GEOG 4712: Political GeographyLecture 2:Geographies of ʻthe Stateʼ, Arguments from Nature, and ʻHow to Avoid theTerritorial Trapʼoutline1. administrative2. ages3. determinism4. territoriality5. sovereignty6. traps7. states8. regimes9. discourses10. determinismsKey questions and Conceptual links:scales, sovereigns, states,• What is the role of ʻ displacementʼ if the ʻplacementʼ of people isa major feature of statecraft? What are the lessons from pastepisodes and how are they comparable?• How are territoriality and sovereignty contained historically?What will the future hold?• How does ʻpowerʼ work in space and across societies? Whatattributes does it assume? Where are its sources/origins?• How is state power discursively and practically produced?Territoriality (Taylor 1994)• Definition: Form of behavior (I.e. strategy) that uses abounded space, a territory, as the instrument for securinga particular outcome…• History: In the modern era, it is directly linked tosovereignty to mould politics into a fundamentally state-centric social process• Hyphen: ʻthe state has acted like a vortex sucking insocial relations to mould them through its territorialityʼ…itspower results from fusing of state with nation• Problem: it is only one type of spatiality where rigid blocksand domination ensure bordering practicesSovereignty• Definition: normative conception linking authority,territory, population, under unlimited and indivisiblerule…by a ʻstateʼ?; absolute territorial organizationof political authority, especially centralized statepower• Problem: power not so effectively territorialized?– Political authority not restricted to states– Authority not necessarily territorial– Centralized? Diffused? Networked?Definitions: ‘state’ as…• Aristotle (350 BC): city-states emerge from households and other groups• Hobbes (1651): strong sovereign protects domestic social body from savageexterior threats, I.e. ʻstate of natureʼ• Marx (1848): executive committee of bourgeoisie• Ratzel (1897): biological organism with dynamic borders• Weber (1904): bureaucracy with legitimate monopoly on violence• Herz (1957): territorial authority within ʻhard outer shellʼ• Mann (1984): intertwined institutional authority over territory; autonomous• Giddens (1985); Taylor (1994): as power container(s);• Jessop (2003): regulates capital accumulation• Painter (2006): ʻprosaicsʼ of everyday interactionsKey Geographic Aspects:• Territory + Sovereignty + Power = Territoriality• ʻTerritorial Trapʼ + ʻMethodological Nationalismʼ = Political ScienceThe Territorial Trap:the geographical assumptions of internationalrelations theory (Agnew 1994)1. States as fixed units of sovereign space2. The domestic/foreign polarity3. States as ʻcontainersʼ of societies“…even when rule is territorial and fixed, territory does not necessarilyentail the practices of total mutual exclusion…indeed, dependingon the nature of the geopolitical order of any particular period,territoriality had been ʻ unbundledʼ by all kinds of formalagreements and informal practices, such as common markets,military alliance, monetary and trading regimes, etc…”Approaching Sovereignty and Spatial Systemsof Rule (Agnew, 2005)1. State sovereignty is social construct re: power,authority, and obligation2. States are ʻsubjectsʼ and exercise power overterritory3. States are defined by policies acting in its namediscourses + imaginationsGeopolitical Code: operating code of governmentʼs foreign policy thatevaluates places beyond its bordersGeopolitical World order: more or less stable set of intʼl power relationsdominated by agenda set by major powers (e.g. the Cold War)Geopolitical Culture: dominant ideology of a society; can be multipleGeopolitical Imaginations: Boundary drawing practices between inside/outside;them/us; self/foreign; other?naturalized argumentskey thinkersCommon Ideas: Ratzel + Kjellen1. State as organism2. Social Darwinism and EnvironmentalDeterminism; Rejection of Racism3. Belief that future belongs to states with largeterritories4. Advocacy of Germany as world powerclassical codes + organic statesRatzel (1844-1904)Assumptions1) Natural laws govern human society2) States must expand territorially; conflict inevitable3) State as unit of analysisPrinciples1) Social Darwinism2) State as organism3) LebensraumKjellen (1864-1922)1) State has natural ʻrealmʼ/ʻdomainʼ2) States should be autarkic3) Law of cultural
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