Introduction to Geopolitics

Activity
Reconsider how you located yourself within a hierarchy of scales in the previous
exercise.
• In what way are you prevented from doing certain things because of norms and
rules established at higher scales? 
• In what way do norms, rules, and capabilities at higher scales allow you to do
what you want to do? 
• Also, in what way do your actions construct the norms, rules, and capabilities
found at the higher scales?

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book focused and manageable particular forms of geopolitical conflicts and particular
geographies will be emphasized. Though this is necessarily exclusive, I also encourage
you to explore other forms of geopolitics.
Geopolitics, as the struggle over the control of spaces and places, focuses upon power,
or the ability to achieve particular goals in the face of opposition or alternatives. In nine-
teenth and early twentieth century geopolitical practices, power was seen simply as the
relative power of countries in foreign affairs. For example, in the early 1900s US naval
strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan’s categorization of power was based upon the size of a
country, the racial “character” of its population, as well as its economic and military
capacity. In the late twentieth century, as the geopolitical study of power became increas-
ingly academic, scholars created numerous indices of power, which remained focused
on country-specific capabilities of industrial strength, size and educational level of the
population, as well as military might. Definitions of power were dominated by a focus
on a country’s ability to wage war with other countries.
However, recent discussions of power have become more sophisticated. Feminists
emphasize that the focus on government capabilities ignores other forms of power, such
as gender and racial relationships within and between countries that are, over time,
assumed to be “normal” or of secondary importance to the male-dominated practices of
foreign policy. Feminist insistence of the integral role of gender relations in geopolitics
leads to connections between the competitive nature of power relations between coun-
tries and the way patriarchal relations within countries normalize a masculine and
militarized conception of foreign policy (Enloe, 1983, 1990, 2004). Feminism forces us
to think about the gender and racial make-up of geopolitical agents and structures, so
promoting the study of geopolitics as the combination of multiple power relations
(consider Figure 1.5). The result is that any understanding of a current event must come
from a variety of perspectives and not just the calculations of male-dominated elites.
One of the other contributions of feminist analysis is the focus upon how power rela-
tions become taken for granted or viewed as “common sense.” Power in this sense is
not the ability or need to force others to do what you want, but make them follow your
agenda willingly without considering alternatives. These ideas stem from the Italian
Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1971) who noted how a ruling class in a country needs to
exert force to control the working classes only rarely. On the whole, subordinated groups
“follow” political goals that are of greater benefit to the more powerful; alternatives 
are seen as “radical” or “unrealistic,” while the dominant ideology is seen as “unpolit-
ical” or “natural.” For example, in the arena of international economics, policies for
“economic development” created by the rich and powerful countries are adopted by the
poorest countries of the world under the label of “progress” despite the growing global
inequality levels after decades of such policies. The Gramscian notion of power requires
us to consider how geopolitical practices and ideas are disseminated and portrayed to
wide audiences in order to justify them and make them appear “normal” while belittling
alternative views. In other words, the representation of geopolitics is another manifes-
tation of power (Ó Tuathail, 1996).
In this book, I will stay closely tied to the original and traditional subject matter of
geopolitics, states (more commonly referred to as countries). The classic geopoliticians
of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries expressed confidence in knowing “how
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the world works” and used a historical-theoretical perspective to suggest or justify the
foreign policy actions, mainly aggressive, of their own countries (Agnew, 2002). 
My goal is not to explain away the acts of any country as the inevitable consequence
of a deterministic world history. Instead, countries are seen as key geopolitical agents,
and their actions are understood through examining the competition between agents
within a country, as well as the limits set by a global geopolitical structure. Countries
are an example of just one geopolitical agent, comprised of others, and interacting with
other countries, non-state organizations, and multiple-state organizations (such as NATO
and the United Nations (UN)) within a geopolitical structure. The hierarchical nesting 
of agents and structures can be conceptualized as interlocked geographic scales. All
structures and agents are dynamic, their form and purpose contested. Such contestation
requires us to think about different expressions of power, such as military capability and
patriarchal relations, and their connections, in addition to the manner in which they are
made to appear “normal.”
Organization of the book
The book begins with the introduction of a simplified model of global geopolitics. The
book ends with a discussion of the complexity, or “messiness,” of geopolitical conflicts
given the multiplicity of structures and the multiple identities and roles of agents. The
text assumes no familiarity with geopolitical terms and no prior knowledge of conflicts,
past or present. As you progress through the book, try to make your own understanding
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Figure 1.5
Woman and child in Iraqi bombsite.

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of geopolitics more sophisticated by exploring how the different structures and agents
introduced in successive chapters interact with one another. Also, be engaged with
quality newspaper and other media reports of current events. Use the text and the current
events to: (1) identify the separate structures and agents and then, (2) see how they are
related to each other. In other words, allow yourself to explore the complexity of
geopolitics as you work through the book and become familiar with a growing number
of structures and agents.
Within the overarching idea of structure and agency the book will be organized in
the following way. Chapter 2 concentrates upon the global scale, and provides a way
of thinking of a dynamic global geopolitical context, the structure within which coun-
tries must operate. Chapter 3 focuses attention upon the scale of countries, especially
the choices and constraints they face as geopolitical agents. The foreign policy that nego-
tiates these choices and constraints is called a geopolitical code. Chapter 4 remains with
the topic of geopolitical codes, but shows the importance of how they are justified or
represented. The representation of geopolitical codes is important for a country, in order
for its actions or agency to be supported rather than contested.
Chapter 5 addresses geopolitical agents that construct and contest the state scale, as
we formalize our understanding of countries by introducing them as states, and dis-
cussing the related concepts of nation, nationalism, and nation-states. The ideology of
nationalism and the geopolitics of separatism are topics discussed in this chapter.
Nationalism is a collective identity creating the assumption of community at the national
scale and the correspondence of that identity with the spatial organization of society into
nation-states. The ideological maintenance of states through nationalism is comple-
mented through their territorial expression. Chapter 6 addresses the geopolitics of bound-
aries and boundary disputes as the means of defining the geographic expression of states.
From focusing upon the geopolitical agency and structural context of states Chapter
7 introduces another geographical expression of power, networks. The expressions
“global terrorism” and “globalization” are common contemporary understandings that
politics involves the movement or flow of things across boundaries and into the juris-
diction of states. These flows are both legal and illegal. The flows are facilitated by
networks, whether a terrorist or criminal network, on the one hand, or the network of
global finance that switches huge amounts of money from financial market to financial
market across the globe. In Chapter 7 we will focus upon the topic of terrorism.
The final chapter summarizes the identification of geopolitical structures and agents,
but complicates the picture by showing how contemporary conflicts are usually a
combination of the structures and agents that have been treated separately in the
preceding chapters. The book concludes by challenging you to continue to explore the
role of geography on causing, facilitating, and concluding geopolitical conflicts: both
those ongoing and those yet to come.
Having read this chapter you will be able to:
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understand the concepts of place and scale;
■
understand the concepts of structure and agency;
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■
be able to think about places in the world as being unique and
interconnected;
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be able to think of current events occurring within a hierarchy of scales;
■
be able to think of current events as being performed by geopolitical
agents;
■
begin to consider how the actions of geopolitical agents happen within
structures;
■
consider the multiple forms of power that underlie geopolitics.
Further reading
Agnew, J. (2003)