Dr Maha Rafi Atal

  • Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in Political Economy (Political & International Studies)

Biography

I take a political economy approach to the study of corporate power. My current book project, examines “corporate social responsibility” as a system of Company Rule, tracing its history from colonial trading corporations to contemporary multinationals. I am also interested in how corporations exercise influence in the media and in politics, in the political power of internet platform companies, and in corporate accountability under international law.

In addition to my academic career, I am an award-winning business journalist, with work published in Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The New Statesman, among others. I am the co-founder and Executive Director of Public Business, a non-profit supporting reporting, research and discussion about the wider impact of business actions.

Prior to coming to Glasgow, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Copenhagen Business School, and earned degrees from the University of Cambridge, Brown University and Columbia University.

Research interests

I welcome opportunities to supervise research students in any of the following broad fields:

  • corporate power
  • corporate social responsibility
  • political economy of media
  • digital platforms
  • corporations and international law
  • global governance
  • international political economy

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2008
Number of items: 12.

2025

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 and Mondliwa, Pamela (2025) Afrofuturist ambiguities: inclusion and consolidation in South African digital finance. Big Data and Society, (Accepted for Publication)

2024

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2024) Corporate social responsibility: development on whose terms? In: Dauncey, Emil, Desai, Vandana and Potter, Robert B. (eds.) The Companion to Development Studies [4th Edition]. Routledge: Abingdon, pp. 166-169. ISBN 9780367244248 (doi: 10.4324/9780429282348-34)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420, Riach, Kathleen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2135-0398, Smith, Craig ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6707-5977 and McMaster, Robert ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-9871 (2024) Adam Smith: His continuing relevance for contemporary management thought. European Management Journal, 42(1), pp. 4-10. (doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2024.01.005)

2022

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2022) Globalizing regulation: a new progressive agenda for trade and investment. Global Perspectives, 3(1), 39794. (doi: 10.1525/gp.2022.39794)

2021

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2021) Measuring the wages of whiteness: A project for political economists. Global Perspectives, 2(1), (doi: 10.1525/gp.2021.22154)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2021) The Janus faces of Silicon Valley. Review of International Political Economy, 28(2), pp. 336-350. (doi: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1830830)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 and Richey, Lisa Ann (2021) Commodifying COVID-19: humanitarian communication at the onset of a global pandemic. New Political Science, 43(4), pp. 421-450. (doi: 10.1080/07393148.2021.1997538)

2018

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2018) The cultural and economic power of advertisers in the business press. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 19(8), pp. 1078-1095. (doi: 10.1177/1464884917725162)

2017

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2017) White capital: Corporate social responsibility and the limits of transformation in South Africa. Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4), pp. 735-743. (doi: 10.1016/j.exis.2017.10.007)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2017) Competing forms of media capture in developing democracies. In: Schriffrin, Anya (ed.) In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy. Center for International Media Assistance: Washington, D.C..

2015

Peterson, Gabrielle and Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2015) Introduction: a ‘place-in-the-world’—foreign interventions in Africa. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 28(2), pp. 205-209. (doi: 10.1080/09557571.2015.1029269)

2008

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2008) GWM Reynolds in Paris, 1835-1836: A new discovery. Notes and Queries, 55(4), pp. 448-453.

This list was generated on Tue Jul 8 21:40:27 2025 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Book Sections
Number of items: 12.

Articles

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 and Mondliwa, Pamela (2025) Afrofuturist ambiguities: inclusion and consolidation in South African digital finance. Big Data and Society, (Accepted for Publication)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420, Riach, Kathleen ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2135-0398, Smith, Craig ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6707-5977 and McMaster, Robert ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-9871 (2024) Adam Smith: His continuing relevance for contemporary management thought. European Management Journal, 42(1), pp. 4-10. (doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2024.01.005)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2022) Globalizing regulation: a new progressive agenda for trade and investment. Global Perspectives, 3(1), 39794. (doi: 10.1525/gp.2022.39794)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2021) Measuring the wages of whiteness: A project for political economists. Global Perspectives, 2(1), (doi: 10.1525/gp.2021.22154)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2021) The Janus faces of Silicon Valley. Review of International Political Economy, 28(2), pp. 336-350. (doi: 10.1080/09692290.2020.1830830)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 and Richey, Lisa Ann (2021) Commodifying COVID-19: humanitarian communication at the onset of a global pandemic. New Political Science, 43(4), pp. 421-450. (doi: 10.1080/07393148.2021.1997538)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2018) The cultural and economic power of advertisers in the business press. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 19(8), pp. 1078-1095. (doi: 10.1177/1464884917725162)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2017) White capital: Corporate social responsibility and the limits of transformation in South Africa. Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4), pp. 735-743. (doi: 10.1016/j.exis.2017.10.007)

Peterson, Gabrielle and Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2015) Introduction: a ‘place-in-the-world’—foreign interventions in Africa. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 28(2), pp. 205-209. (doi: 10.1080/09557571.2015.1029269)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2008) GWM Reynolds in Paris, 1835-1836: A new discovery. Notes and Queries, 55(4), pp. 448-453.

Book Sections

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2024) Corporate social responsibility: development on whose terms? In: Dauncey, Emil, Desai, Vandana and Potter, Robert B. (eds.) The Companion to Development Studies [4th Edition]. Routledge: Abingdon, pp. 166-169. ISBN 9780367244248 (doi: 10.4324/9780429282348-34)

Atal, Maha Rafi ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4136-4420 (2017) Competing forms of media capture in developing democracies. In: Schriffrin, Anya (ed.) In the Service of Power: Media Capture and the Threat to Democracy. Center for International Media Assistance: Washington, D.C..

This list was generated on Tue Jul 8 21:40:27 2025 BST.

Grants

Co-Investigator, 2019-2021; Affiliated researcher, 2021-2023: "Commodifying Compassion: Implications of Turning People and Humanitarian Causes into Marketable Things." 5 million krone. Funded by Danish Council for Indepedent Research. https://www.commodifyingcompassion.com/

 

Supervision

  • Wu, Zhihang
    Principles or Pragmatism? Social Standards in FTAs

Teaching

Pop Culture and Politics (POLITIC4179), Semester 1

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy (ESH5066), Semester 2

Additional information

Personal Website: http://www.maha-rafi-atal.com/


Dr Maha Rafi Atal on Twitter