Consequently, there is an urgent need to discuss the architecture of global and regional health, its agenda, and to rethink international cooperation as an epidemiological policy that effectively addresses global inequities and responds to the urgent and persistent needs of our people.

Malaysia in Changing Geopolitical Economy: Navigating Great Power Competition between China and the United States

The past two years have witnessed escalating geopolitical tensions occurring not only in the political but also economic domains especially technology and global supply chains, infrastructure connectivity, trade and finance. With tensions between the US and China escalating on many fronts, Southeast Asia has become a focal point of strategic rivalry again as Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy 2022 attempts to rebuild the US-led order in Asia to blunt China’s growing influence in the region. A series of economic initiatives following his Indo-Pacific strategy focuses on reconfiguring the semiconductor global supply chain. In this context, the paper aims to examine how Malaysia cope with the complex patterns of cooperation, competition and conflict arising from the current shifts in the global geopolitics and geoeconomics. The paper benefits from the insights from the international political economy research which explores how the Malaysian government strives to reconcile domestic and international imperatives in navigating the changing global geopolitical economy, which can be perceived as both a threat as well as an opportunity by the state and non-state actors in the country. The question of whether hedging is tenable is undoubtedly contingent upon the extent of big power rivalry. Given the greater uncertainty over the pernicious effects of rising regional polarization and retreat from economic globalization, Malaysia will continue to maintain strategic ambiguity as long as US-China rivalry has not (yet) escalated into outright military conflict. Nevertheless, the paper concludes that the space to hedge may be squeezed since small power like Malaysia may face harsher realities as it navigates the changing geopolitical economy landscape. Hence, the ASEAN solidarity and cohesion is crucial to ensure a more unified regional response to the escalating Sino-American strategic competition.

Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics

Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics

THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT AND PAKISTAN IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The idea of Non-Aligned Movement was originated in the 1950s and was founded in 1961. It is a forum of 120 states from the developing world who wanted to remain impartial during the Col War era. The Cold War divided the world into two blocks named Capitalist and Communist Block. The core objective of the Non-Aligned Movement was to avoid the polarization of the world and to bring peace and stability through multilateralism. Pakistan being on an important strategic location played a significant role during that era. Although She joined the Capitalist block in the early years as it was important for her security from India in the East and signed different defense treaties with the US and its allies. However, during the 1960s and 1970s those defense pacts which were assumed to protect Pakistan from India failed. Pakistan withdrawn from those pacts and joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979. This research will discuss the historical background of Pakistan in global geopolitics, its relations with different regional and ideological groups, its decision to join Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). It will also highlight the integration of Pakistan into Non-Aligned Movement, its role, and the future of NAM and global settings. Keywords: Non-Aligned Movement, NAM, Pakistan, Cold War, Peace, South Asia, Foreign Policy.

A (Long) Tale of Two Leaders: Charting the Spatial and Sectoral Roles of the West and China in Shaping Past, Present and Future Economic Globalization(s)

Abstract Globalization has run into two intersected momentous shifts over the past decade. One is an accelerating retreat in the Western-led economic globalization. The other is the continued surge of China as a leader of alternative economic globalization, via the Belt and Road Initiative. These two powerful trends are complicated by COVID-19 and the Ukraine war with their disruptions of global geopolitics, plus a potential technological decoupling between China and the United States as great-power rivals. This unprecedented combination of challenges and crises occasions a fresh analysis of the roles of the West versus China in shaping economic globalization past and present. Against the state-centric approach to globalization, I develop a historically-informed framework to couple spatial and sectoral analyses of the trajectories of economic globalization shaped by the West and China. I first examine the cross-regional dimensions of economic globalization across Eurasia featuring China’s primary role in driving the China-Europe Freight Train. I then explore China’s exceptional strength in delivering overseas infrastructure projects, as embodied by the China-Laos Railway, relative to the West’s sectoral advantages bearing on economic globalization. Lastly, I summarily discuss the past and present roles of the West versus China in producing new divergence in future economic globalization.

Global Conjunctures and the Remaking of European Political History

Abstract Over the past decades, the writing of European history—in both its incarnations, as the history of Europe, and as the histories of nations in Europe—has seen fundamental transformations. Though it has been adapted in different ways, the global turn has deeply affected the historiography produced in many European countries. On the one hand, crucial watersheds of European history have been reinterpreted as part of larger configurations, and as responses to global challenges. On the other, it is now clear that Europe’s claim to unity and cohesion was reinforced, not least, by observers from without. In the late nineteenth century, in societies across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, contemporaries began to refer to a “Europe” that was less a specific location than a product of the imagination; the result less of geography or culture than of global geopolitics. What emerges, then, is an understanding of the history of the continent that places it firmly in the context of global conjunctures and repeated moments of re-territorialization.

Progress of Hollow Materials in Diagnosis of Covid-19

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, it has dramatically changed the global geopolitics, economics, and even society standard norms. The present world scenario is changed regarding business, traveling, and education. Rapid global dissemination and the high mortality rate of coronaviruses are the greatest challenges for drug developers. It will be moving forward toward the identification and treatment of emerging coronaviruses with the aid of nanotechnology. The COVID-19 pandemic raised the question of researchers’ capability to manage this dilemma in a short period. In the present review, we described how hallow material could be developed as a pro-drug that shows an excellent therapeutic effect. Hollow nanoparticles that exploration of antiviral or diagnostic agents against emerging coronaviruses. Hollow nanomaterials in vaccine development are essential because hollow nanocomposites are suitable for mimicking viral structures and antigen delivery. A biosensor that generates a signal from a transducer for comparing and analyzing biological conjugates such as cell receptors, antibodies, RNA, DNA, and nucleic acids. Different biosensors, such as graphene-based biosensors, nanoplasmonic sensor chips, nanomaterial biosensors, electrochemical biosensors, dual modality biosensors, and optical biosensors, have several advantages, characteristics, and a wide range of applications, most remarkably in medical treatment and are used for monitoring and diagnosis. This review focuses on modern experimental studies to identify intelligent and innovative bio/nanomaterials and matrices for developing targeted and controlled drug release systems, nanosensors and nanovaccines to combat pathogenic viruses.

Leveraging weakness into strength: how neo-patrimonial oil-producing countries survive economic crises

Most scholarship on major oil-producing countries (OPCs) focuses on their illiberal characteristics, but scant research explores how these regimes react to periodic oil price collapses, particularly neo-patrimonial OPCs with relatively low state capacity, herein termed gatekeeper OPCs. These OPCs should be extremely vulnerable to regime change during economic crises. However, since the most recent collapse in international oil markets in 2014, almost all neo-patrimonial OPCs have managed to weather the ensuing fallout, thereby begging the question of how these seemingly vulnerable regimes manage to survive extended periods of economic crises. We hypothesise that the likelihood of regime survival in neo-patrimonial OPCs depends on a strategic calibration of domestic neo-patrimonial policies, such as clientelism and executive aggrandisement, and the skilled navigation of global geopolitics. We find evidence that incumbent governments leverage international geopolitical tensions during economic crises to secure valuable foreign aid from key allies, which allows them to maintain the domestic neo-patrimonial strategies required to safeguard their power. We reached the above finding through a nested mixed-methods research design combining quantitative analysis of 35 major OPCs from 2011 to 2018 using Cox proportional hazards models with the qualitative comparison of two gatekeeper OPCs—Chad and Venezuela.

Cosmopolitanism or cosmopolitics? The roles of university elites in the internationalisation of Indonesian higher education

ABSTRACT This article examines the roles of university elites in enhancing internationalisation agenda in Indonesian higher education. This is done by exploring the relationship between internationalisation and cosmopolitanism. Drawing from two stages of field studies of the internationalisation of Indonesian universities, interviews with key correspondents in the sector, and an analysis of related documents, I argue that there is a tension between the way the university elites see themselves as the agents of cosmopolitan culture and the way they are positioned as intermediaries of global interest and agenda. Cosmopolitan culture that appears to be symbolic, universal, and democratic as represented by the university elites belies the instrumental purpose of internationalisation that yokes higher education into the global marketplace. A shift from mere cosmopolitanism to cosmopolitics would equip the university elites with the analytical tools of global geopolitics regarding the internationalisation of higher education.

The Empire Strikes Back: FIFA 2.0, Global Peacemaking, and the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup

In October 2016, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) announced a landmark reform package that ushered in a new era of global football governance known as FIFA 2.0. Despite decades of profitability for its most visible event - the Men’s World Cup (MWC) - FIFA’s leadership had come under intense scrutiny following a corruption and bribery scandal over the MWC selection process and hosting approaches. In this article, we use a critical investigative framework to examine the conjunctural politics of FIFA 2.0 through a critical analysis of official FIFA documents, published media reports, and official bid documents for the 2026 MWC - the first in the FIFA 2.0 era. By selecting the United 2026 bid, FIFA seemingly moved beyond market expansionism and urban redevelopment strategies, seeking instead to functionally and symbolically (re-)imagine the event’s purpose as a principal agent for promoting global peace, unity, and international diplomacy. We offer a rich genealogy of FIFA’s growing presence in global geopolitics – an approach we theorize as global peacemaking – and argue that FIFA’s approach is a rationally and purposefully constructed organizational strategy aimed at exploiting the material and symbolic value(s) of global unity, peace, and international diplomacy as a means of capital accumulation, neoliberal marketization, and an intensification and consolidation of FIFA’s global football empire. We discuss how FIFA’s global peacemaking has accelerated the commercialization MWC and led to an increasingly interdependent and mutually constitutive relationship between the MWC and FIFA.

Enhancing International Scientific Cooperation: Arctic Science and Technology Advice with Ministries

This sixth Synthesis with the Science Diplomacy Action serial is the product of the February-March 2022 webinar series on Enhancing International Scientific Cooperation: Arctic Science and Technology Advice with Ministries, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan to EvREsearch LTD with Science Diplomacy Center™ coordination and logistics provided by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). These inclusive webinars began on 21 February 2022 and continued despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, emphasizing the importance of “open science” with both allies and adversaries for our shared survival as a globally interconnected civilization. The webinar series was designed to address an inevitable question: “What are the relationships and synergies between the Arctic Science Ministerial (ASM) process and the 2017 Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation, both of which involve ministries and science?” The three webinars involved keynote presentations from leaders of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) and University of the Arctic (UArctic) as well as from ASM1 (2016), ASM2 (2018), ASM3 (2021) and ASM4 (2023 pending). Each webinar was designed further around leading questions with keynote presenters from Arctic and non-Arctic states inclusively, involving: Finland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and Unites States with registered participants from 49 nations. The first webinar focused on “What is Science” with expert contributions from the perspectives of the natural sciences, social sciences and Indigenous knowledge. The second webinar was convened on 10 March 2022 to address: “How Can Science Transform Data into Evidence for Informed Decisionmaking?” The third webinar was convened on 24 March 2022, focusing on “What International Efforts/Processes Are Needed to Facilitate Progress in Understanding the Arctic System and Its Global Impacts?” These transdisciplinary dialogues demonstrated the importance of international cooperation and common-interest building with science diplomacy, enabling open science with inclusion and continuity despite global geopolitics. The webinar series originated in sight of Science and Technology Advice with Ministries, initially with foreign affairs, science and environment ministries but extending to ministries of defense under current world affairs. Lessons from this holistic (international, interdisciplinary and inclusive) webinar series reinforce strategies with informed decisionmaking to operate across a continuum of urgencies, short-to-long term (pandemic to climate timescales) “for benefit of all on Earth across generations.”

A Ciné-Geography of Militant Cinema in the age of Three Worlds. Making Global History Appear in the Long 1960s

This essay questions the historical narrative of liberation struggles in the long 1960s by looking into two documentary films: La Hora de los Hornos, by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino (Argentina 1968), and Le Fond de L’Air est Rouge, by Chris Marker (France 1977). A comparative analysis of the two films – two long narratives of neocolonialism and anti-imperialism – will allow us not only to revisit the periodization of the sixties, but also the ability of militant cinema to overcome the shortcomings of traditional historiography to render the global geopolitics of its struggles. More specifically, the deployment of montage in La Hora decentred the political hierarchies of the capitalist world-system from the perspective of the third world, thus opening history to a global approach of the long 1960s; as for Le Fond, the film can be seen as a global archive of images reinforcing the worldwide scope of the period’s struggles while simultaneously giving it a sense of historical closure. The formal experiments in La Hora and Le Fond allow us to reflect on these films’ status as forms of historical mediation. Showing 1960s political struggles through the formal procedures of film, however, challenges traditional history in fundamental ways. Accordingly, the essay concludes with a reflection on the historicity of film narratives. In particular, it will try to point to how film montage and duration may constitute appropriate narrative forms to come to terms with some of the major challenges currently put to historiography: the global circulation in the history of capitalism and the temporality of the end of communism.

Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine and its Impact on Global Geopolitics

On February 24, 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine. Here as consequence, Russia was subjected to a slew of international sanctions aimed at pressuring it to de-escalate the issue. Even though the economic sanctions issued against Russia were designed to harm this country, all of them had unintended consequences on the economic system of the world, essentially due to global supply chains disruptions. Power, commodities, as well as commerce flow disruptions emerged from the military attacks. Such issue resulted in energy costs got much higher, commodity prices, as well as food prices, all of which contributed to greater inflation on a worldwide scale in several nations. Despite the fact that many attempts of negotiation were created in resolving the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, its political, social, and economic impacts lasted in numerous countries of Europe and other regions around the world.

UKRAINE AND THE “IMMINENT” RUSSIAN INVASION: NEW MASS MEDIA AS A MEANS OF PROPAGANDA AND MANIPULATION

Aim. The aim of this article is to identify the types of mass mediated propaganda in Western mainstream media sources before the Special Military Operation began on 24 February 2022. Methodology. The author used academic literature on propaganda use, and mass media approaches to covering armed conflicts. A critical analysis of mass mediated materials of the topic, in the period from November 2021 until February 2022, was used to derive the communicated and signalled idealised hierarchies in international relations by Western mainstream media sources.Results. The results of this indicative study suggest that Western mainstream media are engaged in the current global geopolitics of transformation (from Unipolar to Multipolar order), and there is an attempt by the US-led Western powers to obstruct the rise of challenging powers and their influence and hence to preserve US hegemony. Research implications. New mass media is playing a crucial role in attempting to manipulate the minds of different publics with the use of propaganda in the field of international relations. This trend is likely to continue to increase in the future. The underlying reason for this is the increase in geopolitical tensions resulting from a transformation in the global order. In this article, the 2020-21 Ukraine ‘crisis’ and the Western media’s narrative of the ‘imminent’ Russian invasion shall be used to illustrate how the propaganda is formulated for the effect of obstructing Russian interests and influence.

Race, Religion, and Geopolitics: Dating and Romance Among South Asian Muslim Immigrants in Canada

Abstract Using the “complex religion” framework, this article shows the importance of religion while recognizing how race, national origin, and geopolitics shape how Muslims navigate their romantic lives. Based on 50 in-depth interviews of South Asian Muslim immigrants in Canada on interfaith and interracial romance, I show that taken-for-granted labels “Muslim” and “South Asian” are ambiguous even for the participants as they navigate the search for compatible partners. Race and ethnicity are important components alongside religion and sect that together give meaning to negotiations about who is a “real” Muslim. And despite a sense of panethnic desi groupness, religion, sect, and nationality create fissures that challenge and limit notions of brown solidarity on the ground, even for children of immigrants. Finally, I identify how another important yet overlooked dimension of Muslimness—global geopolitics—shapes participants’ romantic pursuits. Overall, this article problematizes current approaches to studying Muslim immigrant experiences in the West.