Geopolitical Space Research Articles

Performance enacting mobility and shifting borders – the global countryside?

ABSTRACT This essay considers how performances by Takayama Akira (founder of Port B) are made to explore experiences of mobility and migration among people who traverse geographical and geopolitical spaces in Japan and elsewhere. In making works that uncover hidden sites that are connected to diasporic and migratory passage, Takayama invites reflections on questions of borders, zones, regions, and the passages between them. Our paper will discuss how Takayama’s work is a form of place-making. His tour performances and mobile ideas of theatre create complexities around the meaning of place in terms of re-spatialized institutional strata and civic designations. We aim to explore how civic institutions and designations such as “rural” and “city” are being broken and/or made liminal. Our paper will outline how this spatial dramaturgy has ramifications for the “global countryside” (Woods) as something both institutionalized and yet to be.

Stories from the Global South: the interplay of climate science, ‘action’ and the implications for development

ABSTRACT Calls for humanity to act on environmental changes are becoming increasingly critical. The growing polycrisis including the impact of ongoing conflicts in contested geopolitical spaces and the struggles for ways to sustain a livelihood in areas of precarity and poverty, are just some of the intersecting challenges which have given rise to a Code Red alarm by the United Nations surrounding issues related to climate change. Rich narratives and stories of climate actions from Africa offer examples of potential paths. This paper explores how such narratives inform local development and climate action. A key message is that stories and narratives, created by various peoples, disciplines, and systems of knowledge, can all be powerful genres and sources for agentic change that can inspire and embolden development practice and action.

Necessary Exorcisms: Intercessory Law in S. Ansky's The Dybbuk

Abstract: "Necessary Exorcisms" reads S. Ansky's The Dybbuk in the context of Ansky's travels during World War I as a relief aid worker with the Jewish Committee to Help War Victims. Ansky's description of the fate of Jews in occupied Galicia—in the fragments of a diary he kept during these years and in a longer memoir published after the war—confronts us with two motifs at the heart of The Dybbuk : a blurring of the threshold between life and death, and the important role that law, litigatory practices, and lawful authorities play as entities to which one could appeal to prevent a wrong from occurring and/or to adjudicate a wrong after it has occurred. To read The Dybbuk alongside Ansky's account of what happened to Jews in Galicia during World War I is to see the play as a dramatic exploration of issues at the heart of what Giorgio Agamben has theorized as a state of exception—the geopolitical space in which there is no law or lawful authority to which to appeal when one's rights as a citizen have been revoked and one has become exposed to arbitrary violence. To read The Dybbuk as a play obliquely linked to the fate of Jews in occupied Galicia is to complicate contemporary readings that see Ansky staging the law's malign power to punish illicit desires so as to uphold patriarchal and classist norms. Reading The Dybbuk as a postwar play, "Necessary Exorcisms" discerns in it an apology for the law and its intercessions.

Геостратегическое положение России на Балтике как угроза морской блокады в современных условиях

This article utilises a systematic approach for a comprehensive examination of the Baltic Sea region as a geopolitical space and an analysis of geopolitical events (event-analysis) aimed to assess the capabilities of the US and NATO to impose a naval blockade on Russia in the Baltic Sea. This study is made relevant by the growing confrontation between the collective West and Russia, and the provocative anti-Russian rhetoric adopted by official representa­tives of NATO states. Finland’s accession to NATO, Sweden’s ‘de facto’ participation in the Alliance and Russia’s geostrategic position in the Baltic region have created a situation where the sea may turn into a literal trap for the latter country. There is a threat of a maritime and trade blockade of Russia amid US and EU sanctions policy against Russian oil and calls by some Western leaders for limiting Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea to protect their countries’ maritime communications from ‘Russian aggression’. The findings of this study and an anal­ysis of the geopolitical and military-strategic situation in the Baltic Sea region suggest that this threat may become a reality. Its significance is also evidenced by steps taken by US and NATO towards escalation in relations with Russia, attempts to damage the country’s econo­my and the anti-Russian hysteria of the Baltic States.

New ethics as a reaction to globalization

Topicality. In the modern geopolitical space, the most urgent issue is the national security of individual states in the conditions of various forms of geopolitical expansion. Ukraine is at the epicenter of these extremely difficult conditions. The national security of our country is under threat. Socio-political forecasts and globalization processes point to the reformatting of the consciousness not only of an individual nation, but also of the entire world society. The cultures of the peoples of the entire planet Earth are under the powerful influence of globalization processes. The purpose of the article is to analyze the expected and unexpected changes that we will receive as a result of this large-scale and multifaceted process. especially the emergence of new ethics as a reaction to globalization. Therefore, the main tasks are to determine the possible interpretations of globalization processes in the conditions of geopolitical expansion, the main manipulative components: politics, economy, mass culture, mass media; analysis of consequential phenomena, such as: deformed consciousness of individuals and society as a whole, crisis of self-understanding in the globalized world, risks of loss of identity. As a result of the research, it was found that we associate the emergence of new narratives, norms, and prescriptions with the emergence of new ethics, which will become the main regulator within the limits of civilized globalization. As a conclusion, it can be argued that the most important problem remains the place of man and his relationships in the world of total globalization.

ГЕОПОЛІТИЧНА СВІДОМІСТЬ УКРАЇНЦІВ ЯК ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІЙНИЙ ФЕНОМЕН

The article is devoted to the study of the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians as an existential phenomenon based on the Ukrainian studies approach. Emphasis is placed on the need for a value-semantic distinction between the geopolitical consciousness of Russians and the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians, which is a determining prerequisite for Ukrainian studies of this problem. It is claimed that the geopolitical consciousness of Russians is based on aggressive expansionist values and semantic principles. In turn, the opinion that the basis of the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians is based on humanistic existential value-meaning principles is substantiated. Thus, in particular, on the basis of the analysis of the geopolitical ideas of Ukrainian philosophers, it is shown that the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians is based on the archetypes of the Ukrainian mentality, is connected with the idea of harmony in arranging the geopolitical space of existence of the Ukrainian ethnic group and the Ukrainian nation, and also bears the imprint of the geopolitical injuries associated with the need for Ukraine to overcome civilizational challenges at key stages of its development. It is emphasized that the problem of the transformation of geopolitical science in the direction of postmodernism, which is a topic of modern Western European humanitarianism, is also actualized by the awareness of the need to modernize the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians. So, in particular, the article emphasizes the newest, integrative possibilities of the Ukrainian studies approach for further research. It is substantiated that the geopolitical consciousness of the Ukrainian community is one of the fundamental factors for the establishment of the geopolitical subjectivity of Ukraine and the modernization of its geopolitical priorities and values in the conditions of countering the global challenges of war. Aspects of further research into the geopolitical consciousness of Ukrainians in the context of the need to affirm its geopolitical subjectivity are proposed.

«Эпоха турбулентности» мирового порядка: преодоление вызовов и поиск ценностных ориентиров

The purpose of this article is to consider the features of the international political situation in the modern conditions of the changing world order and the new role of the Russian Federation in it. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to look at the established model of international relations existing in the modern geopolitical space, highlight the problems of the modern world order, focus on the destructive nature of the interactions of existing military and political actors, analyze the systemic problems of the concept of globalization, from the point of view of the formation of foreign policy blocs. The article examines the main challenges faced by the modern world and ways to overcome them, as well as the search for new value orientations to ensure stability and progress, the impact of measures taken by Russia to protect its vital interests in the context of military-political confrontation with the collective West on the international system based on the hegemony of the United States and its allies. The idea of dismantling the current international order and deforming the model of international relations based on globalization is actualized, the need to search for common values that bring states closer together is analyzed against the background of the search for value determinants of the content of foreign policy. The aspects of a specific axiological complex of societies and countries that can become barriers to the development of constructive dialogue are highlighted. The conclusion is made about the need to preserve and strengthen the basic traditional national values in order to ensure the unity of society and the successful activity of the state both in domestic political activity and in the international arena. Periodical materials are used, as well as special literature on the problem.

Status i znaczenie Trójmorza w konstrukcji współczesnej globalnej architektury bezpieczeństwa

This article covers a cross-sectional and updating reflection on the phenomena taking place in the security sphere of the region, the so-called Three Seas. The research subject of the article is the Three Seas Initiative format as a potential subjective keystone of the security of Central and Eastern Europe, treated taking into account historical and current events, as one of the foundations of not only the European or Euro-Atlantic, but also the global security architecture. The priority research goal was to present and analyze the progress and integration and institutional perspectives of the Three Seas Region, and thus an attempt to search for the status arrangements of this format, by analyzing this geopolitical space in the light of, above all, the concept of regional security complexes (but also, among others, geopolitical wedges, the influence of superpowers of the global balance of power). The findings presented in these investigations signal both attempts to comprehensively bind the region with interdependence, attempts at far-reaching rapprochement and co-creation of soft security architecture – in the form of development-progressing infrastructure, as well as pragmatic and conservative behavior, resulting from both the geopolitical dynamics and current national calculations of the Three Seas countries.

Partition’s Shadow:

Assam’s Barak Valley is an example of how the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan left behind long-term conflicts and issues pertaining to identity, place, and belonging that have created turmoil in the geo-political space that we refer to as India’s Northeast. The transformation of this space from a frontier during colonial times to a borderland in 1947 is not only significant for the genealogy and configuration of states within the region but also because this understanding subverts common assumptions about 1947, particularly on issues of communal polarizations, the formation of the border as well as the participation of non-political groups like the tribal populations who had very little stake in the playing out of the Radcliffe Line. Siddhartha Deb’s 2002 novel The Point of Return looks at some of these questions of identity and belonging that so plague the region. The novel is an exploration of the life journeys of Dr. Dam and his son Babu and their relationship to the geographical locations they come to inhabit. The spatial and temporal realities that came into being in the Northeastern region is charted through this text in the postcolonial state making practices that produce irreversible patterns of social and political chaos. Issues of ethnicity, language, and belonging that are contentious questions in this region are represented in this narrative as the continued precarity of people who had come to live here. This essay presents an analysis of the novel through the optics of history and literature, using tools from the Phenomenological analysis of Time by Paul Ricouer, to investigate how the interface of events and memory transform and complicate our understandings of a contentious divided past.

UKRAINE’S GEOSTRATEGY IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

The article examines the essential features of Ukraine's regional geostrategy in Central and Eastern Europe, reveals the main problems, and defines the prospects of Ukrainian geostrategy. In the conditions of war, Ukraine’s geostrategy regarding the RF should be offensive in nature and envisage the return of the entire geopolitical space of the state through the use, first of all, of military force. Ukraine's geostrategy in Central and Eastern Europe should be developed on the basis of its national interests, first of all, ensuring its own national security and achieving a sufficiently high level of integral potential development. When developing and implementing its regional geostrategy, Ukraine must take into account the interests of the US, other leading Western countries, and neighboring EU and NATO member states, since it needs their help. Ukraine's geostrategy in Central and Eastern Europe should be largely aimed at the formation of the Baltic-Black Sea regional security system, which will consist of two subsystems: the Baltic (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland) and the Black Sea (Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, in cooperation with Turkey). In the formation of the Baltic subsystem, Poland can play a particularly significant role, whose military potential is strengthened thanks to the help from the US and the UK. The development of militarypolitical cooperation between Ukraine and the Baltic states, as well as Finland, is of great importance for the realization of its geostrategic interests. Regarding Belarus, Ukraine's contemporary geostrategy should be “confrontational”, aimed at the maximum weakening of this state as a geopolitical satellite of Russia. The Black Sea subsystem can be formed as a result of joint active efforts of Ukraine and Turkey in the field of military security. The involvement of Romania and, to a lesser extent, Moldova in subregional militarypolitical cooperation should also be important. The potential reintegration of Transnistria by the Republic of Moldova corresponds to the geostrategic interests of Ukraine, as it will eliminate the Russian geopolitical bridgehead. As a result of the implementation of its regional geostrategy, Ukraine is potentially able to become a leading “player” in the new security system in Central and Eastern Europe.

Some Key Issues İn the Study of Central Asian History

This article highlights some current issues in the history of Central Asia. The research conducted today by historians of the Central Asian republics and the trends observed in them are analyzed. In the article, the history of kingdoms and states belonging to the same historical period in different republics is interpreted from different positions. The process of annexation of some states not established on their territories is interpreted as a history of invasion. Some scholars argue that their republican people were the main mover and master of history. These are one-sided views and the history of peoples living in the same geopolitical space must be covered impartially. In this article, the author proposes to write the history of the peoples of Central Asia together with scientists from neighboring countries.

Small statesʼ efforts on militarization outer space uncertainties in the twenty-first century: a Kantian triangle perspective

Purpose: To reveal the phenomenon of rapid development of technology in the twenty-first century that affects countries around the world to find other promising geopolitical spaces apart from air, land, and sea namely outer space which at the same time increases military competition and outer space militarization that creates uncertainty to the small states. 
 Method: Using the qualitative method that develops an in-depth analysis of social phenomena, through various sources such as government official documents, books, article journals, and online news articles.
 Findings: The small states’ effort to face the militarization of outer space in the twenty-first-century era which was influenced by massive technological development and increased military competition by great-power countries is by applying the Kantian Triangle perspective which consists of three components democracy, economic interdependence, and international organization to build peace, stability, and prevent conflict in the anarchy system of international politics.

Концептуальные основы внешней политики Италии в регионе Большого Средиземноморья

The article is devoted to determining the role of the Greater (or, in its Italian version — Expanded) Mediterranean in Italian contemporary foreign policy doctrine. In the theoretical part of the study, a comprehensive analysis of the concept of the “Greater Mediterranean” is presented via consistently examining its interpretations, such as macro-region, regional security complex, space-time (place of development) and subsystem of international relations (international political region). The practical part opens with an excursion into the history of the penetration of this concept into Italian political thought, showing that it has undergone a significant evolution. The first attempts to consider the Mediterranean beyond its geographical boundaries were associated with the confrontation with Great Britain and searching for theoretical justifications for the “defensive imperialism” of Mussolini’s regime. During the Cold War an expanded Mediterranean was seen as a territory that Italy's national security directly depended on. The development of the geopolitical concept of the Expanded Mediterranean in its current form falls on the 1980s. Initially, the corresponding notion was used only within the expert community, but in the second decade of the 21st century it became entrenched in the country's military-strategic documents, more and more often replacing the wording “European-Mediterranean region”. These documents interpret the Expanded Mediterranean as a priority zone of national strategic interests, a geopolitical space where Italy should play a leading role in the fight against challenges and threats, as well as in establishing cooperation with regional players. However, such positioning of Rome is fraught with the difficulties of both economic and political nature, including those related to its membership in the EU and NATO.

The Balkan vector of Italy's current foreign policy

The article analyses Italy's theoretical and practical approach to the Adriatic-Ionian region, viewed as part of the concept of the "enlarged Mediterranean" (Mediterraneo Allargato), a geopolitical space that extends far beyond the Mediterranean basin. The aim of the research is to determine the place of the Balkans in Italy's modern foreign policy strategy, analysing available policy documents as well as the practical actions of the current government under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni. Italian involvement in the Balkans in the 1990s gave way to a passive EU policy in the 2000s. However, at the beginning of this decade, in the absence of a visible EU interest in the region, Italy sought to restore a bilateral format of its relations with the Western Balkans, as shown by a new reflection on Rome's soft power potential to promote the so-called System Italy (Sistema Paese) undertaken by Italian research centres. Against the backdrop of Russia-Ukraine crisis, the EU interest in the Mediterranean has also flared up, which resulted in the adoption of the New Agenda for the Mediterranean as well as the EU Strategic Compass. Italy seeks to become a new protagonist in the Balkans, by acting together with EU partners (e.g. within the Andriatic-Ionian initiative) and by taking independent political and economic initiatives (e.g. by intensifying bilateral meetings and organising business forums). The recent exacerbation of the Balkan agenda, coupled with the centre-right government's desire for a general intensification of foreign policy and the search for additional markets and business partners among its closest neighbours, offer new opportunities for Italian diplomacy.

Роль исламского фактора во внешней политике Турции в Центральной Азии

The article examines the religious component of Turkey's foreign policy strategy in the countries of Central Asia. Relying on a common Islamic identity with the Turkic republics, Ankara seeks to re-shape the geopolitical space of this strategically important region in its own interests. Back in the 90s, Turkey successfully managed to promote its version of moderate Islam in the countries of Cen-tral Asia, using state and non-state religious structures for this purpose. For official Ankara, Islam has become a tool for spreading the ideas of pan-Turkism as evidenced by the official discourse of top state officials and the activities of Turkish religious movements. The Islamization of Turkey's domestic policy under the current political leadership determines the religious and ideological con-tours of the country’s foreign policy. The authorities are intensifying the Islamic discourse position-ing Turkey as the center of the Muslim world. In the Muslim countries of Central Asia, Ankara as-pires to achieve Islamic and Turkic solidarity simultaneously, using the tools of “soft power” con-trolled by the state such as Dianet and the Turkish Religious Foundation. Despite the closure (ex-cept for Kyrgyzstan) of a network of educational institutions funded by the popular preacher F. Gulen, his followers managed to create a positive image of Turkey among the population of Central Asian countries. In the context of the world order transformation, Turkey will strengthen the ideo-logical and religious orientation of its foreign policy in the Central Asia which in the future may allow Ankara to increase its importance in a changing world.

Framing Entangled Borders in the Baltic States

ABSTRACT The eastern Baltic borders have become more prominent in public debates following the instrumentalized migration crisis orchestrated by Belarus in 2021. This article explores and assesses the discourses related to borders and border barriers emerging in the Baltic states in reaction to the “crisis”. Using a discourse analysis framework, the work engages with the discursive framing concerned with how to define and consolidate the border and the use of border barriers, as interpreted through media frames. The article situates the framing of borders and border barriers within geopolitical identities and the notion of entangled borders in the EU, referring to the overlapping of nation-state border regimes and the EU external border regime that occurs along the EU’s borderlands. The article finds that media frames relate to three primary discourses: increasing securitization, the Baltic states’ positionality within the EU, and the changing geopolitical space. Discourses on borders and border barriers reveal that different types of borders often entangle in each other, which, through this entanglement, contributes to how borders are constructed, conceived, and expressed.

Measuring Race, Space and the Citizen: Anthropology and Statistics in Early Post-Independence India

This article explores how Indian anthropologists employed abstract concepts of ‘space’ and ‘distance’ in the mid twentieth century to reconfigure the racial scientific approaches to caste and community. Looking at the relationship between statistics and physical anthropology via the work of P.C. Mahalanobis and D.N. Majumdar in the United Provinces in the mid to late 1940s, the article explores how conceptual (or Euclidian) space interacted with geopolitical space (lived distances) in definitions of caste. The combination of anthropology and statistics produced new measurements of difference and distance that, in turn, privileged Brahmanical conceptions of hierarchy, reinforced the idea of spatial homogeneity and contributed to new ethnic definitions of the citizen.

Strategic Shifts in the Indo-Pacific and India-Australia Partnership

The Indo-Pacific region is believed to be of immense strategic significance given the dynamism of the region in propelling economic growth and cooperation between nations. However, the region has attracted significant attention from major powers and is being reimagined as a contested geo-political space. The emergence of the term has led to a restructuring of the popular perception in which the world has traditionally and strategically perceived this geographical area. This paper delves into the manner in which the India and Australia as important actors in the region conceptualize the ‘Indo-Pacific’ and how it has shaped India-Australia relations.

Theoretical Aspect of Studying the Phenomenon of «Soft Power» as a Political Strategy

The authors explored the phenomenon of «soft power» as a political strategy through the prism of modern political theory and practice of international relations. The article considers the emergence and formation of the problem of «soft power» in the history of political thought, its current state, identifies the main approaches, resources, goals and results of the use of «soft power» by states in the foreign policy arena. The results of the study of this phenomenon are the theoretical basis for making political decisions. The basis for this study was the theory of the influence of soft power in the global and geopolitical space, its positive and negative sides were highlighted.For modern states, the need to ensure security and stable development is still an urgent task. States in the international arena are in a state of fierce competition for influence and resources. At the same time, the role of the so-called «soft» ways of interaction between states in the global political space has recently increased significantly, new views and theories devoted to this issue are emerging. The authors come to the conclusion that the phenomenon of «soft power» has acquired the greatest significance for political practice due to the correspondence of this concept to modern ideas about how to regulate international relations and maintain world order. The analysis performed by the authors makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of «soft power» as an influential political strategy.

The Role of Non-Arctic Powers in the Arctic Geopolitical Space

The Arctic region is increasingly emerging as a pivotal factor in the geopolitical landscape of international relations. It serves as an arena where the interests of major global powers converge, encompassing vast mineral reserves, territorial disputes, and the ongoing development of the Northern Sea Route. Arctic nations are establishing frameworks for cooperation and regional development, resulting in the creation of international organizations such as the Arctic Council and the formulation of comprehensive programs for the sustainable development of northern territories. This article aims to assess the involvement of non-Arctic powers in the development of the Arctic. Notable emerging actors include the People’s Republic of China, India, South Korea, Japan, and the European Union. Our examination reveals their significant contributions to economic development, the establishment of scientific centers focused on ecological research and climate change, as well as mineral exploration. Furthermore, this research raises important questions regarding the legal status of the Arctic seas, particularly those through which commercial vessels navigate. In the foreseeable future, potential scenarios involve further modifications to the institutional governance of the Arctic region, an expansion of the Arctic Council’s authority and membership, and the negotiation of new international legal agreements to facilitate cooperative interstate development in the Arctic based on effective and trust-based partnerships.