Journal of Geographical Sciences >
Progress in international geopolitical research from 1996 to 2015
Author: Song Tao (1983-), PhD, specialized in geopolitics and regional sustainable development. E-mail: songtao@igsnrr.ac.cn
Received date: 2016-03-28
Accepted date: 2016-05-30
Online published: 2017-04-20
Supported by
National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41530634, No.41530751
Copyright
Focusing on international relations from the perspective of geography, geopolitics exerts powerful influences on the course of economic and political development in the world. In the tide of globalization and information technology, geopolitics has become an important subject for global pattern interpretation and policy making. It is essentially important to have a scientific and systematic review on international geopolitics to promote its development. Based on the bibliometric statistics, the paper reviews the research development of geopolitics on the Web of Science from 1996 to 2015. The history, journals, papers and key research areas of geopolitics have been revealed in the paper. By the analysis of bibliometric statistics, the number of papers recently published in the journals of political geography and related geography journals continues to increase. The key areas of geopolitical papers which are globally highly cited include geopolitical interpretation of the countries and borders, critical geopolitics, emotional geopolitics, feminist geopolitics and other topics. Before the year of 2000, the state and borders were hot topics of the geopolitical research. Yet since 2000, it has been the trend that the geopolitics is increasingly set in the context of geographical implications. At the same time, critical geopolitics appears to be the main area of geopolitical research, especially transitioning from traditional geopolitics towards the humanism-embeddedness (such as emotional geopolitics, feminist geopolitics). The paper then systematically reviews the branch trends of geopolitical research, including the borders and the territory, global geo-culture and geo-economics, Chinese models of geopolitics, resource conflicts and ecological politics, as well as emotional geopolitics. Finally, it puts forward the implication that Chinese geopolitical studies should reinforce the importance of geographical space and scale, use the process of description and multiple methods, as well as integrate humanistic thoughts, in order to further enrich the theories and practices of geopolitical research.
SONG Tao , LU Dadao , LIANG Yi , WANG Qian , LIN Jing . Progress in international geopolitical research from 1996 to 2015[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2017 , 27(4) : 497 -512 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-016-1389-1
Figure 1 Number of geopolitical articles published in the international journals from 1996 to 2015 |
Figure 2 The top 10 journals with most geopolitical articles from 1996 to 2015 |
Table 1 Top 10 geopolitical articles cited in the international journals from 1996 to 2015 |
Author | Year | Journal | Citation frequency | Theme | Title | Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Newman and Paasi | 1998 | Progress in Human Geography | 180 | Border | Fences and neighbours in the postmodern world: Boundary narratives in political geography | (Newman and Paasi, 1998) |
Pile | 2010 | Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers | 136 | Emotional geopolitics | Emotions and affect in recent human geography | (Pile, 2010) |
Sparke | 1998 | Annals of the Association of American Geographers | 95 | Countries | A map that roared and an original atlas: Canada, cartography, and the narration of nation | (Sparke, 1998) |
Sidaway | 2000 | Progress in Human Geography | 82 | Critical geopolitics | Postcolonial geographies: An exploratory essay | (Sidaway, 2000) |
Hyndman | 2004 | Political Geography | 80 | Feminist geopolitics | Mind the gap: Bridging feminist and political geography through geopolitics | (Hyndman, 2004) |
While | 2004 | International Journal of Urban and Regional Research | 79 | Regional Governance | The environment and the entrepreneurial city: Searching for the urban ‘sustainability fix’ in Manchester and Leeds | (Aidan et al., 2004) |
Coleman | 2007 | Antipode | 73 | Border | Immigration geopolitics beyond the Mexico-US border | (Coleman, 2007) |
Pain | 2009 | Progress in Human Geography | 69 | Emotional geopolitics | Globalized fear? Towards an emotional geopolitics | (Pain, 2009) |
Hyndman | 2001 | Canadian Geographer | 68 | Feminist geopolitics | Towards a feminist geopolitics | (Hyndman, 2001) |
Roberts | 2003 | Antipode | 62 | Neoliberal geopolitics | Neoliberal geopolitics | (Roberts et al., 2003) |
Table 2 Research fields in international geopolitics |
Research direction | Research tendency | Proportion (%) |
---|---|---|
Border and territory | Border security, the development of border areas, cross-border cooperation, geopolitical narrative of territory, discourse of the territory, environmental determinism, map and drawing | 16.7 |
Globalization and geo-culture, geo-economy | Geo-economy, geo-culture, globalization and population migration, geo-effect of information technology, popular geopolitics, foreign investment, network, regional integration, ocean shipping | 14.5 |
Geopolitical hot spot areas and Chinese model | European Union, Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, foreign policy, India, Arctic, North Korea, China threat theory, Central Asia | 21.1 |
Resource conflicts and ecological politics | Petroleum, natural gas, cross-boundary river governance, dams, fisheries, international negotiations, global climate change, environmental geopolitics | 19.9 |
Value, emotion and cultural geography | Critical geopolitics, feminism of geopolitics, religion, narrative mode, geopolitical environment, ethnicity, cultural geography, Confucianism, identity, popular culture | 18.9 |
Others | Liberal geopolitics, the marginal zone, the third world, the Eurasian hinterland, governance, radical geopolitics, the fault zone, the state-owned enterprises | 8.9 |
Table 3 Evolutionary phases of modern geopolitics |
Phase one | Phase two | Phase three | Phase four | Phase five | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Phases | Struggle of empires | German geopolitics | Geopolitics of the United States | Geopolitics during Cold War | Post-Cold War era |
Representative scholars | Ratzel, Mackinder, Kjellen, Bowman, Mahan | Haushofer, Maul, Banser | Spykman, George Reina, Seversky | Kennan, Kissinger, Brzezinski, Taylor | Fukuyama, Kaplan, Brzezinski, Nye, Huntington, Cohen |
Representative viewpoints | National Organism, World Island, Heartland, Sea Power Theory | Pan-continentalism | Rimland Theory | Containment strategy, balance of power, overall views | Universalistic geopolitics, Critical geopolitics, State-centrism, Clash of civilizations |
Geopolitical background | German Empire under the leadership of Bismarck, World War I | Rise of Germany after World War I | Rise of US during and after World War II | US-Soviet confrontation | Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan, counter-terrorism |
Reference: Cohen, 2011 |
Figure 3 Trends of international research on geopolitics for the last 20 years |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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