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In the humanities discipline ofcritical theory,critical geopolitics is an academic school of thought centered on the idea that intellectuals of statecraft construct ideas about places, that these ideas have influence and reinforce their political behaviors and policy choices, and that these ideas affect how people process their own notions of places and politics.[1]
Criticalgeopolitics sees the geopolitical as comprising four linked facets: popular geopolitics, formal geopolitics, structural geopolitics, and practical geopolitics. Critical geopolitical scholarship continues to engage critically with questions surrounding geopoliticaldiscourses, geopolitical practice (i.e.foreign policy), and the history of geopolitics.
Rooted inpoststructuralism as well as various versions ofpostcolonial scholarship, critical geopolitical inquiry is, at its core, concerned with the operation, interaction, and contestation of geopoliticaldiscourses.[citation needed]
Thispoststructuralist orientation holds that the realities of global political space do not simply reveal themselves to detached, omniscient observers.[citation needed] 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 anddiscourses, which they in turn modify.[2] The linkages between geographical patterns and processes, on the one hand, and various types of discourses on the other hand, are a key contribution to thegeography of media and communication. They also imply that 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' geopoliticaldiscourse considered alongside 'formal' and 'practical'geopolitics. These three 'strands' of geopolitical thought are outlined below:
Populargeopolitics is one of the ways in which geopolitical knowledge is produced. It argues that geopolitical ideas are not only shaped by the state, intellectual elites and politicians. Rather, it is also shaped and communicated throughpopular culture and everyday practices.[3]: 208 Popular culture construct acommon sense understanding of world politics through the use of movies, books, magazines, etc.[3]: 209
Political geographers have widely studied the role of popular culture in shaping the popular understanding ofpolitics.[3]: 209 Klaus Dodds, a political geographer, studied the conveyance of geopolitical ideas through movies.[3]: 209 While analyzingJames Bond movies, he discovered a recurring message of Western states' geopolitical anxieties.[3]: 209 For example, the movieFrom Russia with Love conveyed United States' anxieties as a result of theCold War andThe World Is Not Enough conveyed the threats posed byCentral Asia.[3]: 209
Structuralgeopolitics is defined as contemporary geopolitical tradition.
Formalgeopolitics refers to the geopolitical culture of more 'traditional' geopolitical actors. Critical accounts of formalgeopolitics therefore pay attention to the ways in which formal foreign policy actors and professionals - includingthink-tanks and academics - mediate geopolitical issues such that particular understandings and policy prescriptions becomehegemonic, even common-sense.
Practicalgeopolitics describes the actual practice of geopolitical strategy (i.e.foreign policy). Studies of practicalgeopolitics focus both on geopolitical action and geopolitical reasoning, and the ways in which these are linked recursively to both 'formal' and 'popular' geopoliticaldiscourse. Because critical geopolitics is concerned withgeopolitics asdiscourse, studies of practicalgeopolitics 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 ofgeopolitics alongside practical geopolitics. Further, it focuses on thepower 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 apoststructuralist methodology.[4]
Critical geopolitics is an ongoingproject which came to prominence when the French geographerYves Lacoste published 'La géographie ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre' ('geography is primarily for waging war') (1976) and founded the journalHérodote. The subject entered the English language Geography literature in the 1990s thanks in part to a special "Critical Geopolitics" issue of the journalPolitical Geography in 1996 (vol. 15/6-7),[5] and the publication in the same year ofGearóid Ó Tuathail's seminalCritical Geopolitics book.[2]
Ó Tuathail's 1996 bookCritical Geopolitics defined the state of the subdiscipline at the time, and codified its methodological and intellectual underpinnings.
The historical role ofEurope has been subjected to a rich tradition of critical works in geopolitics, as reflected in several book series, such as Routledge'sCritical GeopoliticsArchived 2020-08-06 at theWayback Machine series, edited byAlan Ingram,Merje Kuus andChih Yuan Woon, as well as the series on Critical European Studies (also at Routledge), edited byYannis Stivachtis. Contributing to this area is the book entitledThe European Union and Global Social Change: A Critical Geopolitical-Economic Analysis byJózsef Böröcz.
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:
Elsewhere, critical geopolitics-derived studies have been published in journals specializing inpopular culture,security studies,border studies (such as in the Journal of Borderlands Studies) and history, reflecting the breadth of subject matter subsumed under the critical geopolitics headline.
Critical geopolitics 'theory' is not fixed or homogeneous, but core features - especially a concern fordiscourse analysis - are fundamental.
Popular engagement with the geopolitical, as (re)presented inpopular culture, is a major area of research within the critical geopolitics literature:
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