Critical Geopolitics

Celebrity geopolitics

by Klaus Dodds

Editorial published in Political Geography co-authored with Matt Benwell and Alasdair Pinkerton

New Great Game or same old ideas? Neo-Sovietism and the international politics of imagining “Central Asia”

by John Heathershaw

John Heathershaw, ‘New Great Game or Same Old Ideas? Neo-sovietism and the International Politics of Imagining “Central Asia”’, in David Dusseault (ed.), The CIS: Form or Substance?, (Helsinki: Kikimora, 2007)

Repräsentation von Sicherheit im Film - Eine Analyse von Filmen zum Irakkrieg 2003

by Manuel Berger

Neoliberalism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalism. The Ashgate Research Companion to Critical Geopolitics. Eds. K. Dodds, M. Kuus, and J. Sharp. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

This chapter seeks to demonstrate how a critical geopolitics has contributed to a reading of neoliberalism that... more This chapter seeks to demonstrate how a critical geopolitics has contributed to a reading of neoliberalism that challenges the assumed inevitability and all-encompassing ‘bulldozer effect’ that pervades in popular media accounts of free market capitalism and its colloquial understanding as ‘globalization’. I emphasize neoliberalism’s mongrel character, by attending to the series of mutations, hybridizations, and variegations across space that foreground the role of geography in creating multiple forms of processual and unfolding neoliberalizations, rather than a singular and static neoliberalism. I then turn my attention to the continuing role of the state and address how discourse functions to secure consent for neoliberalism’s particular political rationality. I hope to remind readers that although the role of the state has become subtler under neoliberalism through a reconfiguration of the citizen-subject via processes of governmentality, this does not mean that it has entirely exited the political scene. To the contrary, I argue that the transformed role of the state under neoliberalization is susceptible to expressions of authoritarianism and violence, which brings the state back into plain view as it comes into conflict with those individuals who have been marginalized by neoliberalism’s belligerent regulatory reforms and discriminatory policy initiatives.

Two Continents, One Area: Eurasia

by Markus Kaiser

also in: Preston, P. and J. Gilson (2001, eds.): The European Union and East Asia: Interregional Linkages in a Changing Global System. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing House, 65-90.

“Patrullando el Globo : un análisis de los presupuestos geográficos y geopolíticos de la Guerra Global Permanente”

by Iñigo Errejón Galván

Ágora nº 18 La política y los movimientos sociales (II), Año 2008, Pp. 161-180
ISSN: 1139-2134

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptocracy, and violence in Cambodia's neoliberalization. Environment and Planning A. 43 (11) 2554-2570.

Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism,... more Focusing exclusively on external forces risks producing an over-generalized account of a ubiquitous neoliberalism, which insufficiently accounts for the profusion of local variegations that currently comprise the neoliberal project as a series of articulations with existing political economic circumstances. Although neoliberal economics were initially promoted in the global south through the auspices of structural adjustment programs designed by the International Financial Institutions, powerful global south elites were only too happy to oblige. Neoliberalism frequently reveals opportunities for well-connected government officials to informally control market and material rewards, allowing them to easily line their own pockets. It is in this sense of the local appropriation of neoliberal ideas that scholars must go beyond conceiving of ‘neoliberalism-in-general’ as a singular and fully realized policy regime, ideological form, or regulatory framework, and work towards conceiving a plurality of ‘actually existing neoliberalisms’ with particular characteristics arising from mutable geohistorical outcomes that are embedded within national, regional, and local process of market-driven socio-spatial transformation. What constitutes ‘actually existing’ neoliberalism in Cambodia as distinctly Cambodian is the ways in which the patronage system has allowed local elites to co-opt, transform, and (re)articulate neoliberal reforms through a framework that ‘asset strips’ public resources, thereby increasing peoples’ exposure to corruption, coercion, and violence. It is to such an 'articulation agenda' that this article attends, as in seeking to provide a more nuanced reading to recent work on neoliberalism in Cambodia by outlining some of its salient characteristics, I reveal a more empirical basis to theorizations of ‘articulated neoliberalism’.

“A Microscopic Insurgent”: Militarization, Health, and Critical Geographies of Violence

by Jenna Loyd

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, special issue on Geographies of Peace and Conflict. 2009 99(5): 863-873.

Wars do not maim with bullets and bombs alone, but cause economic and environmental destruction that leave enduring... more Wars do not maim with bullets and bombs alone, but cause economic and environmental destruction that leave enduring bodily harms. Preparations for war-making also cause negative health effects, from toxic waste to the redirection of social wealth from investment in social needs. But the commonsense juxtaposition of exceptional war to normal peace makes it difficult to recognize processes of militarization, the violent continuities between war and peace, and geographic ties binding spaces of relative health with spaces of harms. This article advances a critical geographic analysis of violence to analyze the ways in which militarization and structural violence reinforce one another. A 2007 cholera epidemic in Iraq was militarized through material and discursive geographies of cholera and violence. Humanitarian claims to cure cholera rested on this dualistic geopolitical imagination, distorting the agents of violence and erasing the grave effects of peacetime and wartime structural violence. By situating cholera within a broader historical and geographic context that shows links between “wartime” and “peacetime” places also suffering premature deaths from the destruction or abandonment of necessary infrastructures, a critical human geography can contribute to struggles for peace and justice.

Alter-geopolitics: Other securities are happening

by Sara Koopman

if you don't have access to this journal and want a cleaner copy with proper pagination for citation please email me, I'd be happy to send one.

In an age of increasing state (in)security, groups are coming together on their own to build alternative nonviolent... more In an age of increasing state (in)security, groups are coming together on their own to build alternative nonviolent securities. They are making connections across distance and difference which focus on the safety of bodies (often by actually moving bodies), and ground geopolitics in everyday life. The term anti-geopolitics focuses on resistance to hegemonic geopolitics (material or discursive), rather than this sort of effort to build something new. Feminist geopolitics is a form of anti-geopolitics that not only takes apart but also puts the pieces together in new ways - with broader definitions of security for more bodies in more places. Yet it has not generally looked at that practice as engaged in outside of academia. I propose the term alter-geopolitics for a type of feminist geopolitics as a way to extend both the concepts of anti and feminist geopolitics. I argue for the term as a reminder to look to grassroots practice, to the ways that groups are doing geopolitics in the streets, in homes, in jungles, and in many other spaces ‘off the page’. Though they may not think of their work as geopolitics, framing it in this way can open fruitful conversations. As academics we have much to learn and offer through collaboratively thinking with such groups about security. I have been doing this with international accompaniers in Colombia and discuss their work, and the peace community of San José that they accompany, as forms of alter-geopolitics.

“Valley of the Wolves--Iraq: Anti-geopolitics Alla Turca,”” Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Vol. 2, No. 1, (2009), pp. 2-18.

by Lerna Yanik

The Metamorphosis of ‘Metaphors of Vision’: “Bridging” Turkey’s Location, Role and Identity After the End of Cold War,” Geopolitics, Vol. 14, No. 3, (2009), pp. 531-549

by Lerna Yanik

Constructing Turkish “exceptionalism”: Discourses of liminality and hybridity in post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy

by Lerna Yanik

Political Geography, Vol. 30, No. 2, (February 2011), pp. 80-89.

Polar Partners or Poles Apart? On the discourses of two US think tanks on Russia's presence in the ‘High North’

by Leonhardt van Efferink

Commentary, The Geographical Journal, published online on 30/08/2011

The discourses of two US think tanks show how representations of the Artic could make the difference between either an... more The discourses of two US think tanks show how representations of the Artic could make the difference between either an inclusionary or exclusionary Arctic regime. The Brookings Institution stresses that Russia's foreign policy focuses on international law and diplomacy; and recommends multilateral initiatives to address regional tensions. However, the Heritage Foundation emphasises Russia's willingness to use military force and strong language when dealing with Arctic matters, recommends ‘a strong response’ to Russia's policies and stresses the importance of ‘Western’ alliances. The comparison of discourses on the Arctic of two US think tanks lends support to the idea that geographers should play a prominent role in the debate on a regional governance framework. A constructive way to do so is by highlighting and explaining the region's complexity and uncertainty, in order to limit the (re)construction of degeographicalised representations of the Arctic in policy circles.

Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies. Political Geography. 30 (2), 90-98.

Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that... more Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that violence is 'irrational' marks particular cultures as ‘other’. Neoliberalism exploits such imaginative geographies in constructing itself as the sole providence of nonviolence and the lone bearer of reason. Proceeding as a ‘civilizing’ project, neoliberalism positions the market as salvationary to putatively ‘irrational’ and ‘violent’ peoples. This theology of neoliberalism produces a discourse that binds violence in place. But while violence sits in places in terms of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is reconsidered as a relational assemblage. What this re-theorization does is open up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to instead recognize it as always co-constituted by, mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated and localized event, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, derived from the broader geographical phenomena and temporal patterns of the social world.

Fregonese, S. (2011) Beyond the Domino: Transnational (In)Security and the 2011 Protests

by Sara Fregonese

Environment and Planning D: Society and Space" blog, October 20th

In 2011, several expert analyses of the the Arab Spring have employed the spatial metaphor of the falling domino... more In 2011, several expert analyses of the the Arab Spring have employed the spatial metaphor of the falling domino pieces to indicate its spread from country to country. The paper questions this type of representation and highlight its implications for understanding the political geographies of protest in the Mediterranean. The paper first presents a number of critical and even subversive uses of the domino theory in popular culture, notably by political cartoonists. Secondly, it complicates the linear geographies of the domino with non linear networks of transnational uprising and solidarity, and “grammars” of urban security. These non-linear threads reach beyond the Arab region, and highlight trans-Mediterranean spaces of protest where the relationship between State and resistance is coming increasingly under pressure. Ultimately, the transnational recontextualisation exposes the limited nature of those understanding of change which consider change in the Arab world as merely agency-less pieces of dominos, falling along a pre-determined path of democratisation.

Worlds Apart: the making and remaking of geopolitical space in the US-Uzbekistan strategic partnership

by John Heathershaw

Central Asian Survey, Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2007 , pages 123-140

This article analyses the US-Uzbekistan strategic alliance in terms of the illusion of ‘partnership’ which sustained... more This article analyses the US-Uzbekistan strategic alliance in terms of the illusion of ‘partnership’ which sustained it, the contrasting discourses which constructed and deconstructed it, and the implications of them for the region and the study thereof. Official Uzbek accounts of geopolitics contrast with official American renditions of the Central Asian ‘other’ and their expectations about the pace, place and ethics of Uzbek reform. These contrasts were reconciled for a short period by the illusion of common interests which sustained the strategic partnership. I show how contending representations of the partnership came to a head immediately after the Andijon uprising, amid precipitous national and international developments. These contingencies shattered an unstable discursive compromise, crystalised US and Uzbek policy-maker’s positions, and pitted the two states against one another. Whilst not pre-determined or inevitable, this split was always probable. Nevertheless, these contrasting representations have not disappeared and continue to effect the practice and study of international politics in the region. We must, I argue, understand geopolitical dynamics in the region not in terms of swings of a pendulum ‘between’ East and West, but in terms of the qualitative differences of each power’s power in the region. In other words, it is the exclusion of the United States from a spatially-defined and discursively-constructed region of Central Asia which limits its place in the region. An analysis born out of critical geopolitics calls into question these apparently objective descriptions. Differences between the way the US, Russia and China relate to Uzbekistan are found not so much in their mobilisation of strategic and economic resources, but in terms of their powers of representation, their ability to perform the authority of the Karimov regime. The United States, I conclude, is qualitatively less powerful than Russia and China in Central Asia.

Imperialism Within: Can the Master's Tools Bring Down Empire?

by Sara Koopman

paper also available in Spanish as El Imperialismo adentro:¿ Pueden las Herramientas del Amo Derribar el Imperio?

Imperialism affects “here” as well as “there”. White middle class women have historically gotten out of the home and... more Imperialism affects “here” as well as “there”. White middle class women have historically gotten out of the home and gained more of a Self by being good helpers, classically as teachers and missionaries. In this role they consolidated empire’s power, often unintentionally. Today the good helper role is being widely used, not only by white women, to work against empire. Yet this master’s tool is toxic. It may appear to take tiles off the master’s house, but it reinforces the systems of domination that prop up empire. Those of us who struggle against empire must also struggle against the imperialism within ourselves. This analysis of ways to decolonize solidarity work is grounded in the movement to close the School of the Americas [a U.S. army training camp] and a collaborative theorizing process with white middle class women prisoners of conscience. This work engages in alter-geopolitics, working to build another world.

Re-examining Security Dynamics: Proliferating 'New Threats' as Catalysts for Interstate Cooperation in Europe

by Jonas Hagmann

Published in: Journal of Human Security, 2008

Are security concerns opponents of international cooperation? If so, why is the proliferation of security concepts not... more Are security concerns opponents of international cooperation? If so, why is the proliferation of security concepts not making such cooperation more difficult? A negative vision of security is hard to reconcile with the increasingly observed invocation of security problems as rationales for international cooperation, especially by European states. Security concerns may be invoked either as catalysts or as impediments to international cooperation. The notion of securitisation should be expanded into a more complex process that endows threat discourses with particular characteristics of reach, effects and agency. In different combinations, these characteristics codify ideational outlooks on the security environment, each with specific logical effects on foreign politics: By structuring what can be meaningfully said about a nation's security environment, they empower different threat-based foreign policy discourses. In this analytical framework, 'public bad' perceptions represent one such ideal-typical outlook that paraphrases collective and increasingly non-state actor-driven security challenges. The convergence on this particular view by European security policy experts is understood to drive security cooperation in reaction to the subjectively assessed nature of contemporary security concerns, rather than being based on shared values. If ideationally converging, cognitive and transnational 'insecurity communities' of like-minded security policymakers are important driving forces in contemporary European security cooperation, the 'value-based' explanation of state interaction proposed by the 'security communities' literature must be critically re-evaluated.

Räume der Unsicherheit: Konstruktion, Emanzipation und Exklusion durch Sicherheitspolitik (Spaces of insecurity: construction, emancipation and exclusion through security policy) (Espaces d’insécurité : construction, émancipation et exclusion à travers les politiques de sécurité)

by Jonas Hagmann

Published in: Swiss Journal of Geography, 2010

Die kritischen Sicherheitsstudien befassen sich seit den neunziger Jahren mit der Frage, wie Gefahrendiskurse... more Die kritischen Sicherheitsstudien befassen sich seit den neunziger Jahren mit der Frage, wie Gefahrendiskurse politische Landschaften von Inklusion und Exklusion erschaffen, wie sie die gesellschaftliche Meinungsbildung strukturieren, und wie sie die sicherheitspolitische Handhabung des öffentlichen Raumes definieren. Dieser Artikel präsentiert eine Einführung in die in der Schweiz noch immer wenig bekannten kritischen Sicherheitsstudien. Er fasst die konzeptionellen Überlegungen ihrer heutigen Denkschulen zusammen, und er illustriert sie anhand praktischer Fallbeispiele aus der jüngeren schweizerischen Sicherheitspolitik. Ziel des Artikels ist es aufzuzeigen, wie Sicherheitspolitiken verschiedene politische Räumlichkeiten erschaffen und gestalten, wodurch ein Dialog zwischen der Politischen Geographie und der Disziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen geschaffen werden soll.

Since the 1990s, critical security studies look at how discourses of collective danger create landscapes of political inclusion and exclusion, how they affect public opinion-making, and how they structure the organization of the public sphere. This article offers an introduction to critical security studies, a field of research which is still given little attention in Switzerland. Main analytical arguments of current schools of thought are summarized and illustrated on the basis of contemporary Swiss security policy. The objective of the article is to show how security policies create and configure different political spaces, thereby establishing a dialogue between political geography and the discipline of International Relations.

Depuis les années quatre-vingt-dix, les approches critiques de la sécurité analysent comment les discours sur l’insécurité créent des paysages politiques d’inclusion et d’exclusion, structurent la formation de l’opinion publique et définissent la gestion de la sécurité des espaces publics. Cet article constitue une introduction aux approches critiques de la sécurité qui à leur tour sont toujours mal connues en Suisse. Il résume les arguments analytiques des différentes approches critiques et les applique à des exemples récents de la politique de sécurité suisse. L’objectif de l’article est de montrer comment les politiques de sécurité construisent et façonnent les espaces politiques et de contribuer au dialogue entre géographie politique et Relations Internationales.