Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION TO THEORIES AND HISTORICAL

ROOTS

INTRODUCTION TO GEOPOLITICS
IN THIS CHAPTER WE WILL:

 Define the key geographical entities of place, scale, region, territory and network
 Define geopolitics
 Introduce the concept of structure and agency
 Show how place, scale, region, territory, network, and structure and agency will be used to
understand geopolitics
 Consider what “power” is
 Provide examples of these concepts
 Use our own experiences and knowledge to understand and investigate these concepts
OVERVIEW

 Geopolitics is part of human geography.

 The geographical entities of place, space, scale, region, network, and
territory will be introduced and used to define geopolitics.
 We can use the perspective of human geography to understand how politics, especially international politics,
and geography are related.
 This chapter introduces some fundamental concepts of human geography that will be used throughout the
book to explain what geopolitics is and to understand contemporary conflicts and issues.
OVERVIEW

Two important overarching ideas will be conveyed in this chapter:

 Contestation: places, regions, and territories are always contested.The very nature of
their socially constructed existence is based upon political frameworks that determine who
belongs (or is included) and who does not belong (or is excluded) from a particular place.

 Context: simply put, context matters. Political events occur in a particular location with
specific socio-cultural, economic, linguistic, ecological, physical, geographic, and historical settings.
These factors at least partially define what happens and what possibilities for peace and resolution
are available within a geopolitical context.
GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS

 Human geography - Systematic study of what makes places unique and the connections and
interactions between places. In this definition human geographers are seen to focus upon the study of
particular neighbourhoods, towns, cities, or countries (the meaning of place being broad here).
GEOGRAPHY AND
POLITICS

 In other– words, geographers are viewed as people

who study the specifics of the world, not just where
Pyongyang is but what its characteristics are.
“Characteristics” may include weather patterns,
physical setting, the shape of a city, the pattern of
housing, or the transport system.

 Political geographers are especially interested, amongst

other things, in topics such as how the city of
Pyongyang, for example, is organized to allow for
political control in a totalitarian country.
GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS

 A further and complementary definition of human geography is: the examination of the spatial
organization of human activity (Knox and Marston, 1998, p. 2).
 In this definition space is emphasized rather than place.
 The term space is more abstract than place.
 It gives greater weight to functional issues such as the control of territory, an inventory of objects (towns or nuclear
power stations for example) within particular areas, or hierarchies and distances between objects.
 For example, a spatial analysis of drug production and consumption would concentrate on quantifying and mapping the flows of the
drug trade, while an emphasis of place would integrate many influences to understand why drugs are grown in some places and
consumed in others.
GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS

 The economic, political, and social relationships that we enjoy and suffer are mediated by different roles for
different spaces.
 Two banal examples: if you are going to throw a huge and rowdy party, don’t do it in the library; as a student, when
entering a university lecture hall, sit in one of the rows of seats rather than stand behind the lecturer’s podium.
 The banality of these examples only goes to show that our understanding of how society is spatially organized is so
embedded within our perceptions that we act within sub-conscious geographical imaginations.

 In addition, these two examples also show that the spatial organization of a society reflects its politics, or relationships
of power. Standing behind the lecturer’s podium would be more than an invasion of her “personal space” but a
challenge to her authority: it would challenge the status quo of student-lecturer power relationships by disrupting the
established spatial organization of the classroom.
GEOGRAPHY AND POLITICS

 The maps display two spatial organizations of power relations.

 The large map illustrates the spaces of independent countries (or states) that
were created after the decline of the colonial control imposed by European
powers in the nineteenth century.
 External powers defined parts of Africa as “theirs,” and this allowed them to
subjugate the native populations for perceived economic benefit free of violent
and costly competition with other European countries.
 These spaces were a product of two sets of power relations: the ability of European
countries to dominate African nations and the relatively equal power of European
countries.
 The map of countries is a different spatial organization of power in Africa, the post-colonial
establishment of independent African countries. This new spatial organization of power
reflects a relative decrease in the power of the European countries to dominate Africa,
though a hierarchy of power remains. However, focusing on the spaces of independent
countries across the continent obscures other power relations, especially those of gender,
race, and class relations within the countries. As we shall see, the scale at which we make
our observations highlights some political relations and obscures others.
 The three smaller maps epict the struggle of Africans to end white-rule of their countries
after the end of the colonial period. It shows the racialized spaces of political control, the
areas of Africa in which the descendants of European settlers were able to maintain
control, and how these spaces of white control have shrunk to nothing now, given the end
of apartheid in South Africa.