Book contents
- Market Studies
- Market Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The Multiple Pasts, Presents and Futures of Markets and Market Studies
- Part I Market Designs and Market Misfires
- Part II Post-Performative Approaches to Studying Markets
- Part III Valuation
- Chapter 10 Facets of Worth: Valuation Processes in the Polished Diamond Market
- Chapter 11 Biomass Qualification and the Dynamics of Market Framing
- Chapter 12 Does Forgetting Make Markets? Historical Silence in the Political Risk Insurance Market
- Chapter 13 Vintage Steel Bicycles and a Theory of Value Bricolage
- Chapter 14 Valuation in the Market for High-End Audio: Hunting ‘Monsters’ in Analogue Discs
- Part IV Markets in Motion: Places and Spaces
- Part V The Secret Life of Market Studies Methods
- Part VI Broadening the Perspectives in Market Studies
- Part VII Future (Im)Perfect Markets
- Index
- References
Chapter 12 - Does Forgetting Make Markets? Historical Silence in the Political Risk Insurance Market
from Part III - Valuation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 November 2024
Book contents
- Market Studies
- Market Studies
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: The Multiple Pasts, Presents and Futures of Markets and Market Studies
- Part I Market Designs and Market Misfires
- Part II Post-Performative Approaches to Studying Markets
- Part III Valuation
- Chapter 10 Facets of Worth: Valuation Processes in the Polished Diamond Market
- Chapter 11 Biomass Qualification and the Dynamics of Market Framing
- Chapter 12 Does Forgetting Make Markets? Historical Silence in the Political Risk Insurance Market
- Chapter 13 Vintage Steel Bicycles and a Theory of Value Bricolage
- Chapter 14 Valuation in the Market for High-End Audio: Hunting ‘Monsters’ in Analogue Discs
- Part IV Markets in Motion: Places and Spaces
- Part V The Secret Life of Market Studies Methods
- Part VI Broadening the Perspectives in Market Studies
- Part VII Future (Im)Perfect Markets
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter is concerned with understanding the history and operation of the market for political risk insurance, and the related political risk analysis industry that provides metrics, narratives and pricing prosthetics that are used by insurance brokers and underwriters when they negotiate terms and prices for the cover they provide. These prosthetics include a variety of colour-coded ‘heat’ maps, indices and geographical categorizations (such as ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’, ‘MENA’ [Middle East and North Africa] or ‘Asia-Pacific’), which do not determine the pricing of political risk insurance cover but, rather, act as ‘technologies of the imagination’ (Gilbert 2020a) and spur imaginative effects and particular approaches to valuation. As political risk insurance (PRI) brokers and underwriters would themselves argue, PRI does not lend itself to an actuarial mode that seeks to predict the likelihood of future ‘political risk events’ based on statistical tabulation of past occurrences.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Market StudiesMapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action, pp. 194 - 208Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
Aitken, R. (2024) ‘Numberless little risks’: ‘tropical exposure’ in globalizing actuarial discourse, 1852–1947. Enterprise & Society, 25(1), 60–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alami, I. (2023) ‘Afro-pessimism’ and emerging markets finance, in Gilbert, P. R., Bourne, C., Haiven, M., and Montgomerie, J. (eds.), The Entangled Legacies of Empire: Race, Finance and Inequality. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 159–170.Google Scholar
Asante, S. K. B. (1988) International law and foreign investment: a reappraisal. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 37(3), 588–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ascari, R. (2010) Political risk insurance: an industry in search of a business?, Working Paper 12. Rome: SACE.Google Scholar
Bekaert, G., Harvey, C. R., Lundblad, C. T., and Siegel, S. (2014) Political risk spreads. Journal of International Business Studies, 45(4), 471–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, I., and Johnston, R. (2009) The rise and fall of resource nationalism. Survival, 51(2), 149–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Çalışkan, K. (2010) Market Threads: How Cotton Farmers and Traders Create a Global Commodity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, A., and Palan, R. (2004) The Imagined Economies of Globalization. London: SAGE.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clutterbuck, R. (1981) Management of the kidnap risk. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 5(1/2), 125–137.Google Scholar
Davis, M. (1971) That’s interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of Social Science, 1, 309–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorobantu, F., Dupont, N., and Maniatis, M. (2016) Country risk and damages in investment arbitration. ICSID Review, 31(1), 219–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, N., and Schularick, M. (2006) The empire effect: the determinants of country risk in the first age of globalization, 1880-1913. Journal of Economic History, 66(2), 283–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, P. R. (2020a) Speculating on sovereignty: ‘money mining’ and corporate foreign policy at the extractive industry frontier. Economy and Society, 49(1), 16–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, P. R. (2020b) Expropriating the future: turning ore deposits and legitimate expectations into assets, in Birch, K., and Muniesa, F. (eds.), Assetization: Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 173–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, P. R. (2020c) Making critical materials valuable: decarbonization, investment and ‘political risk’, in Bleicher, A., and Pehlken, A. (eds.), The Material Basis of Energy Transitions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Renewable Energy and Critical Materials. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 91–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, P. R., and Sklair, J. (2018) Introduction: ethnographic engagements with global elites. Focaal, 81, 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, C. (2017) The politics of finance: cultural economy, cultural studies and the road ahead. Journal of Cultural Economy, 10(4), 325–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, D., Nuñez, F., and Popescu, I. (2022) Country risk, in Legum, B. (ed.), The Investment Treaty Arbitration Review, 7th ed. London: Law Business Research, 413–422.Google Scholar
Hossain, K. (1980) Permanent sovereignty over natural resources, in Hossain, K. (ed.), Legal Aspects of the New International Economic Order. London: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, 33–43.Google Scholar
Kobrin, S. J. (1982) Managing Political Risk Assessment: Strategic Response to Environmental Change. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKenzie, D. (2009) Material Markets: How Economic Agents Are Constructed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McKittrick, K. (2021) Dear Science and Other Stories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, P., and Napier, C. (1993) Genealogies of calculation. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 18(7/8), 631–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muniesa, F., et al. (2017) Capitalization: A Cultural Guide. Paris: Presses des Mines.Google Scholar
Ortino, F. (2024) The public interest as part of legitimate expectations in investment arbitration: missing in action?, in Brower, C., Donoghue, J., Murphy, C., Payne, C., and Shirlow, E. (eds.), By Peaceful Means: International Adjudication and Arbitration. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 399–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierre, J. (2018) Africa/African, in Desai, G., and Masquelier, A. (eds.), Critical Terms for the Study of Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 12–26.Google Scholar
Pierre, J. (2020) The racial vernaculars of development: a view from west Africa. American Anthropologist, 122(1), 86–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PRS Group (2021) Political Risk Assessment: Concept, Method and Management. Mount Pleasant, SC: PRS Group.Google Scholar
Riles, A. (2011) Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Root, F. (1968) US business abroad and political risks. MSU Business Topics, 16(1), 73–80.Google Scholar
Roscoe, P. (2021) Shouldn’t we all be doing cultural economy? Journal of Cultural Economy, DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2021.1986112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roscoe, P., and Loza, O. (2019) The –ography of markets (or, the responsibilities of market studies). Journal of Cultural Economy, 12(3), 215–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schubert, J. (2015) Numbers by divination: the production of evidence in commercial risk forecasting. Paper presented at American Anthropological Association annual meeting, Denver, CO, 18 November.Google Scholar
Shihata, I. (1986) The settlement of disputes regarding foreign investment: the role of the World Bank with particular reference to ICSID and MIGA. American University Journal of International Law, 1(1), 97–116.Google Scholar
Shortland, A. (2016) Governing kidnap for ransom: Lloyd’s as a ‘private regime’. Governance, 30(2), 283–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidaway, J. D., Ho, E. L., Rigg, J. D., and Woon, C. Y. (2016) Area studies and geography: trajectories and manifesto. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34(5), 777–790.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Souleles, D. (2019) The distribution of ignorance on financial markets. Economy and Society, 48(4), 510–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, P. (2015) Why the business of risk is booming. Financial Times, 12 March. Available at www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cde4a248-c8ae-11e4-b43b-00144feab7de.html#axzz3iUoFOnUm (accessed 1 May 2024).Google Scholar
Styve, M., and Gilbert, P. R. (2023) ‘The hole in the ground that cannot be moved’: political risk as a racial vernacular of extractive industry development. Extractive Industries and Society, 13, DOI: 10.1016/J.EXIS.2022.101100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, C. (2015) Risky business: political risk insurance and the law and governance of natural resources. International Journal of Law in Context, 11(2), 174–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, B. (2014) Political risk is now a growth industry in its own right. Financial Times, 28 September. Available at www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c1b94922-3765-11e4-8472-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3iUoFOnUm (accessed 1 May 2024).Google Scholar
Trouillot, M.-R. (2021 [1990]) Good day Columbus: silences, power and public history (1492–1892), in Trouillot, M.-R., Bonilla, Y., Beckett, G., and Fernando, M. (eds.), Trouillot Remixed: The Michel-Rolph Trouillot Reader. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 103–125.Google Scholar
UNCTAD (2020) World Investment Report 2020: International Production beyond the Pandemic. New York: United Nations Publications.Google Scholar
UNGA (1984) Progressive development of the principles and norms of international law relating to the new international economic order, A/39/504/Add.1. New York: United Nations. Available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/71137?ln=en (accessed 11 November 2021).Google Scholar
Van der Heide, A. (2020) Model migration and rough edges: British actuaries and the ontologies of modelling. Social Studies of Science, 50(1), 121–144.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Harten, G. (2016) Who has benefited financially from treaty arbitration? An evaluation of the size and wealth of claimants, Legal Research Paper 135. Toronto: Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venzke, I. (2018) Possibilities of the past: histories of the NIEO and the travails of critique. Journal of the History of International Law, 20(3), 263–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, H. (2015) Isis shows ‘Oriental studies’ are essential. Times Higher Education, 19 February. Available at www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/opinion/isis-shows-oriental-studies-are-essential/2018567.article (accessed 1 May 2024).Google Scholar
Wilson, R. (2002) Imagining ‘Asia-Pacific’ today: forgetting colonialism in the magical free markets of the American Pacific, in Miyoshi, M., and Harootunian, H. D. (eds.), Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 231–260.Google Scholar
Accessibility standard: Unknown
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
Accessibility compliance for the HTML of this chapter is currently unknown
and may be updated in the future.
- 1
- Cited by