Entanglements of Firm Size and Country of Origin with Mining Company Reputational Risk in Guatemala

In this paper I develop two interrelated arguments around the idea of reputational risk within the mining sector as a valuable way of approaching mining conflicts. First, I argue that smaller mining companies (juniors) are more risk-tolerant than large firms (seniors) and thus thrive under conditions of institutional weakness and violence. I support this assertion by looking at mining activity in Guatemala from 1999 to the present. In so doing I observe two distinct historical periods. The first period, from 1999-2008, was characterised by the consolidation of larger and larger mining companies over the control of Guatemala's mineral stocks. The second period, as mining grew riskier in Guatemala—both in investment terms and personal security terms—from 2008 to the present, has been characterised by the divestment of senior companies and turning the mineral landscape of Guatemala back over to risk-tolerant junior companies. The second argument I advance herein is that the national origins of the company are tangled up in firm behaviour. The integrity and productiveness with which companies engage with host communities and police their environmental impacts maps onto the geographies of origin of these firms, in the Guatemalan case