Block 1

Geographic determinism and German school of geopolitics

Origins

• 19th century

• Scientification

• Attempt to apply natural sciences

• R. Kjellen, F. Ratzel, K. Haushofer

Rudolf Kjellen

• Conservative, authoritarian, close to national-socialist ideas (admired social-democratic

elements but wanted to use the cohesiveness to whole nation)

• Coined biopolitics + State as a Form of Life

• Defined geopolitics = the science of the state,

• Adoption of an exaggerated organicist analogy for the state

• Parting with liberal, juristic conception, Kjellén emphatically claims: ‘the state is greater than its
constitution’.

• “The state is primarily a sphere of interests and power, not a sphere of law.”

• The state is invested in the well-being of the citizens and the national project in its entirety

• Connected to Schmitt – state as a sovereign

• Investment in the population and the national project takes five different forms: regiments
politics (or constitutional and administrative law), geopolitics, ethnopolitics, political economy
and sociopolitics.

• Geopolitics as the study of the state as a spatial phenomenon

• Other entities – such as the church, companies or labour unions – may exercise significant
powers and even expand across the world, without the necessary connection to its own territory
they cannot gain the form and stature of the state.

• Explanation for the imperial endeavours of Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Japan and Italy -
actions are placed under a ‘law of necessity’ that forces them to reach outside of their territories
to cater for the needs of their constituents
 • The same is not true for the colonies of France, the US in the Philippines and Russia in Europe -
like Sweden, have yet to fill the space of their respective polities and therefore ought to engage
in internal colonisation instead

• Nation is not racial – refuses racial basis on nation

• Less towards the national-romantic Blut und Boden (‘Blood and Soil’) stream and more towards
the German cosmopolitan tradition

• Multicultural unity and drive towards a multinational bloc of states – a union that would respect
the freedom and independence of states under the leadership of a central power

• ‘Geo-politics’ – geography’s influence on the behaviour of states – must be supplemented by

‘ethno-politics’, - study of the ‘ethnic organism’ (Nation).

‘Geo-politics’ - the state | ‘ethno-politics’ - the nation

• Idea of a state with diverse peoples shaped and unified through the centuries into a nation-state

• Idea of a state-bloc or league of states - nation-state was growing too small to correspond to the
twentieth century’s political and economic necessities (relevance of Monroe Doctrine and
establishment of blocs)

Friedrich Ratzel

• Period of Ratzel – science only natural science – political geography as one of natural sciences
(need for geographic data)

• State as a geographical organism, operating in space

• Evaluates culture not race – not necessarily connected according to Ratzel

• state = population + land

• Land = body | Political system = soul

• Different levels of development of states – different “types of organisms”

• State and people = aggregate organism that is far superior to other organisms as it uses the
aggregation of efficiency

•  Importance of people characteristics

• Human laws of expansion – states expand through population activity – state lives of the land it
is sovereign over

• Cultured people = more advanced organization of land

• Spread of states »» the spread of people – limited in some climates, etc.

• No unlimited progress – land limitations, growing entity must take land of another
 

• territorial expression of state as the economic basis for the survival of its inhabitants

• introduced Lebensraum into German geography

• foundations of the theory of Lebensraum - every organism moves instinctively to secure the
space required for its survival - necessity for struggle for space (Kampf um Raum) - space on
Earth is finite, not enough for everyone.

• Struggle for space a primary condition of life

• Borders in Europe are stable, Germany must expand to Africa and Austria-Hungary to Balkans

Karl Haushofer

• General, nationalist, conservative

• Affected by loss in WWI - German

• Geopolitik – unification of land with state – practical politics

• Population must be educated to support strong state (inspiration in Japan)

• Close to Hess

• Connected to previous authors - ?

• Organic state, lebensraum, autarky, pan-regions

• Practical guidelines to strengthening Germany – most impactful in legitimizing revanschist Nazi

foreign policy x little direct impact

• Tied to Nazi regime – suicide after WWII

Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere

• Japanese Imperial project

• Establishment of independent region in East Asia

• Dominance by Japan – Westerners to be kept out

Aleksander Dugin
Geographic determinism

• Conservative

• Political geography as natural science

• Centrality of state

• Based in culture and nation

• Expansionist

Domination through domains

• Geopolitics and grand strategy

• Ability to dominate world politics through one domain

• Connected to recommendations to certain actor

• Often following technological progress

• Mahan, Douhet

Mahan - SEA

• History = re-appearance of flash points in naval battles

• Sea presents itself as a highway – establishing lines of communication

• Sea quicker and safer than land transport

• Need for safe ports and in times of war armed transport

• Interconnection between military and commercial control of the sea

• I. Geographical Position (access to high sea and chokepoints, protection against possible land
invasion).

II. Physical Conformation, including, as connected therewith, natural productions and climate
(how well developed the access to the sea is and how the population utilizes such).

III. Extent of Territory (combination of length of coastline and population).

IV. Number of Population (importance of number of population readily available for sea
activities).

V. Character of the People (national characteristic, spirit of the nation).

 VI. Character of the Government, including therein the national institutions (free people –
slower but steadier progress x despocies – usually falter after the death of despot but faster
development, seapower closely tied to pure support from government instable – better position
of free market, government should support free growth of navies plus sustain military naval
forces).

• Based on these – the US will suceed Britain as global hegemon

• Key role of sea-power for power projection

• Key to secure the seas by destroying the enemy fleets while maintaining free trade

• Importance of geographical locations like choke-points, canals etc.

• Derived from history of sea campaigns

• Impact even outside US – importantly in Germany

Douhet

• First – application of Mahan on air

• Airplane cannot be stopped from ground but only from air

• Key to control the domain – not only because of its impact on the ground but for itself –
following Mahan´s thought on seas

• Need to be forward thinking – prepare for the future technological progress

• Shift from bombing of lines of communications to strategic bombing of population centers for
morale purpose

• Command of air is achievable

• Airpower capable of decreasing the organizational capacity of opponent

• War is not only matter of army but of all nation/state

• Airpower together with incendiary bombs and gas can destroy whole urban areas

• Control over airspace x morale bombing – one require air fight and decisive battle x second
calculates with impossibility to stop attacking planes

• Attempt to overcome in later work (new technologies of battleplanes)

De Seversky – Victory Through Airpower (1942)

• Need to understand new technological development and adapt as a matter of national survival

• US must outbuild, outthink and outplan its enemies

 • US will face threat by aerial strike as UK in WWII, we shouldn´t hide behind “Maginot Line
thinking”

• Uninterrupted Air Ocean – need to prepare for war across continents (interhemispheric conflict)

• US holds potential to become the airnation as Britain was on the sea

• Need for independent air force organization

• Fear of large attack that would bomb US to ashes – if US airforce accepts defensive posture

• With technological progress no use of measuring distance in miles but in time needed to
traverse

• Technological progress decreases isolation

• Obtaining dominance in air is primary and most important part in dominating enemy and we
cannot attain the later without the former

• Sea power no longer an offensive option – any naval and land operation depends on air
superiority

• 360° thinking of space around the US (north pole)

• Use of airpower to strike heart of Japanese Empire to defeat it

– Area of Decision

• New look at the world map – polar perspective

• USSR and USA close to each other

• Area of decision over north pole – clash over dominance not in Rimland but over the pole

• America as a protector of Western hemisphere

Dolman

• Space is not a domain of peace

• Conflict entered all realms

• Who controls low-Earth orbit controls near-Earth space. Who controls near-Earth space
dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind

• Importance of „ultimate high ground“

• 4 zones – Terra, Terran Space, Lunar Space, Solar Space

• “Geography” of space
 • US as benevolent empire – only way to ensure stability

• Directly follows MacKinder, Spykman and German Geopolitik

Domain thinking

• Tied to technology – based on specific vision of technological progress x Mahan lessons from the
past

• Overestimates importance of new domains

• Victory through air-only impossible, space has clear limitations

• Underestimates existing military considerations

• Value in in-depth analysis of the new domains

Heartland, Rimland and the Anglo-Saxon school

• Based in British reading of space

• Originally a strategic considerations to ensure British dominance

• Later Cold War policy of US

• Prominence of land vs. sea power dichotomy

Halford MacKinder

The Geographical Pivot of History

• Nature to large degree determines the outcome of human activity

• Communities build upon resistence – Europe as resistance to Asian pressure

• Importance of raids and vast stepes for European history

• Eurasia = large, sparsely populated, large stepes, rivers flow to frozen sea

• Ocean mobility challenges step mobility – importance of Cape Town route discovery

• Access to new markets (Japan, Australia, Americas,…) inaccessible to nomads)

• Railways more convenient to sea trade

• Russia built Trans-Siberian railway, Pivot inaccessible to seapowers?

 • Russia replaces Mongol Empire - full
development of modern railway mobility a
matter of time.

• Any possible social revolution will alter her essential relations to the great geo-graphical limits of
her existence.

• Recognizing the limits of power - parted with Alaska; Russia to own nothing over seas as for
Britain to be supreme on the ocean

• The oversetting of the balance of power in favour of the pivot state - expansion over the
marginal lands of Euro-Asia - use of vast continental resources for fleet-building - the empire of
the world if Germany were to ally with Russia

• Pivot state great but of limited mobility compared with the surrounding marginal and insular
powers

• New control of the inland area by other actor would not reduce the geographical significance of
the pivot position.

• China to conquer Russia – addition of oceanic perspective to pivot position – also a primary
position

• Russia yet missing the connection to ocean

MacKinder – Democratic Ideals and Reality

• Maritime perspective – ocean more mobile than land

• WWI – Germany til 1917 fought both land and sea-powers

• Victory would mean connection of World Island resources and sea access

Democratic Ideals

• Landman´s perspective

• Land mobility across stepes, in the north – hordes on horses and later railways
 • Two inaccessible heartlands – Asiatic and African

Ideals

• No barrier on the east of Heartland

• Massive barriers to south and southeast

• Heartland can deny access from outside – freezes

• Geography and military technology favours land-power

• „It is evident that the Heartland is as real a physical fact within the World-Island as is the World-
Island itself within the ocean“

• Guarantees on paper are not solid

• Need to establish guarantees based on geograpy and

economy

• Risk of war coming from Heartland

• Stuggle between land and sea powers along the World Island

• Strategical opportunities - World-Island and the Heartland

are the final geographical realities

• East Europe is essentially a part of the Heartland.

• Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:

• Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:

 • Who rules the World-Island commands the World.

• Need to settle the issues in the Eastern Europe between Germans and Slavs

• Both independent

• Eastern question key for the future peace, key to keep independent nations between Russia and
Germany

• Germany is capable of conquering Russia thus Heartland

Spykamn

• Following MacKinder

• Adapting to US reality

• Less deterministic about role of Heartland

• Geography "is the most fundamentally conditioning factor in the formulation of national policy
because it is the most permanent.„

• Between geographic determinism (Ratzel) and possibilism (nature establishes possibilities for
decision)

• All political frontiers are unnatural – different military potential

• US must be interventionist – WW2 will be decided in Europe and Asia

• Dominance of Rimland

• United Europe and United Far East – dominance of World Island over Heartlandic Russia

• They mustn´t be united by hostile actor

• China more potential than Japan – US will have to protect Japan as they do with UK (suggested
throughout WW2)

• US must build oversea bases

• US must prepare oversea coalitions

• US must prevent unification of Far East and Europe by hostile power

• Basis of US policy post-1947

 • Furthered MacKinder by comparing Heartland to other regions in power potential

• Key – rimland doctrine

• „Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.“

Anglo-Saxon tradition

• Based in UK/US strategic thinking

• Important for Cold War US strategy (wars in Korea, Vietnam, military pacts)

• Followed by authors post-Cold War

Block 2
Anglo-Saxon tradition

• Based in UK/US strategic thinking

• Important for Cold War US strategy (wars in Korea, Vietnam, military pacts)

• Followed by authors post-Cold War

Anglo-Saxon school of thought

• Following geopolitical thinking of MacKinder and Spykman

 • Importance of geography, demography and other physical features

• Usually recommendations for the US

• Born in Cold War environment – relevant after 1991

Brzezinski – The Grand Chessboard

• After WWII – end of European domination x Eurasia chessboard of power struggle

• Nuclear weapons – inability of direct confrontation

• Struggle in peripheries on three fronts

• Europe and East Asia traditional

• Central Asia later with Soviet Afghan invasion

• America stands supreme in the four decisive domains of global power

I) Militarily - unmatched global reach;

II) Economically - main locomotive of global growth (challenged in some aspects by
Japan and Germany);
III) Technologically - overall lead in the cutting-edge areas of innovation;
IV) Culturally - appeal that is unrivaled, especially among the world's youth

• US dominates the system

• Not hierarchical but networking x power comes from Washington

• Build along US rules

• Dominance of Eurasia in geopolitics

• Eurasia = chessboard for a game

• US present thrugh cooperation with Western Europe

• Basic component of IR states - states primarily defined by geography

• Active geostrategic actors can influence the space beyond their borders

• Geopolitical pivots – important location for different reasons, vulnerable to geostrategic players

• Importance of Central Asia

• Among powers, destabilization potential

• Europe as natural US ally

• China and US might become allies if regime changes – important to keep US-PRC-Japan
relationship
• Russia must choose between isolation and opening to West

Kaplan – Revenge of Geography

• Geography and physical reality still important

• Not deterministic – “Geography plays a role”

• Events take place in historical and geographic context

• Geography, history and culture set limits

Revenge

• Berlin Wall – symbol of non-geographic division – made us blind to geography

• Supporters of globalizations stress what unifies us x realists what divides us

• Maps often lie x geography is stable

• Power related to the ability of an actor to fill environment – conquer peripheries

• Following MacKinder

• Not geographical determinist - geography is nonetheless key

• With hindsight into Anglo-Saxon geopolitics describes Europe, Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey

• Final part dedicated to the US

Kaplan – Coming Anarchy

• Derived from experience in Western Africa

• Future of te world not in globalized paradise but environmental catastrophe

• Environmental tensions will lead to Balkanization of the world

• Stability of states is low

• World will be divided into majority living in „anarchy“ and minority in „white limo“

• Western Africa as a forecast for the global future

• Importance of water scarcity and population growth

• Prediction of flashpoints (e.g. Correctly evaluated the Kurdish question and Palestine)
Cohen – Geopolitics

• Analysis of power distribution

• 4 pillars of power – military; economy; ideological leadership; cohesive systém of governance

• Hierarchical order of powers – 5 stages, states can be located in between

• Dynamic structure

• First-order (major powers) – influence beyond their region

Second-order (regional powers) – region ally confined

Third-order – unique ideology or culture

Fourth-order – incapable to pressure their neighbours

Fifth-order – depndent upon external actors to survive

• Geographic features (concrete) x geographic pattern (collectivity of features)

• Globalization adjusts and changes geographical settings

• Geopolitics came through development = interaction between geographical settings and

perspectives, and political processes

• Several geopolitical features and structural levels

• Dynamic

• Hierarchical

• Differentiated

• Less policy-based approach

Huntington – Clash of Civilizations

• Key role of civilizations as wider units

• Conflicts to occur on their borders

• Some more conflicting than others

• Some more developer than others – some without central unit

Anglo-Saxon tradition

• Key role of geography, secondary demography/culture,etc.

• Deals with power distribution

• Follows MacKinderian understanding – adaptation to post-Cold War world – new factors

• Deeply rooted in realist thinking

• Able to reflect the changing power distribution

Evolution of global map

• Outlook of the political map based in history

• Uneven development – dominated by European history

• Modern state global x not same

• Westphalian system as one stage

• Constant change

Medieval origins

• Europe – unique features

• Not dominated by single center

• Many different types of political units

• Most of units eliminated by force

Strayer

• State and sovereignty needed to be accepted by population

• Importance of shift of loyalty to state

• State as legal instrument – strenghtened with rise in education

• State in 1300s the strongest of types but still weak

• Strenghtening of institutions through time – slow foreign and military secretaries

• Many different types of units with overlapping loaylties – confusing network

• Power dependend on local allies – rise of representative assemblies

• Especially tied to dependence on taxation

Tilly

• Specific conditions of European state making

• Violent subordination for centuries

• Preparation for war requires extraction – need for administration

• Opposition by other types of units (bishops, cities, etc.) - city more reflective of capital than
coercion – state other way around

• No strong unit on European periphery to threaten the development

• No single center like China

• Centralization and new institutions opposed

• Tradition of division among kings

• Fragmentation of Europe – entities needed to centralize against their opponents

• At the beginning of state-building – projects expensive in man-power and resources – other

units failed

• After 1500 – dominance of sovereign state defined by:

territorial control;

centralization;

differentiation from other organizations;

monopoly on concentrated violence inside territory

• Increasing scale of war + connection of system through commerce military and diplomacy -
advantage to states with large standing armies

• Conditions for state-making in Europe:

availability of resources;

protected in time and space;

supply of political entrepreneurs;

success in war;

homogeneity of population (least important);

 strong coalition of elite with large segments of landed elite

• high level of one factor may overcome weakness in other

• Aided by development of world-economy

• State began to recognize each other (importance of Peace of Westphalia)

• More power-centers – possibility to balance

• New military technology – need for more resource – opposition – centralization – larger
extraction

• Europe from obscurity to more consolidated unites – 1500s larger states better chance of
survival

• Only after unification of Italy and Germany universalisation of standing armies in larger
territorial units

• Bargaining with capitalists and other classes to promote war-making activities – new social
benefits

• 19th century – states disarmed population - division between police and armed forces

• Smaller entities like city-states could not resist coercive power of larger units

• Bargain with wealthy over resources for war-making – later the demand grew - bargaining with
population

• Development:

patrimonialism (extraction through tributes, customary forces main role in war)

brokerage (dependence on mercenaries and capitalists (loans, management of enterprises, setting p

taxation))

nationalization (mass armies and state control over administration and fiscal policy)

specialization (specialization of armies, division of fiscal and military, increase in number of policies)

• Stakes: stable control of population and resources – territory as an asset – war to access resources
of other states

• 3 + 1 minimal activity of state:

statemaking (internal opposition),

warmaking (external opposition),

protection (protecting ruler´s allies),

Extraction

• usually three other ventures:

 adjudication (authoritative settlement of disputes),

distribution (intervention in allocation of goods),

production (intervention in creation of goods)

• Europe – dynamic system (interactions), changes in power distribution, redrawn generally after wars

• Unlike Europe, China dominated by single center

• Enforcement of national states outside Europe changes the experience of non-Europeans –

development cannot be replicated

New Middle Ages

• Unification of power stopped by nuclear weapons

• Reversal of the process

• Uneven development of the political map

• Return of some pre-modern principles

• Impact of cyberspace

New Middle Ages – Bull

• Regional integration of states

• Disintegration of states

• Restoration of private violence

• Transnational organizations

• Technological unificiation

• Glocalization

• Different outcomes – based on local conditions

• Positive (Friedrichs, Cerny) vs negative (Williams) predicted outcomes

• Westphalian stage as only one evolutionary step

• Exported globally but not effective globally

World-system -Wallerstein

• World-system theory based in historical cross-disciplinary analysis

• Historical development of different world-systems

• Current rooted in capitalist economy

• Will evolve in the future

• 3 important turning points of our modern world-system:

(1) the long sixteenth century - modern world-system came into existence as a capitalist world-
economy;

(2) French Revolution - subsequent dominance for two centuries of a geoculture for this world-
system - dominated by centrist liberalism;

(3) world revolution of 1968 - presaged the long terminal phase of the modern worldsystem in
which we find ourselves, undermined the centrist liberal geoculture holding the world-system
together.

• International trade – not equals

• Unequal Exchange
• The core – stronger – surplus value from periphery to the core
• Basis of dependency theory
• Global scale

• Crossing different academic disciplines

• Systemic rules that cross-cut smaller geographical units

• Modern world-system = worldeconomy

• Current world-system originates in 16th century Europe and America

• Spread globally

• No political or cultural homogeneity

• Goal = accumulation

• Core-like products – monopolization – higer added value/price – accumulation of capital in core

• Core-like products change in time

• Semi-periphery – mix of attributes – wants to climb up or at least stay in its position

• Colonialism = ensuring the development of colony + denial entrance of others – no movement

to try to enhance position of colony in the system

• Hegemony in the system is always only brief

• Focus on different aspects

• More holistic approach

• Development of the distribution of power based on historically rooted analysis

 • Constant change of factors – evolution of distribution of power

• Westphalian Western system not a given, not static and not universal

Block 3

Critical geopolitics and anti-geopolitics

Critical school

• Turn to language in social sciences

• Based in overal post-WW2 critique of geopolitics

• Language and discourse

• Radical schools tied to leftist circles

Hérodote

• French journal founded by Yves Lacoste

• Reaction to the marxist critique of geopolitics and its ties to Nazism

• Ressurection of geography and geopolitics in France

• Based in Marxist thinking – critical of leftist circles as well

• “In order to understand a geopolitical conflict or rivalry, it is insufficient merely to determine

and map what is at stake, instead it is necessary to understand the reasons and the ideas of the
main actors“

• Geography is taught to help wage war

• Geographers and their work help to make (state) action more effective

• Geographers should critically analyze geopolitics imagined and practised by the rulers
Ó Tuathail – Critical Geopolitics

• Geography is about power – product of histories and power

• Geo-graphing – earth-writing

• Idealized maps (central governments) vs. lived geographies (people), competing cartographies

• Development of modern cartography necessary for the division of space among states in Europe
for both identity and technical/infrastructure part

• Making of space through maps

• Geo-power- use of geographical knowledge as ensemble of technologies of power concerned

with the governmental production and management of territorial space.

• Follows governability of Foucalt

• Geography = power-knowledge relationship

• Possible contest between geographies

• Classical geopolitics stems from Eurocentric and Western-oriented perspective

• Different authors of geopolitical texts make the spaces according to different perspectives

• Geography introduced as a given, political processes established as “eternal”

• Most geopolitical production is practical and informal – practitioners use the spatializing for
foreign policy purposes

• Term geopolitics and geopolitical tradition is unclear – the meaning is dependent on the context
in which it was used

• Geopolitics – predomination of seeing (“maps”), critical geopolitics – combination of seeing and

language

• Spykman = geography just is - statement that takes away the discourse behind geography

• thinking about geography as a given is an argument that is not scientifically neutral as is

portrayed by the authors

• MacKinder - attempt to unify geography as a tool to project British Empire through maps and
sight – primarily maps/language descriptive of maps
• Look behind deployment and use of the sign “geopolitics”

• Geo-politics - the politics of the production of global political space by dominant intellectuals,
institutions, and practitioners of statecraft in practices that constitute “global politics.”

• Application on post-Cold War US policy - Bosnia both holocaust and quagmire – lack of
intervention

Cold War Geopolitics (K. Dodds)

• Geopolitics = problem-solving approach to international politics - emphasis given to the

territorial dimensions of diplomacy and foreign policy

• Critical geopolitical - world political order is actively constituted through particular modes of
geopolitical reasoning.

• „Mountain ranges and oceans are not naturally significant but they tend to be labeled as
"strategic." In other words, critical geopolitics investigates the ways in which geopolitical forms
of reasoning have interpreted the "world political map.„“

• Geopolitical reasoning - three distinct if inter-linking levels of analysis:

o Practical - geopolitical reasoning referred to the depictions and rationales produced by national
governments and their supporting armed forces and bureaucracies

o Formal - geopolitical reasoning describes the research ideas and descriptions produced by
academics working in universities and so-called "think-tanks"

o Popular - geopolitics refers to the geographic representations found within the popular media
whether it be mass-market magazines, movies and/or cartoons 

John Agnew and sovereignty

• 5 myths (over-exaggerations) of globalization:

o i) world is flat (many places unintegrated),

o ii) globalization is entirely new (world economy is developing since 16th century),

o iii) is tightly connected to (neo-)liberalism (successful states mobilized national resources,

technology developed by states, outcome of US foreign policy),

o iv) globalization as opposed to welfare state (not supported by data),

o v) there is no alternative (globalization might be reversed or changed, it is a US project)

• Polities not necessarily organized territorially

• Territorial trap:
o states have exclusive power inside their territories

o politics divided between domestic and foreign

o territorially bound sovereignty as the only working sovereignty

o boundaries of state contain boundaries of society

• Sacralization of state (leading to common knowledge of territorial trap) it gained advantage over
other types of units (similar to the evolutionary thinking) x limits our understanding of
contemporary power relations (overfocus on coercion and state)

• Territoriality is the strategic use of territory to attain organizational goals

• Only one way of organizing space socially and politically

• Spatial interaction – some places in certain networks are more connected by relational than
spatial proximity (e.g., London and New York)

• Criticism of the hypocrisy of even sovereignty of states – empirically not holding

Anti-Geopolitics (P. Routledge)

• Anti-geopolitics represents an assertion of permanent independence from the state

• Two interrelated forms of counter-hegemonic struggle:

o Challenges the material (economic and military) geopolitical power of states and global
institutions

o Challenges the representations imposed by political and economic elites upon the world and its
different peoples, that are deployed to serve their geopolitical interests

o Cold War opposition to domination - e.g. eastern Europe

o Same in colonial experience and anti-globalization/liberalization of markets

o Anti-geopolitics = practice and justification for resistance (e.g., Zapatistas)

o Resistances attempt to privilege the powers of everyday existence over incursion and
exploitation by states, and national and transnational corporations.

o Localized global actions and globalized local actions

• Robinson (1998) - effective anti-geopolitical struggle requires:

o (i) a political force and a broader vision of social transformation that can link different place-
based social movements;

o (ii) the creation of viable socioeconomic alternatives to neoliberalism which can emerge out of
ongoing political, economic, environmental and cultural struggles;
o (iii) the need for social movements to transnationalize their struggles.

• Robinson, W. I. 1998. Latin America and global capitalism. Race and Class, 40(2/3), 111-32.

Critical and anti

• Stemming from the dissident approach

• Motivations and language

• Anti-power

• Aim to dig deeper

Perceptions in geopolitics

Agnew

• Geopolitics as a reflection of Western interaction with the world

o German geopolitical perception = Czechoslovakia drawn as a dagger pointing into the heart of
German Empire,

o Cold War = Czechoslovakia as area of tensions,

o post-Cold War = lost of these properties as EU enlarged

• Axis of Evil (Bush) built in perceptions and not in empirical reality (WMDs/support to
terrorism…)
• Modern geopolitical visualization = a system of visualization that was constructed and is not
spontaneous

• Visualization of the world based in two principles of European origin – world as a picture + edges
of map/unknown places as filled with chaos and demons

• Map/compilation of maps in atlas not static – they send a clear vision of certain world order

• Popular maps helped to constitute world

• Geographical formalization of divisions of world – e.g., Mackinderian connection of Central Asia

with barbaric invasions of Europe

• Threat perceptions of the world historically developed

• Linking of categories from European past with certain space in the present

• Classical geopolitics sees itself as view-from-nowhere – problematic and not true

Said – Oreintalism

• Orient a Western point of view – helps to define Europe

• Orient and occident are not natural but manmade

• Represantation of Orient are more reflective of us than the region

• A distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological,

historical, and philological texts

Orientalism

• Orient loses autonomy – knowledge of phenomena from external perspective only – benefit of
colonialism understood through eyes of colonists and not locals

• Oreint constrcuted as to be dominated by the West

• Familiar (West) x Strange (Orient)

• Utilization of dichotomy strenghtens it

• Orient vast (Arab, Chinses, Indian,…)

• Orientalist studies cover everything – very selective

• Perception of Islam via medieval Christian lenses – not often accepted what Muslims said they
stand for

• Presentation of the East via Orientalist language – Mohamedan instead of Islam, etc.

• Orient reworked as to become a part of West – e.g. Indian religion an Oriental version of
German-Christian pantheism
• Orient to be remade based on premodern idealized Oriental world 

• Judging Orient through textual experience – through what is in books

• Orient as a subject to be studied - prisms of racism (definitions of people by common features)

• Ideas of underdevelopment and backwardeness of Orient

• Knowledge about Orient rooted in its geography – connection of geography to civilizational

traits

• Colonialism as a sign of intellectual supremacy

• No escape from the cultural, civilizational, linguistic differences

Buruma, Margalit – Occidentalism

• Anti-Western/American sentiment not new for Islamism

• Occidentalism is not anti-Americanism, opposition to mechanized and soulless West

• Modern capitalism as sign of decadent West

• Issue of modernization without accepting Western/Christian traits

• Idea of wicked and godless city as a symbol of West – origins in western thought (e.g. Voltaire)

• Utilized by Western anti-modern ideologies like Nazism (lying, mercantilist Jew x German
nativism)

• Uprising against “city”

• Copies of occidental cities to overcome them – from “Germania” to

Pyongyang/Shanghai/Singapore 

• West as soft and decadent

• Western comfort, not heroic x self-sacrifice (present in thoughts of Japanese, Nazis, Islamists,
etc.)

• Occidentalism as resentment towards display of superiority based on reason

• Religious (universalistic) x nationalistic (exclusive) occidentalism

Active making of perceptions

• Europe as „Gayropa“

• Decadent, anti-traditional, anti-Christian

• Largely connected to conspiracies

• NATO as existential threat

Perceptions in geopolitics

• They matter

• Based in cartography x give cartography meaning

• Not determined by geography

• How actor perceives other

• How actors perceive landscape – river as border/connection

Systemic geopolitics

• Systemic approach to analysis of politics

• Simplifaction of the process based on Easton

• Combination of critical and classical approaches

• Method to analyze any space

• Universal methodology

• Critical geopolitics:

• Finds weaknesses in classical approaches

• Brings personal perspective into the picture

• Importance of perceptions, discourse and so on

• Anti-geopolitical

• Anti-cartographic

• Anti-environmental

• Critique
• Next step to holistic universalization of geopolitical analysis

Systemic Analysis

• Whole → System of elements → Whole'

Any complex political system consists of:

(a) definite actors – individual or collective decision makers;

(b) definite links of interdependence between the actors;

(c) definite borders that distinguish the system from its surroundings

(d) inputs (everything that is imported into the system from its surroundings)

(e) outputs (everything that is exported from the system to its surroundings)

(f) feedback as the means of understanding how the system and its surroundings interact with, and
affect, each other

(Easton, 1957)

Dussuoy

• Degree of complexity is reliant on three factors:

1. the number of components making up the system

2. the relative variety of units

3. the degree of interdependence of the units

• Non-teleological – does not give world a meaning; stochastic – evolution depends on an event
(e.g., end of Cold War)
• Structures can be only understood through strategies of participants – in geopolitics we must
look at past generations as well

• Natural space = always there, technology changes it, also reacts (climate change, acid rains,
etc.),

o elimination of distance through means of transportation,

o sets context

• Attempt to understand behaviour of actor according to its position in system

• Global system – currently an objective reality

Basic axioms –

• rejection of historical developmentalism,

• system a constellation of participants with intentions and capabilities,

• centres are movable and different according to criteria (military, economy, culture, etc.),

• based on geopolitical representations – objective geopolitical infrastructure x system of

representations by actors,

• logics of system set spatial forms (territory, networks, etc.) limits to actors´ decisions

Basic axioms –

• rejection of historical
developmentalism,

• system a constellation of participants

with intentions and capabilities,

• centres are movable and different

according to criteria (military, economy,
culture, etc.),

• based on geopolitical representations –

objective geopolitical infrastructure x
system of representations by actors,

• logics of system set spatial forms

(territory, networks, etc.) limits to
actors´ decisions

• 5 maps

physical/natural space,

demo-political space,

diplomatic-military field,
 socio-economic field,

symbolic/idealistic/cultural field

• Model
presents
several
centres
based on
the field
analysed
(or their

combination)

• Dissymetry of interactions may lead to strong effects (Cold War as dominance of diplomatic-
military through other fields, currently domination of socio-economic through globalization)

• Each space has a variable that creates change:

o 1 – resources – most stable,

o 2 – changes in demographic structure,

o 3- changes in the role of a state,

o 4 – changes in the economic model,

o 5 – culture shocks, religious revivals, ideology, etc. 

Lévy

• Developing system of systems

• Several systems that explain working of society – each have their own merit

• Several systems help explain the broader systemic forces in global society

• Historical development x mutually appearing – no set direction of development

 • Grouping of the worlds – members unaware of each other

• Field of forces – Space divided between territorially rigid state that apply force against each
other

• Hierarchical network – world-economy, dissymmetric flows, enhanced by globalization

• World as a society – cultural community + political identity + economic integration on global

level removing distances

• Basic relationships – separation, domination, transaction, communication

Systemic approach

• Methodology to analyze geopolitics

• Not giving meaning to processes

• Based on combination of classical and critical approaches

• Limits and trends to decisions of actors

Block 4
 Geo-economics and post-colonialism

Luttwak

• In post-Cold War world – large conflict implausible

• World politics is not replaced by world business – conflict is not giving way to free exchange

• Conflict does not disappear

• States still primary units with borders – national policies

• Transformation of state action into geoeconomics

• Nations united by external threat not commerce – alliance over security threat more important
than economic disputes

• End of Cold War – decrease in importance of external threat

• Growing importance of commerce

• Geo-economics suddenly not trumped by other factors

• Causes and tools of conflict economic

• There will be large difference between activities of states – some laisez-faire not acting geo-
economically

• Coexistence with private entities – from disregard to support to reach state goals

Vihma – Geoeconomics

• Geoeconomics = strategic use of economic power

• Based on rise of state capitalist model

• Multipolarity and regulation of markets post-crisis

• Geoeconomics needs to be fully conceptualized – not yet done, focus on carrots – so far mostly
covered are sticks

• Critical geopolitics critique:

• same as geopolitics it follows the simplistic neorealist thinking,

• connection to neoliberalism (understanding of geoeconomics as a discourse by CG x set of

policies by Luttwak),

• securitization (e.g., threat of Russian gas)  

Csurgai - Geoeconomics

• Geoconomics = analysis of politics + tool to be used by actors 

• Does not replace geopolitics 

• Geoeconomic tools used throughout history 

• Non-military means of conflict advantageous to military control of geographic area (e.g., Iraq,
Afghanistan) 

• Democratic peace x not relevant for geoeconomic domain 

• Geoeconomic tools conditioned by presence of state not completely free market 

• Economic intelligence in business – similar to state intelligence

Geoeconomics

• Roots in (neo)classical geopolitice

• Geopolitics by other means

• Economic tools more advantegeous

• Decrease in physical conflict

• Imperial geopolitics - Geopolitics is a discourse that describes, explains, and promotes particular
ways of seeing how territorial powers are formed and experienced

• Visions of Empires:

o British based in MacKinder´s racism;

o League of Nations based in Wilson´s nation states;

o Third International based in Marx classes

Post-colonialism and geopolitics (Slater)

• Third World portrayed as a threat – tied to poverty, underdevelopment etc

• Separation in time /modern, pre-modern) and space (western, backward)

• Modernization seen from US perspective

• Non-Western as primitive = calls for radical change not authentic

• African masculinity as threatening

• Belief in the superiority of the West and the ostensibly beneficial impact of the Western
diffusion of capital, institutions, democracy, achievement, rationality and (now again)
civilization.

• Economic growth = market friendly policies = alleviation of poverty (World Bank)

• US will enlarge spatial power (expansionism) – developmental theory

• Dependency theory not only socio-economic but also cultural, enforcement of one political and
economic system – societies are not independent

• Post-colonialist and dependency theory can strengthen each other´s argument

• Geopolitics are:

a) the resurgence of US power as a central element of global times, and the significance within this
resurgence of the directing role of the US state rooted in an assertive nationalism;

b) the combination of global interconnectedness with the persistence of North–South divisions, the
asymmetry of power relations and the reproduction of subordinating modes of representation.

• Desire to intervene rooted in neo-liberalism and modernization theory – spreading of capital to

countries deemed underdeveloped
Post-colonialism (Sharp)

• World is mixing x not free mixture – greater restrictions to some people, postcolonial
geographies still in place

• Colonialism as occupation of other land connected to scientification in Europe – measuring of

land etc.

• Formal decolonization did not ended effects of colonialism, cultural effects

• Orientalist production of non-European spaces, from history of fearing monsters there –

backward, violent – impact on understanding these including war on terror

• Changes in landscape to imitate the home of colonizers 

• Decolonization still comes from outside (colonizers telling people they are now free)

• US developing world to open markets for its goods, hierarchical and patronising system of
development aid

• Concept of third world as leftover that didn’t fit first or second world

• Cultural imperialism – through spread of global American culture

• Movies about colonialism from idealized Western perspective – civilized Western man

• Global homogenization – pictures that everyone wants live like the West

• Cultural hybridity (against binary thinking like Orient vs Occident) and fundamentalism against
homogenization as postcolonial culture

Post-colonialism

• Tied in uneven power distribution

• Both cultural and economic (dependency)

• Opposition to current world order

• Injustice largely based in colonial legacy

Connectography and teichopolitics

Khanna – Connectography

• Geography is destiny – obsolete, connectivity is destiny

• Competition over connections less violent then over borders

• Building of new infrastructure connecting places – boosts economy

• Great demand for infrastructure – states do not keep pace (especially US issue)

• Boundaries not a clear lines separating territories – porous (more or less), importance of inland
airports or cyberspace

• Geography only one factor that must be taken into account

• Political geography (how world is divided) giving way to functional geography (how we use
space) thanks to megainfrastructure

• Connectivity – making most of geography + changing vision of natural regions

• Supply chains and connectivity with humanity

through all history

• Since 1648 stabilization of power – disturbed by

globalization

• World does not run around state borders but

arounds infrastructure and supply chains

• Population moving to live along supply lines

• Urbanization – connection – similarity of urban

populations worldwide

• Alternating “bad” geography by connections and

infrastructure

• Supply chains allow population to prosper but also allow for plundering

• “Five Cs”:

o territorial countries,

o networked cities,

o regional commonwealths,

o cloud communities,

o stateless companies

• Devolution – creation of optimal units (smaller than states, around cities) – increase in number
of borders

• Devolution and autonomy to restive or different regions improves stability

• Smaller clusters are then connecting in larger functional units (like EU)
• Geoeconomic tools of power competition

• Competitive connectivity – The most connected power wins (geopolitical principle)

• Age of post-ideological infrastructural alliances

• Migration more of a circulation

• Cities and settlement and activity must react to changes in climate conditions

• New order not likely to be overtaken by other great power but by networks

• Competition over connections decreases collective risk

Slaughter – Chessboard and Web

• Dominant view of politics as a chessboard

• Alternative view of connections – web vie

• We have strategies for games on chessboard x not for the web

• Grand strategy needs to combine strategies for the chessboard and the web

• Seeing world in stereo – both factors operating together

Slaughter

• Problems (types):

o Resilience (reaction to crisis),

o Execution (of tasks)

o Scale (challenges dealt at micro but not macro level)

• Creating specific networks to deal with the issues

• Promotion of grand strategy of Open Order Building

Rosiere, Jones – Teichopolitics

•  Teichos = city wall

• Border hardening = attempt to control all cross-border flow not remove it

• Restrictive immigration policies

• Increasing enclosure of territories between sovereign states (walls and fences on international
borders), within sovereign states (various methods of sustaining inequality such as gated
communities).

Teichopolitics

• Different acceptance of flows (raw materials welcome, humans and finished products unevenly)

• Building of walls along economic disparities

• Periods of modern era:

o colonization

o industrial era

o geoeconomics

o teichopolitics - 'teichopolitics' - a new word derived from Ancient Greek teichos meaning 'city
wall' - i.e. the politics of building walls. Security issues seem to be an obvious factor, but
economic aspects are also important. Building walls is a source of profit for the security and
construction industries. Developers and large companies, as well as governments and
individuals, therefore have their own strategies that are contributing to the proliferation of
barriers.

Mičko, Riegl – Schmittian theory

• Between 1989 and 2018 rise in number of border barriers from 15 to 77

• Border barrier as a bordering tool to develop friend/enemy identity

 

• Not the only bordering tool available

• Crossing border barrier = declaring enmity

• Other explanations – sovereignty and economic disparity – also have insight

• „The inability to determine who is and who is not an enemy during times when a territory or a
way of life is challenged in a violent manner leads states to construct border barriers.“

Pusterla, Piccin – The Loss of Sovereign Control

• Transfer of sovereignty from state to international level

• States lose Westphalian sovereignty – shift to essential sovereignty

• Building walls to protect their essential sovereignty

• States are unable to stop the shift of features of non-essential sovereignty to international level
even by walls

Connections and border walls

• Is geopolitics overcome?

• Disputed role of sovereignty, geography and networks

• Need to adapt strategies and thinking

• Mapping the world through non-geographic means (along geographic)