[1] Its "founding editor" and chair of its editorial board is Shahid Qadir,[1] who is also one of two directors of Global South Ltd.[2][3] Although the journal's title suggests only four issues per year, it is in fact published monthly.

[4] In September 2017, the journal attracted controversy after it published an article entitled "The Case for Colonialism" by political scientist Bruce Gilley.

This article was described by Portia Roelofs and Max Gallien of the London School of Economics as "a travesty, the academic equivalent of a Trump tweet, clickbait with footnotes.

On 19 September 2017, a large number of the journal's editorial board resigned in protest, citing a flawed peer review process for the colonialism submission and inaccurate statements from the editor-in-chief, Shahid Qadir.

[7][8] Board member Noam Chomsky opposed the retraction, saying: "Rebuttal offers a great opportunity for education, not only in this case.