Critical Geopolitics I: the German Case
outline
1)
Classical: Haushofer
2)
Critical: Keywords
3)
Critical: Representations
4)
Critical: Applications
5)
Critical: Questions
6)
Critical: Nazi Germany
7)
Critical: Cartographies
8)
Critical: Emigres
5 Key Questions in Critical Geopolitics
1)
How is global space imagined and represented?
2)
How is global space divided into essential blocs/zones of identity or difference?
3)
How is global power conceptualized?
4)
How are global threats spatialized and strategies of response conceptualized?
5)
How are the major actors shaping geopolitics identified and conceptualized?
Classical Geopolitics: a family tree model
Organic State
Geostrategy
(US) Mahan (~1890)
(GER) Ratzel (~1880)
(UK) Mackinder (1904, 1919)
(GER) Kjellen (~ 1899)
(GER) Haushofer (1923-1939)
Regionalist School
(US) Spykman (1940-1944)
(US) Kennan (1946-1950)
(US) Saul Cohen (1973 - )
Globalists
(US) Ray Cline (1980 - )
(US) Barnett (2003 -)
“Major General Professor Doktor”
1) Land vs. Sea Powers
2) Geographic Determinism
3) State as Organism
4) Social Darwinism
5) Cultural Nationalism
6) Lebensraum
7) Pan-regions
Pan regions
1) Autarkic: each with 3 economic zones
a) Core- industrial areas
b) Peripheral- agricultural areas
c) Undeveloped territories- resource reserves
2) Defensible: easy to defend + non-competitive
3) Cohesive: Held together by dominant culture
Haushofer’s Foreign Policy Prescriptions
1) Germans must understand global space…as aid to statecraft:
* “equipment for political action”
* “geographical conscience of state”
*”earth-boundedness” of “political processes and institutions”
2) Germany should form continental-maritime bloc with Russia + Japan
* Anti-Comintern Pact, 1936 (Ger-Jap alliance)
3) Alliance between Germany + Russia
*Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, 1939
*Lasted until Operation Barbarossa, 1941
Haushofer + Nazis
Same
1) Reject Versailles
2) Hostile to UK/US
3) Greater Germany for Germans
4) Overpopulation and lebensraum
Different
1) Spatial vs. racial determinism
2) Cooperation vs. war with USSR
3) Haushofer never a Nazi
4) Albrecht’s assassination attempt
5) Conservative-aristocrat vs. fascist
classical vs. critical
1)
Neutral Science…
1) Academic studies…
2)
…of statecraft
2) …of ‘geo-knowledge’
3)
Geopolitics: Natural
3) Geopolitics: Historical
4)
Great Power Practioners
5)
Plural Prescriptions
4) Agents/Actors/Advisors
6)
Cartesian gaze
7)
Organic States…
8)
…vs. Geostrategies
9)
Regionalists…
10) …vs. Globalists
5) Arguments/Advice
6) Constructed view
7) Formal-practical-popular
8) High-middle-low brow
9) Text, image, storyline
10) Public opinion
Critical geopolitics: structures + representations
Geopolitical Code: operating code of government’s foreign policy that evaluates
places beyond its borders
Geopolitical World order: more or less stable set of int’l power relations
dominated by agenda set by major powers (e.g. the Cold War)
Geopolitical Culture: dominant ideology of a society; can be multiple
Geopolitical Imaginations: Boundary drawing practices between inside/outside;
them/us; self/foreign; other
American Applications
Critical Geopolitics + Data: Practical Statements, Public Opinions
http://stateoftheunion.onetwothree.net/
http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSAnalizeStudy.jsp
Ideological Contests in 20th c. Germany (I): Lebensraum
Germany should expand into new territories in Central and Eastern Europe
Ideological Contests in 20th c. Germany (II): Weltpolitik
Germany should acquire colonies like Britain, France, for trade, development, and raw materials; imperialist mentality
Ideological Contests in 20th c. U.S.: Isolationism? Internationalism?
geopolitische kartographie
…East European Émigrés