THE SCALE OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY: AN HISTORIC INTRODUCTION

Abstract

Political geography and geopolitics were built on the same basic postulate as political sciences and the theory of international relations: the nation-state was the relevant scale for all types of analysis. This postulate was a reasonable one at the time of the Treaties of Westphalia. This type of polity triumphed on the international scene at the time when Hobbes wrote the Leviathan. The basis of the social contract implicit in the perspective was simple: in order to achieve personal security, everybody gave up the parcel of freedom (and the associated use of violence) he was naturally endowed with, and delegated it to the Leviathan, the State. The only field where competition between human beings was legitimate at the most elementary level was that of economy. The evolution of the international scene does not only result from the evolution of weaponry or communication and transport technologies. For many persons today, renouncing any parcel of their individual freedom appears as a mutilation of their egos. There was a general agreement in the past on the scale where the analysis of political action had to be developed: it has disappeared. For a growing part of modern societies, inter-individual or local competition may take a political form and rely on the use of violence at all the levels, including the micro-scale. It means that political geography and geopolitics have increasingly to allow for the variety of scales of political action and the changing relations between the competition for power, wealth and status which are present in every society.