Basic Theories of Geopolitics

NEW POLITICAL GEOGRAPHIES Welcome to another issue of Territory, Politics, Governance that illustrates the expanding breadth and depth of an inter-disciplinary engagement with political geography. The papers represented here come from six disciplines – Geography, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Area Studies – and have been written by interesting authors drawn from across the northern hemisphere – these scholars being based in the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Finland and Greece. Their topics and methodologies range from North American water governance to European Union (EU) diplomacy in Kenya, from the political science of intergovernmental relations to neo-Marxist situations of the state as a social relation, capturing how exciting and dynamic the field of territory, politics and governance has become. In doing so, they illustrate the importance of this journal in providing the collective platform for bringing together these bodies of critical thinking. It is a pleasure to position these papers, individually and collectively, in their broader intellectual environment of ‘new political geography’ (JONES et al., 2004, 2015a ,p . 2–4). There have, of course, been a number of different approaches to defining the shifting field of political geography. To some scholars, political geography has been about the study of political bounded territorial units, demarcated borders and administrative sub-divisions (ALEXANDER, 1963). For others, political geography is the study of political processes, differing from political science only in the emphasis given to geographical influences and outcomes and in the application of spatial analysis techniques (BURNETT and TAYLOR, 1981). A third approach holds that political geography should be defined in terms of its key concepts, which the proponents of this approach generally identify as territory and the state (COX, 2002, 2013). This approach shares with the earlier two approaches a desire to identify the ‘essence’ of political geography such that a definitive classification can be made of what is and what is not ‘political geography’. Yet, the doing of political geography, i.e. how it is actually researched, is much messier than these definitions suggest (witness the variety of papers published in Territory, Politics, Governance to date – compare, ELDEN, 2013 ;J ESSOP, 2016 ;P ECK, 2013 ;S ASSEN 2013; STORPER, 2014). As such, scholars, who have sought to define political geography in a much more open and inclusive manner, have taken a fourth and more relational approach. Agnew, for example, defines political geography as ‘the study of how politics

Feminist geography and political geography still represent two solitudes within the discipline. While increased traffic between these different parts of the discipline points to a degree of intellectual engagement, there remains a paucity of feminist thought in political geography. This article examines recent scholarship on feminist political geography, with a view to applying its insights to the struggles to protest and end political violence. The concept of feminist geopolitics is employed and recast, both as a bridging concept between feminist and political geography and as an analytical approach that has political valence in the context of the war in Iraq. Feminist geopolitics is revisited in this article, but remains a critical analytic in relation to body counts and other casualties in war zones.

The Great War, better known as World War I, was one of the most complex and dramatic events in the history of humanity. It radically changed the world’s viewpoint on history, politics, society, and life itself. There was no area of individual and social life that remained unaffected by the consequences of that devastating world conflict. Eventually, research on World War I became an ever-open field of challenging academic discussion for scholars in numerous fields, such as history, political science, international relations, social studies, and comparative literature.The Regional Institute for the History of the Resistance and for the Contemporary Era in Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy, dedicated to historical investigation of the Great War, published a special edition of its journal QUALESTORIA in June 2020. This edition, edited by Alberto Basciani, comprises an introduction by the editor and a section called Studi e ricerche (Studies and Research) with five scholarly articles, three of which are written in Italian and the other two in English.This edition reexamines the Great War historically, underlining its fundamental role in contemporary European history and, more particularly, in the fate and history of the Eastern Adriatic countries. Southeastern European countries such as Serbia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece faced critical developments in terms of governmental, state-building, territorial, ethnic, national, economic, and social statuses. The war exposed the fragile economies, the insufficiently developed armies, and the weak institutions of these countries. In the aftermath of World War I, the East Adriatic countries—both the winners and the losers—were left with the major task of fundamentally modernizing their societies in multiple aspects, and the fulfillment or failure to fulfill this task defined much of their contemporary histories.The articles included in this issue of Qualestoria focus extensively on the various political, economic, and social reforms that these countries had to undergo in order to achieve the much-needed modernization of their economies, state structures, and societies as a whole. As maintained by the editor, A. Basciani, in his introduction, the authors of the articles included in this issue use primary sources that are little known to the academic audience in Italy and aim to enlighten some little-explored aspects of the postwar period in several southeastern European countries.The first article of this volume is written by Giulia Albanese of the University of Padua, and it explores the complex concept of the brutalization of politics, not only addressing it as a historiographic category, but also examining its utility for understanding the postwar period. Albanese’s article provides important insight into the relation between the brutalization of politics, the extreme right wing in politics, and the implications of this brutalization in relation to the origins of fascism. It points to the need for additional analysis of the consequences of the Great War and how it wreaked havoc on European society as a whole. Albanese also provides a significant description of the role of the brutalization of politics after 1989, when the communist regimes in southeastern Europe collapsed. She suggests that such insights could be a good starting point for further analysis of some important political phenomena of the twentieth century, such as fascism, communism, and revolutionary politics, while present-day Europe faces hypernational tendencies, and it is no longer possible to think of democracy in the same terms as in the 1900s.The second article is written by Stefano Petrungaro and deals with the kingdom of Yugoslavia, underlining its significant internal conflicts, especially between the Croats and the Serbs, as well as the various ethnic and territorial conflicts with most of its neighbor countries. Petrungaro examines the postwar period in Yugoslavia, focusing on the social tensions and the measures taken to deal with delicate and marginalized components of the society, such as the prostitutes and the beggars, relating them to the marks that the war left on the Yugoslav society as a whole. Such approach has had limited application up to now; therefore, it represents a particularly interesting contribution to the issue. The author maintains that the purpose of the article is to put to the test the most recent historiographical thesis about “phantom-borders” and postimperial legacies, as well as a methodological premise—that is, the extent to which the traditional approach based on the national conflicts and minorities in Yugoslavia is indeed useful and appropriate for shedding more light on the postwar social transition of the country. He maintains that the interbellum period in Yugoslavia should not be limited to the framing of the postimperial legacies and the establishment of communism, as it is far more dynamic. These two components are seen as insufficient for a convincing and well-balanced historical approach, and the author highlights that the phenomena addressed in his article are of a European and transnational nature. He also points to the fact that many of the events that took place in Yugoslavia during World War II and after 1945 were actually shaped in the interbellum period.The following article in the volume, by Stefano Santoro of the University of Trieste, deals with the territorial changes in the Romanian Kingdom and, more specifically, with the much-discussed issues of Transylvania and Bessarabia. The inclusion of these important territories in the Romanian Kingdom, with their great variety and significance in terms of religion, culture, national minorities, and other elements, while it greatly increased the size of the kingdom, also reflects the centralizing tendency of the ruling class in Romanian politics of that time. Internal conflicts took place between the old kingdom and the new provinces, as full integration was not achieved, and the author maintains that this is seen in the inability of the state to harmonize the Romanians and the ethnic minorities, as well as life in the cities and the countryside. This failure led to the collapse of the democratic and parliamentary system in Romania.The next article in the issue, written by Danial Cain of the Institute of South East European Studies in Bucharest, addresses Bulgaria, the country in the Balkans that seems to have lost the most after World War I, as none of the Bulgarian intentions, such as the reestablishment of the medieval kingdom and the fulfillment of their nationalist dream, took place. Cain focuses on the battle at Dobro Pole, where the Entente defeated the Bulgarian troops, an event that greatly damaged the national feeling and the goals of Bulgarian politics. After this dramatic defeat, Bulgaria became the first of the Central Powers to exit the Great War, and the terms of the peace agreement after World War I signed in Paris in 1919 were mortifying for this country. As a consequence of the territorial losses and the considerable economic damage inflicted, not to mention the moral catastrophe, which led to general trauma for the entire society, Bulgaria had to deal with a very complex political situation in the interwar period.The article that concludes this issue of Qualestoria is written by the scholar Fabio Bego, and focuses on the political situation in Albania in the aftermath of the Great War. Despite being declared independent in 1912, Albania faced significant difficulties in exercising state power and functioning as a sovereign state. This resulted in continuous and significant threats from its neighboring countries, especially Italy and Yugoslavia, aiming at the annexation of Albanian territory. While analyzing the relation between state-building and violence, Bego maintains that violence influenced Albanians’ relation toward the national identity and the nation’s state-building purposes. The coercive means used by Albanians in the face of the political goals of Italy and Yugoslavia, which threatened the integrity of the Albanian territories, had their own consequences, both positive and negative. On the one hand, they consolidated national solidarity among Albanians and helped to legitimize their long-standing claims for self-determination, but on the other hand, they had destructive ethical and political implications, as they were purposely used by both internal and external parties to delegitimize Albanians’ very claims for self-determination. Eventually, this contributed to the creation of a very difficult situation for the Albanian state.All of the papers included in this issue of Qualestoria provide significant insight into the aftermath of the Great War in the East Adriatic countries and offer new and important historiographic perspectives that will greatly improve our understanding of the postwar period, especially in the Balkans. Such perspectives should help to shed light on wider aspects of the history of contemporary Europe.

The great implications of spatialisation: Grounds for closer engagement between political geography and political science?

Between the two world wars, the whole of Europe changes. For the field of opera, the inter-war years are a very productive and multifaceted time. Only in the German speaking places, some 300 new operas are premiered. But few of them will survive the Second World War. This new opera repertoire is characterised by the aesthetic diversity of this time; at the same time, there is a close connection between these aesthetic directions and the various contemporary ideologies. This relationship, and also the cases where it is lacking, was the starting point for this thesis. The aim of the research was, firstly, a detailed presentation of the partially unknown German-speaking opera creation of the inter-war period, secondly, an outline of the theoretical and aesthetic views of that time and thirdly, the study of the relationship of the ideological attitudes and views of composers with their aesthetic and compositional choices. The first part of the dissertation deals with the German operas, which are first performed in this period. At the outset, the aesthetic tendencies of the time are presented through contemporary texts. Subsequently, the relevant opera repertoire is presented in detail. The conclusions of the study of the entire opera creation of this time are presented in the last three chapters: It's about observations on the influence of historical events and institutional changes on the new operas, about the connection of elements of social and political criticism in the works with their aesthetic direction and about the political affiliations or activities of the composers with their aesthetic and compositional decisions and with the aftereffects of their works. In the second part, certain ideological concepts are highlighted by reference to specific examples: the concept pairs war vs. peace and liberty vs. power are found in various forms in Friedenstag by Richard Strauss and in the three one-act plays Der Diktator, Das geheime Konigreich, and Schwergewicht oder die Ehre der Nation by Ernst Krenek, and that provides the opportunity to study them in correlation to the political attitudes of the said composers. For better documentation of the thesis, and because of the difficulty for the Greek reader to access the German texts of that time, an appendix is added: a complete chronological catalog of the new opera repertoire of the interwar years, a list of the performances of such works to date, a detailed documentation of their main productions, as well as the Greek translation of the librettos and of some theoretical texts of the time%%%%Την πeρίοδο του Μeσοπολέμου ολόκληρη η Eυρώπη μeταβάλλeται. Για τον τομέα της όπeρας τα χρόνια του Μeσοπολέμου αποτeλούν μία άκρως παραγωγική και πολυδιάστατη πeρίοδο. Μόνο στον γeρμανόφωνο χώρο παρουσιάζονται πeρίπου 300 νέeς όπeρeς. Λίγeς όμως θα eπιβιώσουν και μeτά τον Β΄ Παγκόσμιο Πόλeμο. Αυτό το νέο οπeρατικό ρeπeρτόριο χαρακτηρίζeται από την ποικιλότητα της eποχής του. Ταυτόχρονα παρατηρeίται μία στeνή σχέση των αισθητικών αυτών κατeυθύνσeων μe τις διάφορeς ιδeολογίeς της…

Comments on Daniel Elazar, political geography and political science

Didžiojo karo veiksmų Rytų Prūsijoje poveikis Rusijos ir rusų kolektyvinių įvaizdžių turiniui, remiantis Vokietijos tekstualiniu 1914–1939 m. diskursu, analizuotas fragmentiškai ligšioliniuose tyrimuose. Todėl straipsnyje*, taikant metodologines įvaizdžių ir archetipų (Carlas Gustavas Jungas) teorijos bei karo psichologijos (Jennifer Diane Keene, Charlesas Webelis, Charlesas Fischeris) prieigas, siekiama atskleisti Rusijos ir rusų „invazijos“ Rytų Prūsijoje įvaizdžių, stereotipų bei mitologemų genezės prielaidas ir šių predikatinių nuostatų semantinius bruožus 1914–1939 m. Vokietijoje publikuotuose atsiminimuose apie Didįjį karą.

Reviewed by: The Fiction of Doris Lessing: Re-Envisioning Feminism by Ratna Raman Carmen García-Navarro THE FICTION OF DORIS LESSING: RE-ENVISIONING FEMINISM, by Ratna Raman. New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2021. 317 pp. $76.50 hardback. The general theoretical approach offered in The Fiction of Doris Lessing: Re-envisioning Feminism by Ratna Raman applies feminist thinking to Doris Lessing's narrative work. The volume's structure comprises an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion, all richly annotated, including a bibliography and index. The book's narrative unity allows readers to enjoy its subtleties, which are made with precision and acuity, and to explore the most significant advances made in the field of Lessing research in India. Raman refers to her own status as a woman, academic, and connoisseur of Lessing's works, beginning with her excitement as a young reader who discovered threads of connection to Lessing's writings, as both women writers grappled with a British colonial past. Against this background, Raman places Lessing as a significant figure in India's literary and cultural life. Raman's feminist perspective highlights Lessing's importance as a key writer in and outside of the European context, not only in terms of the development of form but also because her texts reflect her concern for a world that was vanishing. As Raman notes in her insightful introduction, Lessing witnessed the tensions of colonial and postcolonial relations in the country of her youth, Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia). These life circumstances gave Lessing the chance to observe and participate in the twentieth-century cultural landscape and, at the same time, exercise a critical distance from Eurocentric socio-political viewpoints—distance that became essential to her writing (p. 13). As Raman explains in the first chapter, entitled "Lessing and Feminism," the contributions of Lessing's position on feminism have been the subject of much critical debate, particularly since the publication of The Golden Notebook (1962). Lessing expressed a desire to break with an ancient structure that had been assimilated from many symbolic and material positions, a structure for which feminism was an obstacle (pp. 28-29). The first chapter also provides a brief history of Lessing's life in Zimbabwe, her family and love relations, her desire for education, and her need to write. With her move to London, Lessing carried the remnants of historical events such as World War I that had a lasting impact on her parents, the gradual fall of the British Empire and the colonial state, followed by the interwar period, the advent of World War II, and the emergence of a new world order. Thus, Raman's work springs from the need to revise and adjust old notions and reaffirm the place of writers like Lessing, who was a young woman asking for recognition from a specific postcolonial cultural and geographical space. [End Page 364] The second chapter of the book, entitled "The Interrogation of Liberal White Feminism," is devoted to Lessing's novel The Grass is Singing (1950) and examines the role of women in the context of African colonialism. According to Raman, this role needs to be reconsidered in light of the ambiguous stance of some white feminists who benefited from racial privilege despite having to be content with gendered limitations (p. 75). In this regard, the place of Asian, Indian, and Black women, who have been marginalized by a segment of feminism that has been slow to question the patriarchal, imperialist, and racist state's silence regarding them, is one of the concerns that white liberal feminism still needs to address (p. 89). The third chapter focuses on The Golden Notebook. Raman is drawn to Lessing's inquiries into the issues that women faced in mid-century politics, the knowledge they identified with, and the voices represented in the novel. She also emphasizes the importance of the foreword Lessing wrote for the 1971 edition, which focuses on how knowledge about women is created, shared, and received, as well as on the changes needed to ensure that women's authority is recognized. In Raman's view, Lessing drew on this authority when creating a "cultural matrix" composed of the five novels in The Children of Violence (1952...

Political ecology in political geography

Worlds of Sound

The author teaches Political and Economic Geography at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Messina, Italy - where he directed the Department of Economics, Statistics and Geopolitical Analysis - and is currently vice-president of the Association of Italian Geographers (AGel) and director of Geotema Review, Patron Edit. Bologna; he has directed the Nuovi Quaderni di Geografia Umana for Sicily and Calabria. He is a member of the Society of Geographic Studies, of the Italian Geographic Society and of the International Affairs Institute of Le Monde Diplomatique. Dr Campione has taught Urban Geography at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Reggio Calabria, at the University La Sapienza in Rome and the University IULM in Milan, and Political Geography at the University of Palermo, and is the author of several publications on regional and urban topics, on Sicily, the Mediterranean, and on subjects such as the territorial control of functions, or the visual compositions of places. He was a member of the Sicilian Parliament during the 1980s and 1990s, and President of Sicily after the murder of Falcone and Borsellino by the Mafia.

The concept of neutrality is one of the most disputed concepts in historical research and modern politics and continues to attract the attention of political scientists. Despite continuingly growing interest in the questions of responsibilities in international conflicts and war politics, there has been little research on the historical origins of neutrality within the European context. Having been transforming throughout its history, Danish neutrality, with its specific background and ideological foundation, represents an interesting topic for analysis. This article addresses the problem of Danish neutrality in the period between the two World Wars. The objective of the study is to investigate why, after having been an important player in European politics and a militarily well-equipped country throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, during the interwar period Denmark refrained from any active participation in world politics and adopted the principle of defenceless neutrality.

One of several important changes that have taken place in Anglo-American human geography over the last two decades is the development of a radical political geography (Clark & Dear 1984, Harvey 1985, Johnston 1986, 1989, Short 1989, Taylor 1993a, b). This ‘new’ political geography has been largely confined to analyses of the role of the state in capitalist societies (Driver 1991). Although it has become common within development studies to recognise the centrality of the postcolonial state in generating and regulating economic and social processes, human geographers have paid little attention to the characteristics of postcolonial politics (some exceptions are: Blaut 1987, Corbridge 1988, Samatar 1989, Samatar & Samatar 1987, Slater 1989a, b. Watts 1984, 1987, Watts & Bassett 1985). This calls for some brief comments on radical political geography and those fields of development geography most likely to be concerned with postcolonial politics.

This chapter examines the concept of geopolitics and its role in grand strategy. It first considers how the concepts of grand strategy and geopolitics evolved in response to changing world historical contexts before discussing why they came to be associated with the politics of Great Powers. It shows that the concept of grand strategy was initially developed in the context of the Second World War and that both the Soviet Union and the United States acted geopolitically during the cold war. It also looks at containment, a grand strategy informed by geopolitical reasoning but driven by ideological concerns rather than resource competition. The chapter proceeds by describing the pitfalls and problems associated with formulating a grand strategy and explains why geopolitics is as much about interpretation as it is about geography.

Action research is a specific type of scientific research which, in addition to having all the general features of scientific research, also has its own unique characteristics that distinguish it from other types of research. In order to understand action research in political science it is necessary to have knowledge of the main aspects of politics, political phenomena and processes. Every political phenomenon is associated with a particular activity, action, because it (the phenomenon) always represents a certain relation between people, their needs, interests and goals. We can, therefore, conclude that all politicological research is, in its essence, action research. The basic classification of action research in political science according to purpose is one of the more relevant classifications and comprises: action research whose purpose is the creation of scientific basis for political action, and action research which is the instrument of political action. Within these two types, by application of diverse criteria, there exist numerous subtypes of action research. The primary difference between action research and other types of scientific research is in the method of research, as part of the outline of the scientific idea, i.e. the project of research.