To support the scientific character of their approach, the founders of geopolitics (Kjellen, Haushofer, MacKinder, among others) relied on theories to explain history (especially international history) by starting from the idea of space (and the struggle for space) and putting forward notions of territory and geographical position. These basic premises earned them the label of determinism, even when their research work was not as unilateral as often written. On the other hand, contextual in essence, these theories seem to be outdated today; however, several of the elements of analysis they brought out remain relevant to explain both foreign politics of States and their internal organization.
This contextuality is at the origin of a fundamental epistemological questioning as for all attempts at theorization in geopolitics, and in geography in general. Indeed, it makes it useless if we expect to deduct « space laws » for international life and the functioning of modern societies. But, does not the complexity of geopolitical (and geographical) realities demand instruments of interpretation and theoretical models likely to decipher it - if we want to significantly go beyond this stage of acknowledgement and description? It is understood that these realities result from the interaction of strategies of human groups (and consequently from their capacities, their representations, and respective intentionalities) as much as the environment and the system without which it occurs.
For a long time, geopolitics favored an analytical and chronological approach. The integration of concepts developed in « The New Geography » and in the theories of international relations has had something of the nature of a renewed approach since the 1970s (the eminently geographical notions of center and periphery spread in geopolitics as in social sciences). Then, new schools emerged, like the Critical Geopolitics (O’Tuathail) in the United States which focused on the discourses and representations of social actors. So that, originally conceived as the global approach to international relations, geopolitics is now thought out on a larger scale. Thus, its contextualist method turns out to be relevant on all levels while different epistemological splits opened a theoretical field at the crossroads of several disciplines.
If we admit that the object of geopolitics is the understanding of the spatial organization of power, in all its dimensions, it then appears necessary to appeal to interpretative theories of recorded interactions and limited rationalities of social actors. These theories can refer to different paradigms, and rely on various methods, without any exclusion. In this perpective, we would like to welcome, for this new issue of L’Espace Politique, all submissions of theoretical and methological nature likely to apprehend the ways in which powers interact in space and shape it, according to the most diverse objects, levels and modalities.
Deadline : March 21, 2010.
Gérard Dussouy : gerard.dussouy@wanadoo.fr