Introduction to Geopolitics

Geopolitics
, London: Routledge.
A more in-depth and theoretically sophisticated discussion of geopolitical practice and
the way it has changed.
Cresswell, T. (1996) 
In Place/Out of Place
, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Develops and exemplifies the politics of place and identity, or the political geography of
inclusion and exclusion.
O’Loughlin, J. (ed.) (1994) 
Dictionary of Geopolitics
, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
An excellent resource for clarifying geopolitical terminology and also provides brief
discussions of many geopolitical thinkers.
Ó Tuathail, G., Dalby, S., and Routledge, P. (1998) 
The Geopolitics Reader
, London and
New York: Routledge.
A collection of short essays proving easy access to many of the authors and documents
introduced in this text.
Staeheli, L.A., Kofman, E., and Peake, L.J. (eds) (2004) 
Mapping Women, Making Politics
,
New York and London: Routledge.
An excellent collection of essays describing the feminist approach to the topics of
geopolitics and political geography.
Taylor, P.J. and Flint, C. (2000) 
Political Geography: World-economy, Nation-state, and
Locality
, fourth edition, Harlow: Prentice-Hall.
An introduction to world-systems analysis (discussed in Chapter 2) as well as the broad
content of contemporary political geography.
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A   F R A M E W O R K   F O R   U N D E R S T A N D I N G   G E O P O L I T I C S
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In this chapter we will:
■
introduce a geopolitical model to provide an understanding of the global
geopolitical structure;
■
discuss the different components of this model;
■
interrogate the validity of the model;
■
note how the model is both similar and different to “classic” geopolitical
frameworks;
■
emphasize how we can use the model to provide a structure or context
to understand geopolitical agency.
Traditionally, geopolitics has claimed to be able to paint neutral and complete pictures
of “how the world works”: what drives historical changes, what causes countries to fight,
what determines whether a country will become a great power or not. The classical
geopoliticians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries invoked a “God’s eye view
of the world,” providing simple histories or theories that, they claimed, not only
explained what has happened in the past, but suggested particular policies to inform the
actions of their own country in a global competition with others (Parker, 1985). In other
words, geopoliticians made dubious claims of historical and theoretical “objectivity” to
support their own biased view of how their own country should compete in the world.
Such a view of geopolitics is no longer in vogue. Any claim to be able to “see” a
pattern of global politics is immediately challenged as being limited and biased—rightly
so—because it is situated knowledge. Instead, attention is drawn to how geopolitical
agents make strategic choices, and how these are complicated by competing goals and
changing circumstances. In other words, increasing attention is given to agency over
structure. However, decisions are not made within a social and political vacuum. As
discussed in the previous chapter, agents are both enabled and constrained by structures.
Countries make geopolitical choices, to go to war for example, while considering the
wider geopolitical context. For example, China’s increasing political and economic
power has led to greater influence within East and Southeast Asia. The Chinese govern-
ment, on the other hand, is being very careful not to provoke the dominant world power,
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SETTING THE GLOBAL
GEOPOLITICAL
CONTEXT
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the United States (see Box 2.1). For a historic perspective, at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century Alfred Thayer Mahan’s concern was to create a geopolitical plan for the
United States to increase its global influence without provoking the then global power,
Great Britain. On the other hand, British geopolitician Sir Halford Mackinder’s concerns
at the beginning of the twentieth century focused upon maintaining Great Britain’s
preeminence in the face of a growing German challenge.
Both of these examples suggest that geopolitical decisions are made with an eye
toward the global geopolitical context, and especially the ability of a dominant power
to set the agenda. In this chapter, we will introduce a contemporary model of geopolitics
to define a global geopolitical structure. The model is George Modelski’s cycle of world
leadership and provides a structure within which the actions of states and other
geopolitical actors may be interpreted. We will see that this structure is dynamic and
use it to discuss how the global geopolitical context frames the actions of different coun-
tries. Though the chapter ends with a guide to allow for critique of the model, it may
be useful to provide some cautionary notes here. Modelski’s model of geopolitics is