1. Dr. Susan P. Mains Geography
GE21001 Dynamic Human Worlds Political Geography, Lecture 8: State, Geography and Territory
Dr. Susan P. Mains
Geography

3. The Geography of State Formation: “Superpowers” and Territory
Lecture Outline:
Geography and states
State Formation
Changing concepts of the state in political geography

4. The State & Geography
Late 19th C, Friedrich Ratzel—“founder” of political geography of the state
The state as an “organic, living entity”:
“Some number of people are joined to the area of the state. These live on its soil, draw their sustenance from it, and are otherwise attached to it by spiritual relationships. Together with this piece of earth they form the state.” (Ratzel 1896)

5. The State & Geography
Late 19th C, historical and political context important
Germany in Europe and expanding empires/territorial expansion
Lebensraum: living space—nation + territory
G. W. F. Hegel: 80 years earlier—state as an “idea”
Different scales of political geography?
Schattschneider (1962): “all organization is biased”
Organizing equals controlling space and it is a form of power
Politics is about organizing and controlling others ability to navigate

6. Geopolitics Definition:
“The state’s power to control space or territory and shape the foreign policy of individual states and international political relations.”
Conflicted History:
Frederich Ratzel: “Lebensraum”
Halford Mackinder: World Island Theory
Post World War II:
No research under the name “geopolitics”

7. Leviathan vs Behemoth

8. Ratzel & Haushofer
E. Banse (1912)

9. Mackinder & the ‘Heartland’
World-Island
Offshore Islands
Outlying Islands
Heartland: At centre of World-Island
“The Geographical Pivot of History” (1904)
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island controls the world.”
-Mackinder (1919)

10. Mackinder & the ‘Heartland’

11. Mackinder & the ‘Heartland’

12. The State & Geography
Mid-20th C: US Geographer, Richard Hartshorne “Nature of Geography” (1939)
Distancing from Lebensraum, due to links with Nazi Party in 1930s
Focus on the state for territorial administration, political units and boundaries
“aerial differentiation”
focus on the role of transport + communication
Centripetal (bringing together) and centrifugal (pushing apart) forces

13. The State & Geography 1970s 1980s
increase in critical geography and variety of perspectives
Marxist perspectives of the state
Political economy—the state in relation to capitalism
Social relations, elites, finance and capital accummulation
Difficulties explaining differences between states and state socialism
No single theory of “the state”
Liberal democracy not necessarily “natural”
States still a particular important container of power and information

14. States, Space and Definitions
States are the result of social and political processes
Modern states developing in last 300 years last 50 years universal (more or less)
Historical and geographical differences
Naturalizing discourses limit the potential for change, mask inequalities
State: responsibility for government and administration of a territory

15. The State & Critical Geopolitics
Rather than work for policymakers or state governments, contemporary geopoliticians critique and evaluate the outcomes of state policies and decisions:
Geroid O’Tuathail
John Agnew
Joanne Sharpe
Many Others…

16. The State & Critical Geopolitics
With states as the main agents of analysis, geopolitics can be broken down into two realms:
International (external)
Domestic (internal)
Institutions, decisions, and actions are most frequently broken down into one of these two realms.

17. Understanding States Always has borders (not necessarily well defined)
Has an administrative government (typically)
Has sovereignty over the territory inside its borders
Maintains a monopoly on the right to use violence:
Internally: police, national guard
Externally: military
Dependent upon others recognizing its legitimacy:
Internally: population of the country recognizing the sovereignty and authority of the state
Externally: other states recognizing sovereignty

18. States, Space and Definitions
Six Key Components (J. Painter):
1. territories of modern states relatively precise
2. most modern states occupy large territories
3. institutions have spatial structures that are social and symbolic (Nicos Poulantzas)
4. the apparatus of the state provides the means by which the state monitors, governs and attempts to control the population
5. monitoring activity has a tendency to increase over time
6. place and discourses of place important in legitimizing

19. A working definition of the state:
“States are constituted of spatialized social practices which are to a greater or lesser extent institutionalized (in a ‘state apparatus’) and which involve claims to authority which are general in social scope and which secure at least partial compliance through either consent, or coercion, or both.”
(J. Painter 1995, p.34)