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Nick Megoran - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • towards a Geopolitics of atheism Critical Geopolitics post the war on terror
    Political Geography, 2017
    Co-Authors: Russell Foster, Nick Megoran, Michael Dunn
    Abstract:

    Political geography has an established tradition of engaging with religiously-driven geopolitik. However, despite the remarkable growth in professed atheist beliefs in recent decades and the popular expression of an imagined geopolitical binary between secular/atheist and religious societies, the Geopolitics of irreligion have received almost no attention among academic practitioners. This paper outlines the core tenets of ‘New Atheist’ philosophy, before addressing how its key representatives have taken positions on the ‘Global War on Terror.’ In particular, we Critically interrogate the works of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens and identify a belligerent geopolitical imagination which posits a civilizational clash between an existentially-threatened secular, liberal West with responsibility to use extraordinary violence to protect itself and the world from a backwards oriental Islam. The paper concludes with four possible explanations for the paradox that the New Atheist critique of religion for being violent acts itself as a geopolitical incitement to violence. In so doing, we seek to navigate debates about the nature and purpose of Critical geopolitical research given that the historical, intellectual and political contexts in which it was formed have changed.

  • militarism realism just war or nonviolence Critical Geopolitics and the problem of normativity
    Geopolitics, 2008
    Co-Authors: Nick Megoran
    Abstract:

    Despite illuminating multiple modalities by which armed conflict is discursively justified, Critical Geopolitics can be criticised for providing a weak normative engagement with the social institution and practices of warfare. This has limited the impact of this school of thought outside of geography and Critical security studies at a time when the ethics of military intervention have been prominent in public debate. This article explores the moral discourse of Critical Geopolitics through an examination of Gerard Toal's writings on Iraq and Bosnia. This scholarship is reviewed in the light of Coates's typology of major traditions of moral reflection on war – militarism, realism, just war theory, and pacifism/nonviolence. This analysis interrogates Toal's narratives, in which American military intervention was advocated in the Former Yugoslavia and opposed in Iraq. This suggests that rather than a thoroughgoing commitment to pacifism/nonviolence, or a blanket cynicism about American foreign policy, Toal's...

  • the Critical Geopolitics of danger in uzbekistan and kyrgyzstan
    Environment and Planning D-society & Space, 2005
    Co-Authors: Nick Megoran
    Abstract:

    Drawing on Critical security studies and Critical Geopolitics, I examine how geopolitical discourses of danger circulate in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Whereas some work in this field risks reinscribing the discursive articulation of danger as an inevitable condition of political formation, in this paper I emphasise the need to disaggregate the concept of danger carefully to highlight its operation in specific contexts. I explore these processes across a range of discursive sites from official media to popular music, contrasting findings with material from focus groups composed of socially marginalised populations. I demonstrate the role of discursive constructions of danger or safety in the production and maintenance of the political identity of the new states, and how this is inseparable from material conditions of elite power struggle. I conclude by echoing Hewitt's call for a Critical geography that confronts and challenges the domestic exercise of state terror.

  • the Critical Geopolitics of the uzbekistan kyrgyzstan ferghana valley boundary dispute 1999 2000
    Political Geography, 2004
    Co-Authors: Nick Megoran
    Abstract:

    In 1999 the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary became a brutal reality in the lives of borderland inhabitants, when it became the key issue in a crisis of inter-state relations. Mainstream explanations have suggested that the Soviet boundary legacy and convergent post-Soviet macro-economic policies made conflict inevitable. Drawing on Critical Geopolitics theory, this paper questions the implicit determinism in these accounts, and seeks to augment them by a political analysis. It suggests that ‘the border crisis’ was the product of the interaction of complex domestic power struggles in both countries, the boundary itself acting as a material and discursive site where elites struggled for the power to inscribe conflicting gendered, nationalistic visions of geopolitical identity. It concludes by insisting upon a moral imperative to expose and challenge the geographical underpinnings of state violence.

  • The Critical Geopolitics of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary dispute, 1999–2000
    Political Geography, 2004
    Co-Authors: Nick Megoran
    Abstract:

    In 1999 the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary became a brutal reality in the lives of borderland inhabitants, when it became the key issue in a crisis of inter-state relations. Mainstream explanations have suggested that the Soviet boundary legacy and convergent post-Soviet macro-economic policies made conflict inevitable. Drawing on Critical Geopolitics theory, this paper questions the implicit determinism in these accounts, and seeks to augment them by a political analysis. It suggests that ‘the border crisis’ was the product of the interaction of complex domestic power struggles in both countries, the boundary itself acting as a material and discursive site where elites struggled for the power to inscribe conflicting gendered, nationalistic visions of geopolitical identity. It concludes by insisting upon a moral imperative to expose and challenge the geographical underpinnings of state violence.

Tabish Shah - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • securitized identities and less secure western multi ethnic states a Critical Geopolitics of the east west discourse turkey and beyond
    Nationalities Papers, 2010
    Co-Authors: Tabish Shah
    Abstract:

    This article explores the implications of monolithic notions of “East” and “West” for security within ethno-religiously diverse nation-states. It builds on literature within Critical Geopolitics by recognizing not only that homogeneous notions of the “West” and its “Others” were formed for the purpose of legitimizing ideological and physical contestations of geographical space, and that they continue to operate, but also that this has made nation-states substantially less secure at the intra-state level. Travel accounts by Western European and American travellers to Turkey from 1989 onwards are used as data to explore this. The content of these accounts mirrors the wider East–West discourse; considered together with Turkey's popularly described position “at the crossroads” of Europe and Asia, the texts lend themselves to salient discussion of identity, culture, and difference between the hegemonic “West” and its “Others.” The post-1989 decolonized, post-Cold War period enables us to work within a contempo...

  • Securitized identities and less secure western multi-ethnic states: a Critical Geopolitics of the east–west discourse – Turkey and beyond
    Nationalities Papers, 2010
    Co-Authors: Tabish Shah
    Abstract:

    This article explores the implications of monolithic notions of “East” and “West” for security within ethno-religiously diverse nation-states. It builds on literature within Critical Geopolitics by recognizing not only that homogeneous notions of the “West” and its “Others” were formed for the purpose of legitimizing ideological and physical contestations of geographical space, and that they continue to operate, but also that this has made nation-states substantially less secure at the intra-state level. Travel accounts by Western European and American travellers to Turkey from 1989 onwards are used as data to explore this. The content of these accounts mirrors the wider East–West discourse; considered together with Turkey's popularly described position “at the crossroads” of Europe and Asia, the texts lend themselves to salient discussion of identity, culture, and difference between the hegemonic “West” and its “Others.” The post-1989 decolonized, post-Cold War period enables us to work within a contempo...

James D Sidaway - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • rebuilding bridges a Critical Geopolitics of iberian transfrontier cooperation in a european context
    Environment and Planning D-society & Space, 2001
    Co-Authors: James D Sidaway
    Abstract:

    In the context of approaches to understanding the European Union (EU) and ‘Critical Geopolitics’ which traces the construction of geopolitical narratives, the author writes about the imaginations of European society and space as harmonised and networked which are associated with visions of governance for ‘an ever closer union’. This is done through a Critical examination of the European Commission's project of sponsoring cross-border cooperation. Drawing on a case study from the Portuguese — Spanish frontier, he examines contradictions that have arisen and are mediated through an unresolved dispute concerning the demarcation of a short section of what is the longest, poorest (in terms of material underdevelopment), and oldest (in terms of relative stability) border between two EU member states. Focusing on the EU-funded (re)construction of a ruined bridge across the border, he examines the way in which the boundary dispute (and attendant Portuguese irredentism) has become enfolded within and disrupts the ...

  • locating Critical Geopolitics
    Environment and Planning D-society & Space, 1994
    Co-Authors: Klausjohn Dodds, James D Sidaway
    Abstract:

    The authors review and locate the emerging literature of Critical Geopolitics, They illustrate some of the main lines of development within a rapidly expanding literature. This literature analyses Geopolitics as discourse and also deconstructs policy texts to examine the use of geographical reasoning in statecraft. Critical Geopolitics also links up with Critical work in geopolitical economy and development studies. Areas are identified in which Critical Geopolitics could engage productively with research and scholarship in related fields.

Simon Dalby - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Critical Geopolitics and the control of arms in the 21st century
    Contemporary Security Policy, 2011
    Co-Authors: Simon Dalby
    Abstract:

    Critical Geopolitics is about challenging the taken for granted contextualizations of social phenomena on the large scale. Invoking insights from this burgeoning literature, this paper examines some of the key taken for granted geopolitical specifications in the discussion of arms control. In particular the case of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia, and the persistent discourses of Iranian threat are formulated within some obvious, but very important geographical premises. The possibilities of innovations in the structure of the world order cannot ignore how desirable futures are rhetorically mapped, any more than they can avoid the question of who controls which arms where, in that order. Geography is never innocent, and the analysis in this paper suggests caution is appropriate when assuming the efficacy of particular contextualizations in both academic analysis and policy prescription.

  • recontextualising violence power and nature the next twenty years of Critical Geopolitics
    Political Geography, 2010
    Co-Authors: Simon Dalby
    Abstract:

    Abstract Twenty years ago the intellectual projects that have become known as Critical Geopolitics emerged at the end of the cold war as a series of critiques of geopolitical reasoning. Drawing heavily on Edward Said's formulations of Orientalism the Critical analyses probed the dense cultural productions of danger, the rationalisations for intervention and the logics of “Western” foreign policies. The geographical specifications of the world in the political discourses used to justify numerous imperial actions, and the rationales for the provision of security came under sustained scrutiny. Now two decades later despite the supposed end of history and endless invocations of globalization, the themes of empire and Orientalism remain at the heart of the Western geopolitical imaginary, explicitly structuring how the security intellectuals of our time plan for war and justify the construction of their military machines. Given the continuing dangers of warfare in a biosphere that is being radically destabilized by the modes of economy and violence these geopolitical texts legitimize, the necessity for critique remains compelling. But given the proliferation of uses of the term Critical Geopolitics, and the numerous disciplinary concerns encompassed by it, perhaps the time has come to narrow its focus once again to its core themes which involve confronting and challenging the geographical reasoning used in the legitimizations of contemporary warfare.

  • imperialism domination culture the continued relevance of Critical Geopolitics
    Geopolitics, 2008
    Co-Authors: Simon Dalby
    Abstract:

    Twenty years ago Gearoid O Tuathail called for an approach within Political Geography that made geopolitical culture and the formulation of foreign policy the object of analysis. He specified the task of what subsequently became Critical Geopolitics as the need to expose the complicity of Geopolitics with domination and imperialism. After the cold war there was a decade when military matters declined in importance and globalisation confused the geographical designations of danger. In the aftermath of 9/11 the utility of force has been reasserted by a neo-Reaganite American foreign policy using military force in the global war on terror and the invasion of Iraq. Now the geopolitical culture is a matter of debates about empire and the appropriate geopolitical designation of danger, whether in Thomas Barnett's non integrated gap on “the Pentagon's New Map” or in the complex geographies of Alain Joxe's “Empire of Disorder”. This re-militarisation of global politics clearly suggests the continued relevance of ...

  • gender and Critical Geopolitics reading security discourse in the new world disorder
    Environment and Planning D-society & Space, 1994
    Co-Authors: Simon Dalby
    Abstract:

    In the early 1990s a new generation of scholars has tackled matters of feminist perspectives on war, peace, and specifically the academic discipline of international relations. A similar confrontation between traditional scholarly themes and gender-sensitive analyses within Critical Geopolitics is now obviously necessary. Although authors such as Cynthia Enloc have written about global politics and the role of women in international relations in ways that are sensitive to the geographic dimension, many theoretical and practical implications of a gender-sensitive approach to Geopolitics remain to be worked out. In this paper I argue that, among other issues, investigating the gendered assumptions in the study of international relations and foreign policy-making, in addition to more explicitly geopolitical reasoning, shows how political spatialisations render women vulnerable. In addition, examining the implications of militarised definitions of (territorial) citizenship, the use of masculinist notions of p...

  • Critical Geopolitics discourse difference and dissent
    Environment and Planning D-society & Space, 1991
    Co-Authors: Simon Dalby
    Abstract:

    In the 1980s international relations theory has been undergoing a major methodological and theoretical debate which has challenged much of the recent disciplinary orthodoxy. This has been inspired by the introduction of contemporary Critical social theory and poststructuralist themes into international relations by a new generation of practitioners. Given the close intellectual proximity of international relations to political geography's concerns with Geopolitics, these current debates are of great relevance to any attempt to retheorise global politics from the perspective of political geography. Although the recent revival of interest in political geography has led to a considerable interest in rethinking the historiography of the subdiscipline and to reevaluating its tainted past, the necessary accompanying theoretical rethinking has not progressed in a similar fashion. The theoretical issues discussed in the contemporary international relations literature have much to offer political geographers in pu...

Ian Klinke - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Geopolitical Narratives on Belarus in Contemporary
    2016
    Co-Authors: Ian Klinke
    Abstract:

    This article questions recent attempts to label Russia's policy towards Belarus as either im perialist or pragmatic. Applying Critical Geopolitics and narrative analysis, it is suggested here that Russia's policy vis-a-vis Belarus is best understood as negotiated between three

  • Chronopolitics: A conceptual matrix
    Progress in Human Geography, 2013
    Co-Authors: Ian Klinke
    Abstract:

    This article engages the platform of Critical Geopolitics through conceptual clarification of the debates around chronopolitics (the politics of time). It argues that the current literature has eit...

  • lost in conceptualization reading the new cold war with Critical Geopolitics
    Political Geography, 2010
    Co-Authors: Felix Ciută, Ian Klinke
    Abstract:

    Abstract Focusing on the debates on energy security in Germany, this paper analyzes the structure, logic, and circulation of the “new Cold War” as a geopolitical narrative. We use the literature in Critical Geopolitics to analyze the conceptual implications of an apparent dissociation between the media and governmental stance toward the new Cold War and its embedded geopolitical logic. The relationship between the “kind” of Geopolitics inherent in the new Cold War and the different “forms” in which it circulates suggests a blurring of boundaries between all such geopolitical forms, through multiple crossings-over between institutions, textual genres, and circulating actors. The media presence of the New Cold War also highlights the ambiguity of the “popular” in popular Geopolitics, which is further refracted on other geopolitical forms which share its characteristics. This not only makes imperative the more precise formulation of key conceptual categories such as popular or banal Geopolitics, but also calls into question the link between the state and particular geopolitical logics, as well as the relationship between the mass media and Geopolitics.

  • Geopolitical Narratives on Belarus in Contemporary Russia
    2008
    Co-Authors: Ian Klinke
    Abstract:

    This article questions recent attempts to label Russia's policy towards Belarus as either im- perialist or pragmatic. Applying Critical Geopolitics and narrative analysis, it is suggested here that Russia's policy vis-a-vis Belarus is best understood as negotiated between three competing geopolitical narratives - fraternity, parasitism and paternalism. Clashing in their (spatial) representation of the Belarusian Other, these narratives have advocated different policies and implied dissimilar constructions of the Russian Self. Coexisting uneasily dur- ing the Putin era, these narratives only loosely resemble the dominant 'schools of thought' in Russian foreign policy. These images relate to a wider dispute on contemporary Russian foreign pol- icy in which the two labels are diametrically opposed. After tracing this divide in the literature on Russia's policy towards Belarus specifically and Russian foreign policy in general, it will be argued here that both 'imperialism' and 'pragmatism' should be avoided as mental compasses for explorations into the thicket of Russian foreign pol- icy due to their conceptual imprecision, implicit normativity and partial perspective. Following this brief discussion, the article will outline Critical Geopolitics and nar- rative analysis as alternative ways of understanding Russian foreign policy. Adopting a broad definition of Geopolitics, Critical Geopolitics will be used to study the con- struction of mental and geographic boundaries that delimitate the Self from the Other through narratives of space/place and sovereignty. Narrative analysis will be used to avoid a rigid distinction between discourse and practice. Foreign policy prac- tice is understood here as bound up with narrative impositions of meaning, which, operating on a number of discursive levels, enable and disallow certain policies. Subsequently, the above theoretical apparatus will be used to dissect Russia's con- temporary discourse on Belarus. After a brief summary of recent developments in