Qatar will grow more assertive, but not hubristic

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
Political Weapon ◽  
Ultimate Settlement ◽  
Do So

Significance The withdrawal came with neither notice nor any obvious precipitating event, and is ultimately more a piece of political showmanship than a decision rooted in fiscal calculation. This underscores the frenetic, changeable nature of Gulf politics. It also speaks to possible fragility at the core of OPEC. Impacts Doha will aggressively court inward investment and will do so increasingly on its own terms. Ratings agencies and investors may interpret this move as a sign of a bullish and reinvigorated government. The decision will not affect the ultimate settlement of the Gulf crisis, which will be resolved when Saudi Arabia and its allies choose. Doha will remain a predictable energy supplier, prizing its reputation as a reliable exporter that does not use trade as a political weapon.

African states hope the Gulf crisis will end soon

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Union ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Gulf Countries ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
Sub Saharan

Significance The split between Qatar and its neighbours has pushed a few small African countries to side with Saudi Arabia, but leaves the continent’s leading powers and several conflict-afflicted nations eager to stay neutral -- for now. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) -- where Gulf countries have strong diplomatic ties and major economic investments -- the crisis has had significant political effects. Impacts The withdrawal of Qatari peacekeepers from the Djibouti-Eritrea border will become a pressing concern for the African Union. Ongoing expulsions of African migrants from Saudi Arabia will complicate Saudi and Emirati efforts to find African partners against Qatar. Countries such as South Africa and Nigeria may begin to act more assertively in calling for neutrality.

Gulf alliances leave Eritrea in hostile neighbourhood

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
External Support ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Arms Embargo ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
Eastern Sudan

Subject Eritrea and regional geopolitics Significance Hoping to mitigate its international isolation, Eritrea has over recent years aggressively pursued new alliances with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), adding to its older but no less vital links with Egypt. However, shifting regional alignments in the wake of the 2017 Gulf crisis have placed Asmara squarely in the middle of some of the Arab world’s most serious political rifts, and greatly exacerbated tensions with its neighbours, with serious repercussions that the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) will find it difficult to navigate. Impacts Access to eastern Sudan will be curtailed for some time, creating economic challenges for the PFDJ. Eritrean opposition forces may secure increased external support, although, except for Ethiopia, most channels will remain covert. Qatar’s withdrawal from the disputed border with Djibouti will complicate Eritrea’s lobbying for an end to the UN arms embargo.

Sudan enters dangerous regional waters

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
External Support ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Horn Of Africa ◽  
Strategic Game ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Regional Powers ◽  
Gulf Crisis

Subject Sudan's foreign relations. Significance As aftershocks from the Gulf crisis ripple across the Horn of Africa, Sudan appears to be playing a dangerous strategic game. Recent months have seen Sudan seek deals with Turkey and Qatar, as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even as these extra-regional powers are locked in a fractious rivalry that is playing out in Africa as a contest for influence. Impacts Even with external support, Sudan’s economic crisis is unlikely to ease quickly. Economic tensions may explode into a new wave of popular anti-government protests. Mismanagement and corruption will remain serious obstacles to wider investment and business in Sudan.

Oman-Iran relations will survive pressures

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Gulf States ◽  
Gulf Crisis ◽  
Formal Relations ◽  
The One

Subject Oman-Iran relations Significance Oman is the only Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member that maintains formal relations with all states in the region, including Iran, which has fallen out with the two most powerful GCC states, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Oman’s diplomatic channel to Tehran enables it to play the role of mediator between the United States and its Arab allies on the one side and Iran on the other. Indeed, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Sultan Qaboos on May 16 to discuss alleged Iranian threats. Impacts An outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iran would leave Oman isolated from other GCC states. Oman would reap economic benefits as a transshipment centre for Gulf states if Saudi Arabia and the UAE fight with Iran. A worsening Gulf crisis would increase smuggling between Iran and Oman, with Tehran eager to keep supplying Huthi rebels in Yemen.

Arab enemies may impose new sanctions on Qatar

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Risk Premium ◽  
Political Risk ◽  
Gulf Cooperation Council ◽  
Common Market ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Borrowing Costs ◽  
Gulf Crisis

Significance Hopes for a swift resolution of the Gulf crisis were dashed on June 23 when details emerged of a list of 13 demands sent by the four countries that launched a boycott of Qatar on June 5: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain. Impacts The concept of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as a common market has been permanently damaged. An increased political risk premium will raise borrowing costs across the GCC. Firms in Qatar will find it harder to retain and recruit professional expatriate staff.

scholarly journals Populism, Twitter, and COVID-19: Narrative, Fantasies, and Desires

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 294
Author(s):  
Laura Cervi ◽  
Fernando García ◽  
Carles Marín Lladó
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Ability To Work ◽  
The Core ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The People ◽  
Working People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Do So

During a global pandemic, the great impact of populist discourse on the construction of social reality is undeniable. This study analyzes the fantasmatic dimension of political discourse from Donald Trump’s and Jair Bolsonaro’s Twitter accounts between 1 March and 31 May. To do so, it applies a Clause-Based Semantic Text Analysis (CBSTA) methodology that categorizes speech in Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) triplets. The study findings show that in spite of the Coronavirus pandemic, the main beatific and horrific subjects remain the core populist signifiers: the people and the elite. While Bolsonaro’s narrative was predominantly beatific, centered on the government, Trump’s was mostly horrific, centered on the elite. Trump signified the pandemic as a subject and an enemy to be defeated, whereas Bolsonaro portrayed it as a circumstance. Finally, both leaders defined the people as working people, therefore their concerns about the pandemic were focused on the people’s ability to work.

scholarly journals Mandevillian Virtues

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mandi Astola
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Collective Good ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Core ◽  
Cognitive Traits ◽  
Collaborative Activities ◽  
Do So

AbstractStudies in collective intelligence have shown that suboptimal cognitive traits of individuals can lead a group to succeed in a collective cognitive task, in recent literature this is called mandevillian intelligence. Analogically, as Mandeville has suggested, the moral vices of individuals can sometimes also lead to collective good. I suggest that this mandevillian morality can happen in many ways in collaborative activities. Mandevillian morality presents a challenge for normative virtue theories in ethics. The core of the problem is that mandevillian morality implies that individual vice is, in some cases, valuable. However, normative virtue theories generally see vice as disvaluable. A consequence of this is that virtue theories struggle to account for the good that can emerge in a collective. I argue that normative virtue theories can in fact accommodate for mandevillian emergent good. I put forward three distinctive features that allow a virtue theory to do so: a distinction between individual and group virtues, a distinction between motivational and teleological virtues, and an acknowledgement of the normativity of “vicious” roles in groups.

scholarly journals Monopoly behavior of China’s manufacturing enterprises

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-179
Author(s):  
Guidong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Manufacturing Enterprises ◽  
Slow Decline ◽  
State Capital ◽  
The Government ◽  
Do So ◽  
Initial Jump

Purpose With the increase of state capital, corporate total factor productivity (TFP) has a tendency to jump up at first and then slowly decrease. Generally, no significant “productivity paradox” can be observed in China’s manufacturing industry. With the increase of export density, corporate TFP also shows a trend of initial jump growth and subsequent slow decline. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Using the 1996–2013 China Industrial Enterprise Database, this paper studies the monopolistic behavior of Chinese manufacturing enterprises through the measurement of TFP and corporate monopoly power. Findings Results show that China’s manufacturing monopoly enterprises are generally innovation-oriented rather than rent-seeking. However, there are certain differences between diversified types of monopoly enterprises: the ones with state capital are more inclined to innovate than those without, whereas the ones with export delivery value are more inclined to seek rent than those without. Originality/value Therefore, the government should implement differentiated policies for diversified types of monopoly enterprises, and do so in a targeted manner fully reflecting the containment of rent-seeking and the encouragement of innovation.

Accessing offshoring advantages: what and how to offshore

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 262-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alona Mykhaylenko ◽  
Ágnes Motika ◽  
Brian Vejrum Waehrens ◽  
Dmitrij Slepniov
Keyword(s):  
Performance Outcomes ◽  
Offshore Outsourcing ◽  
Strategic Decisions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Captive Offshoring ◽  
Performance Results ◽  
Governance Modes ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Do So

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of factors that affect offshoring performance results. To do so, this paper focuses on the access to location-specific advantages, rather than solely on the properties of the offshoring company, its strategy or environment. Assuming that different levels of synergy may exist between particular offshoring strategic decisions (choosing offshore outsourcing or captive offshoring and the type of function) and different offshoring advantages, this work advocates that the actual fact of realization of certain offshoring advantages (getting or not getting access to them) is a more reliable predictor of offshoring success. Design/methodology/approach – A set of hypotheses derived from the extant literature is tested on the data from a quantitative survey of 1,143 Scandinavian firms. Findings – The paper demonstrates that different governance modes and types of offshored function indeed provide different levels of access to different types of location-specific offshoring advantages. This difference may help to explain the ambiguity of offshoring initiatives performance results. Research limitations/implications – Limitations of the work include using only the offshoring strategy elements and only their limited variety as factors potentially influencing access to offshoring advantages. Also, the findings are limited to Scandinavian companies. Originality/value – The paper introduces a new concept of access, which can help to more reliably predict performance outcomes of offshoring initiatives. Recommendations are also provided to practitioners dealing with offshoring initiatives.

SFC reminding sponsors of the need to adopt an attitude of “professional scepticism”

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 82-84
Author(s):  
Gareth Hughes ◽  
James Comber
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
Group Company ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Professional Skepticism ◽  
Company Limited ◽  
A Company ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Do So

Purpose To remind sponsors to adopt an attitude of “professional skepticism” in Hong Kong IPOs. Design/methodology/approach Explains the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”)'s sanction on BOCOM International (Asia) Limited (“BIAL”) as a sign of determination to hold sponsors to account as gatekeepers to the Hong Kong capital markets. Findings The SFC has reprimanded and fined BIAL HK$15 million for failing to discharge its duties as a sole sponsor in a listing application for China Huinong Capital Group Company Limited (“China Huinong”), a company established in the PRC. This substantial fine reinforces the need for sponsors to ensure that they fully and properly discharge all of their duties, and that they will be held responsible for any failure to do so, even if the listing is not ultimately approved. Practical implications If sponsors fail to fulfil the requirements required under the sponsors’ regulatory regime, the SFC will be proactive and impose tough sanctions, even if the listing application is eventually withdrawn or returned by the SEHK. Originality/value Practical guidance from experienced regulatory, financial and commercial dispute resolution lawyers.

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