A subaltern critical geopolitics of the war on terror: postcolonial security in Tanzania

Currently, hegemonic geographical imaginations are dominated by the affective geopolitics of the War on Terror, and related security practice is universalised into what has been called ‘‘globalized fear’’ (Pain, 2009). Critical approaches to geopolitics have been attentive to the Westerncentric nature of this imaginary, however, studies of non-Western perceptions of current geopolitics and the nature of fear will help to further displace dominant geopolitical imaginations. Africa, for example, is a continent that is often captured in Western geopolitics – as a site of failed states, the coming anarchy, passive recipient of aid, and so on – but geopolitical representations originating in Africa rarely make much of an impact on political theory. This paper aims to add to critical work on the so-called War on Terror from a perspective emerging from the margins of the dominant geopolitical imagination. It considers the geopolitical imagination of the War on Terror from a non-Western source, newspapers in Tanzania

Security governance and networks: New theoretical perspectives in transatlantic security

The end of the Cold War has not only witnessed the rise of new transnational threats such as terrorism, crime, proliferation and civil war; it has also seen the growing role of non-state actors in the provision of security in Europe and North America. Two concepts in particular have been used to describe these transformations: security governance and networks. However, the differences and potential theoretical utility of these two concepts for the study of contemporary security have so far been under-examined. This article seeks to address this gap. It proposes that security governance can help to explain the transformation of Cold War security structures, whereas network analysis is particularly useful for understanding the relations and interactions between public and private actors in the making and implementation of national and international security policies

The spatiality of politics: Cesare Battisti’s regional and international thought, 1900-1916

The article concerns the conceptualization of political spaces in early twentieth century European political thought. The main figure is the Italian geographer and political thinker Cesare Battisti (1875-1916). Drawing on his geographical knowledge of his native region of Trentino, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Battisti envisioned an alternative political order in Central Europe. In a series of geographical surveys and political essays, he described his idea of the region as a meaningful political space, that could become an alternative to both empire and nation-state as part of a continental democratic federation. The article argues that through this new spatial conceptualization of region and federation, Battisti sought to reinterpret the political categories of authority and community. The article examines Battisti’s ideas in their historical and intellectual context, arguing that he offers original insights on the evolution of European international and regional thought in the twentieth century

A critical geopolitics of observant practice at British military airshows

ArticleCopyright © 2015 The Authors. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers)This paper demonstrates how visual cultures of militarism take shape as part of a ‘thick’ geopolitics of being-in-place. It draws on historical accounts of, and empirical observations at, British military airshows, which it interprets via the concept of ‘observant practice’. The paper argues that the imaginative and rhetorical force of military spectacle and popular militarism are tied to its markedly enclavic spatiality, i.e. to seeing and doing in-place. By taking seriously the spatial and sensory experience of British airshows, the paper extends recent work in critical geopolitics that questions the spatialised politics of experience, and brings them into dialogue with cultural geographies of tourism. It provides a brief history of the spectacular origins of aviation and of the use of airshows to the practice of statecraft, and demonstrates how airshows are an important element in the cultural phenomenon of militarisation. The paper takes forward debates around ‘the vision thing’ in critical geopolitics by illustrating why the notion of observant practice should not be dissociated from consideration of the spaces in and through which militaries become the object of visual curiosity. It expands, therefore, the potential of observant practice as a critique of popular military cultures.ESR

Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics

Critical geopolitics has become one of the most vibrant parts of political geography. However it remains a particularly western way of knowing which has been much less attentive to other traditions of thinking. This paper engages with Pan-Africanism, and specifically the vision of the architect of post-colonial Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, to explore this overlooked contribution to critical engagements with geopoli- tics. Pan-Africanism sought to forge alternative post-colonial worlds to the binary geopolitics of the Cold War and the geopolitical economy of neo-colonialism. The academic division of labour has meant that these ideas have been consigned to African studies rather than being drawn into wider debates around the definitions of key disciplinary concepts. However Nyerere’s continental thinking can be seen as a form of geopolitical imagination that challenges dominant neo-realist projections, and which still has much to offer contemporary political geography

Civil Society, Everyday Life and the Possibilities for Development Studies

Civil society is one of the most contentious terms in political thought. There is considerable, and highly significant, difference between academic debate about the meaning of ‘civil society’ and the way the term is mobilized in international development discourse. In particular, narratives of civil society in international development are often dominated by reference to organizational descriptions and measurability. But I would like to suggest here that the term should be reclaimed as a way of giving meaning to the stories of the everyday lives of the people who create, shape and embody civil society. Used in this way, the idea of civil society can be understood as intersecting emotions, discourses and practices and can add to the body of scholarly work that nurtures and values everyday life as a lens through which to view wider social processes. Paying attention to the everyday life of civil society may have implications for that way the civil society is engaged with academically, and also has the potential to refresh how civil society is thought about in development practice

‘Axis of evil or access to diesel?: spaces of new imperialism and the Iraq war’

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was waged by the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’. This paper will examine how the war was a space in the ongoing geographical extension of global capitalism linked to U.S. foreign policy. Was it simply the decision by a unitary, hegemonic actor in the inter-state system overriding concerns by other states? Was it an imperialist move to secure the ‘global oil spigot’? Alternatively, did the use of military force reflect the interests and emergence of a transnational state apparatus? In this paper, we argue that the U.S. needs to be conceptualised as a specific form of state, within which and through which national and transnational capital operate to establish the interests of a national fraction of an Atlantic ruling class. It is these processes of class struggle and their relation to wider struggles over spaces of imperialism, which need to be at the centre of analysis

The intertwined geopolitics and geoeconomics of hopes/fears:China’s triple economic bubbles and the ‘One Belt One Road’ imaginary

This paper adopts a discursive-cum-material approach to China's new 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) geostrategic imaginary and its development through the intertwining of geopolitics and geoeconomics of hopes and fears. It first contextualizes this development after the 2008 financial crisis when China promoted a vast stimulus package that inflated existing property and infrastructure bubbles and fuelled another in finance. Resulting debates over crisis management enabled an incoming President Xi to articulate a set of hope-based discourses that came to include 'China Dream', 'New Normal' and the OBOR. Familiar cartographic statecraft techniques and novel spatial metaphors were used to promote the OBOR's allegedly 'win-win' strategy discursively. The OBOR imaginary was translated materially, and importantly, into policies that promoted a grand transregional 'spatial fix' to postpone China's over-accumulation crises. This strategy is consolidating a China-oriented infrastructural mode of growth in production, finance and security. As this absorbs ever more productive and financial capital, we see the emergence of contradictions, antagonisms and conflicts, especially in the use of bilateral loan-debt contractuality to appropriate strategic infrastructure. The paper concludes with a call for an affective turn examining the intertwining of geoeconomics and geopolitics in the analysis of transregional spatial fixes

Geographically touring the eastern bloc: British geography, travel cultures and the Cold War

This paper considers the role of travel in the generation of geographical knowledge of the eastern bloc by British geographers. Based on oral history and surveys of published work, the paper examines the roles of three kinds of travel experience: individual private travels, tours via state tourist agencies, and tours by academic delegations. Examples are drawn from across the eastern bloc, including the USSR, Poland, Romania, East Germany and Albania. The relationship between travel and publication is addressed, notably within textbooks, and in the Geographical Magazine. The study argues for the extension of accounts of cultures of geographical travel, and seeks to supplement the existing historiography of Cold War geography