'Critical geopolitics' refers to a body of radical scholarship that emerged in the early 1990s and bridges the academic disciplines of
Geography and
International Relations. Setting itself in opposition to 'classical'
Geopolitics, it conceptualizes
geopolitics as a complex and problematic set of discourses, representations and practices, rather than as a coherent, neutral and objectivist science.
Critical Geopolitics sees the geopolitical as comprising three linked facets: popular geopolitics; formal geopolitics, and practical geopolitics. Critical Geopolitical scholarship continues to engage critically with questions surrounding geopolitical
discourses, geopolitical practice (i.e.
foreign policy), and the history of
Geopolitics.
Key ideas and concepts
Rooted in
poststructuralism, Critical Geopolitical inquiry is, at its core, concerned with the operation, interaction, and contestation of geopolitical
discourses.
This
poststructuralist orientation holds that the realities of global political space do not simply reveal themselves to detached, omniscient observers. Rather, geopolitical knowledges are seen as partial and situated, emergent from particular subject positions. In this context, geopolitical practices result from complex constellations of competing ideas and
discourses, which they in turn modify. Geopolitical practice is not, therefore, unproblematically 'right' or 'natural'.
Further, since geopolitical knowledge is seen as partial, situated and embodied,
nation-states are not the only 'legitimate' unit of geopolitical analysis within Critical Geopolitics. Instead, geopolitical knowledge is seen as more diffuse, with 'popular' geopolitical
discourse considered alongside 'formal' and 'practical'
geopolitics. These three 'strands' of geopolitical thought are outlined below:
Popular geopolitics
Popular
geopolitics is concerned with the ways in which 'lay' understandings of geopolitical issues are produced and reproduced through
popular culture. Popular
geopolitics studies are, therefore, premised on the idea of a recursive relationship between
popular culture and popular conscience. The complexity of
popular culture's relationships with 'formal' and 'practical' geopolitical cultures has been studied with reference to a range of popular cultural products. Specifically, critical studies of newspapers, films, cartoons and magazines have all been published in leading peer-reviewed Geography journals.
Formal geopolitics
Formal
geopolitics refers to the geopolitical culture of more 'traditional' geopolitical actors. Critical accounts of formal
geopolitics therefore pay attention to the ways in which formal foreign policy actors and professionals - including
think-tanks and academics - mediate geopolitical issues such that particular understandings and policy prescriptions become
hegemonic, even common-sense.
Practical geopolitics
Practical
geopolitics describes the actual practice of geopolitical strategy (i.e.
foreign policy). Studies of practical
geopolitics focus both on geopolitical action and geopolitical reasoning, and the ways in which these are linked recursively to both 'formal' and 'popular' geopolitical
discourse. Because Critical Geopolitics is concerned with
geopolitics as
discourse, studies of practical
geopolitics pay attention both to geopolitical actions (for example, military deployment), but also to the discursive strategies used to narrativize these actions.
The "critical" in Critical Geopolitics therefore relates to two (linked) aims. Firstly, it seeks to 'open up'
Geopolitics, as a discipline and a concept. It does this partly by considering the popular and formal aspects of
geopolitics alongside practical geopolitics. Further, it focuses on the
power relations and dynamics through which particular understandings are (re)constructed. Secondly, Critical Geopolitics engages critically with 'traditional' geopolitical themes. The articulation of 'alternative' narratives on geopolitical issues, however, may or may not be consistent with a
poststructuralist methodology.
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Key texts and people
The emergence of Critical Geopolitics
Critical Geopolitics is an ongoing
project which came to prominence within the Geography literature in the 1990s thanks in part to a special "Critical Geopolitics" issue of the journal ''Political Geography'' in 1996 (vol. 15/6-7), and the publication in the same year of
Gearóid Ó Tuathail's seminal ''Critical Geopolitics'' book.
The subdiscipline is most commonly associated with a group of 'dissident' academics including John Agnew,
Simon Dalby and, primarily,
Ó Tuathail.
Ó Tuathail's 1996 book ''Critical Geopolitics'' defined the state of the subdiscipline at the time, and codified its methodological and intellectual underpinnings. Subsequently, the definition of Critical Geopolitics has been broadened such that the project is no longer associated solely with the works of a small number of scholars.
Critical Geopolitics texts
Critical Geopolitics-based work has been published in a range of Geographical and trans-disciplinary journals, as well as in books and edited collections. Major journals in which Critical Geopolitics work has appeared include:
★ ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers''
★ ''Antipode''
★ ''Geopolitics''
★ ''Political Geography''
Elsewhere, Critical Geopolitics-derived studies have been published in journals specializing in
popular culture,
security studies,
borderstudies (such as in the Journal of Borderlands Studies) and history, reflecting the breadth of subject matter subsumed under the Critical Geopolitics headline.
Texts in Critical Geopolitical theory
Critical Geopolitics 'theory' is not fixed or homogeneous, but core features - especially a concern for
discourse analysis - are fundamental.
★ 'Introduction to Critical Geopolitical theory:'
Ó Tuathail's (1996) ''Critical Geopolitics'' (London: Routledge) details the aims, scope and intellectual context of Critical Geopolitics. It also provides a genealogical account of the history of
Geopolitics, placing Critical Geopolitics in its temporal and disciplinary context.
★ 'Relationship between 'classical' and Critical Geopolitics:' There are thematic concerns in common between classical and Critical
geopolitics, leading to the question of whether 'mainstream'
International Relations theory and
geopolitics can be reconciled with the Critical project. In a 2006 article in the journal ''Geopolitics'' (vol. 11/1), Phil Kelly of
Emporia State University argues that it is possible.
Texts in popular geopolitics
Popular engagement with the geopolitical, as (re)presented in
popular culture, is a major area of research within the Critical Geopolitics literature:
★ 'Newspapers:' The framing of geopolitical events in mass circulation newspapers has been addressed by a number of authors.
Thomas McFarlane and
Iain Hay's (2003) article in ''Political Geography'', 'The battle for Seattle: protest and popular geopolitics in ''
The Australian'' newspaper', is a highly-cited example. Further, it exemplifies how Critical Geopolitics research can use both qualitative and quantitative approaches to
discourse analysis.
★ 'Magazines:' Joanne Sharp's analysis of the ways in which the ''
Reader's Digest'' (re)presented a sense of US national identity during the Cold War started life as a 1993 article in the journal Political Geography. Subsequently, it spurred her 2001 book ''Condensing the Cold War: ''
Reader's Digest'' and American Identity''. Further, Sharp's methodology prompted an in-depth debate (2003) about the practice of popular geopolitics, in the pages of the journal ''Geopolitics'' (vol.8/2).
★ 'Cartoons:' An early (1996) and frequently-cited popular geopolitics study by
Klaus Dodds considers the geopolitical content and effect of cartoons by ''
Guardian'' cartoonist
Steve Bell during the
Falklands War; 'The 1982
Falklands War and a critical geopolitical eye:
Steve Bell and the If cartoons' was published in ''Political Geography'' (vol. 15/6)
★ 'Films:'
Hollywood has been the subject of numerous popular geopolitics studies, both from explicitly 'geographical' perspectives, but also from academics from a range of backgrounds. Studies of film range from those that deal explicitly with the
intertextuality between '
war films' and 'real' wars, to those that deal more broadly with issues of identity formation and representation.
See also
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Political geography
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Geostrategy
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Geopolitik
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Realpolitik
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Lebensraum
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Border
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Balkanization
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Petroleum politics
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Theopolitics
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