Geopolitical Views Research Articles

Beyond State-Centricity: Geopolitics of Changing State Spaces

This paper scrutinizes the challenges which scholars face when examining the interconnections between the state and geopolitics in the purported “transnational world”. By discussing the relational perspective which “opens” the traditional state-as-a-monolith centric view of geopolitics, the paper sets a foundation for the present special section on the changing geopolitics of state spaces. The paper proceeds by first reflecting on the move from geopolitically “closed” to more open state territories, and then considers some of the ways the state has been examined in spatially sensitive research with respect to geopolitical scholarship. Finally, the paper maps out possible horizons for forthcoming studies on the geopolitics of state spaces.

The importance of CO2 capture and storage: A geopolitical discussion

The CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technology is since more than ten years considered one of the key options for the future climate change mitigation. This paper discusses the implications for the further development of CCS, particularly with respect to climate change policy in an international geopolitics context. The rationale for developing CCS should be the over-abundance of fossil fuel reserves (and resources) in a climate change context. From a geopolitical point, it can be argued that the most important outcome from the successful commercialisation of CCS will be that fossil fuel-dependent economies with large fossil fuel resources will find it easier to comply with stringent greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets (i.e. to attach a price to CO2 emissions). This should be of great importance since, from a geopolitical view, the curbing on GHG emissions cannot be isolated from security of supply and economic competition between regions. Thus, successful application of CCS may moderate geopolitical risks related to regional differences in the possibilities and thereby willingness to comply with large emission cuts. In Europe, application of CCS will enhance security of supply by fuel diversification from continued use of coal, especially domestic lignite. Introduction of CCS will also make possible negative emissions when using biomass as a fuel, i.e. in so called Biomass Energy CCS (BECCS). Yet, the development of BECCS relies on the successful development of fossil fuelled CCS since BECCS in itself is unlikely to be sufficient for establishing a cost efficient CCS infrastructure for transport and storage and because BECCS does not solve the problem with the abundant resources of fossil fuels. Results from research and development of capture, transport and storage of CO2 indicate that the barriers for commercialization of CCS should not be technical. Instead, the main barriers for implementation of CCS seem to be how to reach public acceptance, to reduce cost and to establish a high enough price on CO2 emissions. Failure to implement CCS will require that the global community, including Europe, agrees to almost immediately to start phasing out the use of fossil fuels, an agreement which seems rather unlikely, especially considering the abundant coal reserves in developing economies such as China and India.

The Racial Geopolitics of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Geography Textbooks

Harriet Beecher's first book, Primary Geography for Children, published in 1833, is barely known today, and neither is its thoroughly revised version, First Geography for Children, published in 1855. (1) These textbooks elucidate Stowe's stance on the civic futures of African Americans more explicitly than her novels do because they treat slavery and abolition as geopolitical concerns within a global context.' Thus, these neglected texts shed light on Stowe's abolitionist support for African colonization, one of the most vexed questions in Stowe scholarship. First raised in contemporaneous critiques of Uncle Tom's Cabin, this problem has been revisited often. For decades, scholars viewed Stowe's abolitionist support of as paradoxical. Rejecting this interpretation, Michelle Burnham redefines as central to the resolution of Uncle Tom's Cabin (121), and Amy Kaplan states that colonization underwrites the racial of the domestic imagination (48). Ezra Tawil similarly reconciles the racialism and politics of Uncle Tom's Cabin and explains their interrelation in terms of generic conventions (155). Like the tradition they revise, Burnham, Kaplan, and Tawil treat this issue as a literary question. I extend their readings of the coalescence of Stowe's abolitionist and colonizationist commitments beyond her novels. The geography textbooks show that this coalescence is integral to Stowe's understanding of the globe. Like Uncle Tom's Cabin and Dred, but far more elaborately, they counter African American claims for US citizenship. The textbooks not only extend this exclusion beyond the United States to cover the Americas but also undermine the possibility of free polities in Africa. Stowe's novels never dramatize Africa: Uncle Tom's Cabin portrays it briefly as a benighted continent in need of Christian and republican redemption, and Dred reduces it to the geographic origin of slaves. In the geography books, by contrast, Stowe depicts Africa as a region marked by harsh environmental and human conditions that must frustrate the promises of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Conversely, these books almost never mention free or fugitive African Americans (who figure prominently in the novels), but portray them implicitly as a pathological population trapped in geopolitical limbo, deprived of spatial belonging and identification. The books highlight this limbo by emphasizing the antithetical role of white US citizens as agents of national evangelical expansion. Throughout Primary Geography for Children and First Geography for Children, the joint development of Stowe's faith in expansionism and in abolition leads her to embrace what we may call antiracist reform and simultaneously to reject the enfranchisement of African Americans. For Stowe, I argue, antiracism is a moral commitment consistent with the geopolitical necessity of removing African Americans from the United States. Stowe's geopolitical view rests on the ideas that a natural geographic order separates distinct racial groups and that whites are the only appropriate subjects of US space, history, and destiny. In these two books, the white child embodies national geopolitics, and this exclusive embodiment makes African American bodies incompatible with the nation. Extending Karen Sanchez-Eppler's understanding of embodiment as cultural conceptions of the corporeality of identity (Touching Liberty 3), I attach it to territoriality to show how the affinity between the white child's body and national space renders the black body nationally unintelligible and prevents its being mapped onto national geography. Stowe's two geography textbooks illuminate the dependence of antislavery sentiment on racial exclusion because (unlike her novels) they allow us to compare the author's perspectives on geopolitics and race before and after her ideological conversion to Manifest Destiny and immediate abolition. Stowe's political commitments shifted around 1845, when Manifest Destiny became a staple of US policy and she published her first abolitionist work, a sketch titled Immediate Emancipation. …

Territorial sustainability footprint

The carbon footprint is allocated today to CO 2 emission sources, and thus to industries with smokestacks, machines with tailpipes or countries burning coal and oil; emission factors are also calculated, i.e. emissions per unit of production, of use, per capita or per unit of GDP. This is, however, not the only way to allocate emissions in a value chain and this could also be done at the source (cradle) of the carbon that will later end up being oxidized. Comparing countries with this new metrics points to fossil fuel producers as the major “cradle producers” of CO 2 , thus giving a fairly different geopolitical view of the “polluting” world. Beyond issues of responsibilities, related to the polluter pays principle, this new method can help exhibit solutions for mitigating emissions that usually are not imagined or discussed, and examples thereof are given.

The Other Spaces of Europe: Seeing European Geopolitics Through the Disturbing Eye of Foucault's Heterotopias

Despite the fact that Europe and the EU are two different concepts, they increasingly seem confused within EU policy discourse. By means of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) the EU drafts a desired future of a peaceful and prosperous Europe with recognisable imaginative symbolic and cultural characteristics. In the ENP documents the EU imagines its neighbouring countries as possible European space of influence, yet to be Europeanised. This rather Eurocentric belief that neighbouring states can be ‘Europeanised’ through the idea of conditionality and socialisation but without the prospective of becoming EU member has provoked an appeal for a different and more critical geopolitical perspective. This article takes Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopias as inspiration for an alternative geopolitical view on Europe. Foucault's concept of heterotopic spaces provides a critical framework that is capable of countering the geo-political imaginations of a universal Europe. Foucault has used the idea of a mirror as metaphor for the contradictions between the image and reality. In this context heterotopias are considered places that disturb the utopian image by means of complexity, contradiction and diversity. This article is in search of heterotopic spaces of resistance, that I have titled ‘The Other Spaces of Europe’. They are other spaces and seemingly resist the utopian projections of a common European neighbourhood. The drafts and ideas of the ENP gain new light against the background of these places of resistance that each in their own distinctiveness represents a certain impossibility of a final version of Europe.

The challenge of climate change: which way now?

Preface. Acknowledgments. 1 In the Beginning. Introduction. 1.1 The Viewpoint Taken. 1.2 What is Your Problem? 1.3 The Challenges We Face. Notes and References. 2 A View of Geopolitics. Introduction. 2.1 Are There Limits to Growth? 2.2 Public Goods and Public Bads. 2.3 Policymaking and Negotiations. Notes and References. 3 Surveying the Field. Introduction. 3.1 A History of Change. 3.2 Measuring Energy. 3.3 Supply: Where Do We Get It? 3.4 Demand: How Do We Use It? 3.5 Will We Run Out of Oil? Or Gas? 3.6 Forms of Energy. Notes and References. 4 Global Warming. Introduction. 4.1 Temperature of the Planet. 4.2 Greenhouse Gases. 4.3 Is Global Warming Our Fault? 4.4 The RF Index. 4.5 Air Pollution Revisited. 4.6 Immediate or Short-Term Remedies. 4.7 Limits to Growth and the Commons Revisited. 4.8 Sequestration. Notes and References. 5 Renewable Energy. Introduction. 5.1 Hydroelectric Power. 5.2 Biofuels. 5.3 Wind Power. 5.4 Power from Tides and Waves. 5.5 Direct Use of Solar Energy. 5.6 Nuclear Energy. 5.7 Geothermal Energy. 5.8 Indirect Emissions and Hidden Costs. Notes and References. 6 Energy Storage. Introduction. 6.1 Batteries and Fuel Cells. 6.2 Syngas and Liquid Fuels. 6.3 Hydrogen Gas. 6.4 Pumped Water or Compressed Air. 6.5 Hot Water or Molten Salt. 6.6 Flywheels. Notes and References. 7 The Negotiating Process. Introduction. 7.1 A Period of Transition. 7.2 Our Worst Fears. 7.3 Guidance from a Theory of Bargaining. 7.4 Useful Lessons from the Past. 7.5 What Should a Treaty Accomplish? 7.6 Where We are Heading. Notes and References. 8 From Theory to Practice. Introduction. 8.1 Different Regimes and Perspectives. 8.2 Improving the Prospects. 8.3 The Debate on Venues. 8.4 Bargaining Strategies: Domestic and International. 8.5 Big Bang or Accelerated Incrementalism? 8.6 Choices in the Context of Risk. Notes and References. 9 Where Do We Go from Here? Introduction. 9.1 Is the Feasible Insufficient? 9.2 Fiscal Measures. 9.3 A Complicated Question. 9.4 An Overall Assessment. 9.5 Choices and Priorities. 9.6 Caveats. 9.7 A To-Do List. Notes and References. 10 A List of Priorities. Introduction. 10.1 Short-Term Gains: Less than 10 Years. 10.2 Medium-Term Improvements: 10-20 Years. 10.3 Long-Term Solutions: More than 20 Years. 10.4 Plan A and Plan B, Simultaneously. Notes and References. 11 Prospects After Copenhagen. Introduction. 11.1 Costly Failure or Small Success? 11.2 Reframing the Debate. 11.3 The Good News and the Bad News. 11.4 The China Problem. 11.5 Third World Dilemmas. 11.6 Polarized Politics. Notes and References. Index.

“The need and ability for expansion”: Conceptions of living space in the small-state geopolitics of Gudmund Hatt

Although they are often subjected to critical scrutiny, formal geopolitical practices have rarely been put on trial. One exception is the case of Gudmund Hatt (1884–1960), professor of human geography at Copenhagen University from 1929 to 1947, who was found guilty of “dishonorable national conduct” for his geopolitics during the German occupation. As a contribution to the critical history of geopolitical traditions, this article investigates Hatt as an example of a small-state geopolitician. Particular attention is given to his view of geopolitics as a practice and as an essentially material struggle for Livsrum (living space), and what this made him infer for the great powers and for small-state Denmark. Hatt’s geopolitical ideas had many parallels to those of his great-power contemporaries, but in important respects, his analyses also differed from traditional geopolitics. It is argued that, to a significant degree, this difference is related to the fact that Hatt narrated geographies of world politics from a small and exposed state with few territorial ambitions. This made him emphasize economic relations, efficiency rather than territorial size, and the geopolitical role of the Danish Folk (i.e., the nation). Hatt’s position as a peripheral observer to the geopolitical mainstream may also explain his understanding of geopolitics and living-space politics as practices pursued by all great powers.

Young people's readings of a political cartoon and the concept of multimodal literacy

This article uses young people's responses to a newspaper cartoon as a way of exploring the concept of multimodal literacy. The discussion draws on data from a study which aimed to elicit the geopolitical views of 16–19-year-olds in a multi-ethnic British city by using cartoons as a way of encouraging them to talk about their thoughts and feelings towards recent political events. We argue that, contrary to popular perceptions, political cartoons are complex and polysemous and require a particular form of literacy. This not only encompasses the ability to read visual grammar, but also an understanding of the cartoon genre and how it is constructed, with a view to conveying particular meanings within a specific social and cultural context.

A Eurosceptic vision in a europhile country: The case of the Lega Nord

As a consequence of Italy's integration in the EMU in 1998, the Lega Nord shifted from a pro-European to a Eurosceptic position. The Lega's Eurosceptic vision combines a strong identification with Europe with a hostile attitude towards the institutions of the EU. Identification with Europe expresses in the first place the party's geopolitical view of Padania as a European and hence modern and entrepreneurial region. Its critique of the EU incorporates numerous, sometimes contradicting influences such as the neo-liberal vision of a free-trade based Europe with minimal rules and regulations, and a protectionist defence of northern Italian economic interests. It is in particular the party's institutional vision that attributes centrality to the right of Padania to autonomy and self-government which leads to its rejection of the centralism and dirigism of the European Union.

Геополітичні інтереси – чинник розвитку євроінтеграційних прагнень українського соціуму

The generation own geopolitic depends on the understanding of changes the character of geopolitical interests with transformation of a geopolitical view of the world: there is an integration of subjects of political process which update necessity of consideration the transformation of value the geopolitical interests during globalisation. The review regionalisation is the factor of global process for an exit to the decision of the major question – comprehension of radical interests of the Ukrainian state which should become the important factor in development of process of the Euroatlantic integration of Ukraine.

"Beating Plowshares into Swords": The Colorado River Delta, the Yellow Peril, and the Movement for Federal Reclamation, 1901–1928

This article examines the intersections of race, nationalism, and water conservation policy. Such relationships, it argues, are particularly pronounced in the history of the Colorado River Delta, a border region and an arid region, especially in the discourse surrounding the international allocation of the river. It focuses on the intellectual underpinnings of federal reclamation leaders and their subscription to the tenets of the idea of "yellow peril," with special reference to Chinese and Japanese immigrant farmers along the U.S.-Mexican border. While the reclamation movement has received considerable scrutiny, the geopolitical views informing it have been largely overlooked. The unexamined writings of George Maxwell, in particular, present a new perspective on the major architect of the National Reclamation Act, one of the region's most far-reaching and consequential pieces of legislation.

Geopolitics in Russia—science or vocation?

The author describes the development of geopolitical studies in Russia after the Soviet breakup. He identifies two main schools of geopolitical analysis, Traditionalist and Revisionist. Traditionalism is inspired by old European and Russian geopolitical theories and views the world through the lenses of confrontation over power and resources. The revisionist school, on the other hand, adopts a considerably broader definition of what constitutes geopolitics by proposing to study various forms of organizing space on a global scale. According to the paper’s central argument, the Russian geopolitics, while having emerged as a vocation, it is yet to turn into a full-fledged academic discipline. It continues to lack coherent and scientifically testable theoretical propositions and needs a broad discussion of its issues with the participation of both traditionalists and revisionists.

Империи, окраины и диаспоры: Евразия как антипарадигма для постсоветского периода

SUMMARY: Mark von Hagen’s article offers an interpretation of the changes that occurred in the study of Russian and Soviet history, and suggests the concept of “Eurasia” as an anti-paradigm facilitating the description of the region that combines the legacies of multinational empires and of Soviet-style socialism. At the same time, “Eurasia” is an anti -paradigm because it points to a variety of ways to revise many assumptions about Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian histories. For von Hagen, three separate processes heralded the arrival of new historiographical approaches. First, there is the increasingly prominence of works interpreting the history of Russia and the USSR not as that of a national state, but rather stressing its multinational and imperial character. Second, historians are constantly paying a greater attention to borderlands in the context of the prevailing view of boundaries as porous and fluctuating. Third, diasporas – including émigrés and exiles – have been “rediscovered” and their works are now returning to their countries of origin. Von Hagen also analyzes what he considers as “two paradigms” of the historical perception of Russia and the USSR. The first, “Russia as Orient”, attempted to present the Russian-Soviet historical experience as essentially rooted in centuries long Oriental and despotic traditions of Russia. Using Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, von Hagen argues that this perception of Russia as Orient helped sustain a Western “occidental” identity. It often walked hand in hand with a belief in the unique experience of Russian history, a belief that von Hagen terms “neo-Slavophile”. The second paradigm is that equates the Soviet Union with modernization. According to von Hagen, this paradigm was partly rooted in the liberal tradition of the Russian “state school” of historiography, which saw the privileged role of the state led by an enlightened bureaucracy as the driving force of Russia’s path to modernization. Opposed to attempts to “essentialize” Russian history within the “Russia as Orient” paradigm, the modernization paradigm attempted to “normalize” the Soviet experience. Assumptions of the inevitable ethnic and national homogenization of the Soviet Union became prevalent in the modernization paradigm. Von Hagen then explores the legacy of Eurasianist thinkers, a group of Russian émigrés who offered their vision of Eurasia as a space of interaction between the Russians and the Turkic and Finnish peoples. Their vision of Eurasia also implied a positive evaluation of the Mongol presence in Russian history and a critical approach to Eurocentric assumptions. Von Hagen asserts that, in his view, the new Eurasian anti-paradigm avoids problematic apects of the Eurasianist legacy, such as the political views of the Eurasianist thinkers and their geopolitical views. The new Eurasian anti-paradigm retains their critique of “essentializing” approaches to such concepts as Europe and Asia in order to offer an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the complex pasts of Central and Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. For von Hagen, the Eurasian anti-paradigm has been profoundly impacted by the current “decentralization” of historical narratives, which is the result of interaction between historians and linguists, anthropologists, sociologists, etc. Eurasia allows one to part with the dominance of national narratives while accepting the importance of modern nationalism in historical processes. According to von Hagen, Eurasia does not coincide with the former Russian Empire or the former Soviet Union or with any other particular state. Its chronological boundaries are also not rigidly determined. In the age of globalization, von Hagen argues, it is important to remember that the great continental empires constituted an important element of global history. In the last part of his article, von Hagen surveys literature that he believes attests to the emergence of the Eurasian anti-paradigm in Russian-Soviet history. According to the author, the Eurasian anti-paradigm does not preclude any specific approaches to the past; even less is it meant as a judgment about the likelihood of one or another country of joining the European Union, NATO, or for that matter any of the Asian organizations. It is meant as a concept that opens up new horizons in the study of history and signifies a return of the Eurasian space into global history after almost a century of isolation.

Other terrorisms, psychology, and media.

During the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, relatives of political prisoners wore T-shirts emblazoned with the words Who is the real terrorist? After September 11, 2001, as talk about terrorism takes center stage on global discourse, we pose a similar question: What is terrorism? Carrying the query further, we ask the following: Does Post's (this issue) discussion of terrorism render full meaning to the term and include an exhaustive list of terrorist typologies? We think not. We note that the cognitive processes of naming, meaning, and categorization are context-dependent, and-intentionally or unintentionally-laden with social values, motives, and interests carried by the society from which they emerge (Duncan, 1968; Forgas, 1981; Moscovici, 1981; Tajfel & Forgas, 1981). We contend that Post's implied meaning and categorization of terrorism remain incomplete, reflecting only social cognitions emanating from a U.S. view of geopolitics. We write this piece to expand the meaning and categories of t...

Geographies of Displacement: The Karenni and The Shan Across The Myanmar‐Thailand Border

First, central to our analysis is the argument that human movement within and across borders fundamentally challenges the view of geopolitics based upon fixed territorial states, inter‐state relations, national identities and citizenship; indeed the whole idea of “national geographic”. Using the examples of the Karen and Shan peoples, we explore the processes and patterns of forced relocation, displacement and migration in the border regions of Myanmar and Thailand. Our main concern is with forced displacement as a result of political and ethnic conflict; specifically, how the Burmese military regime’s desire for “national unity” within Myanmar’s “national space” has influenced the militarily inspired displacements of hundreds of thousands of villagers and civilians within the border zones inhabited mostly by so‐called “national minorities”. We examine the particular problems of the so‐called “internally displaced persons” within “national” boundaries compared with the “refugees” and “undocumented migrants” who make it across “international” space into Thailand. We illustrate the ways displaced people are represented by state agencies and the media as “threats” and “transgressors”. We consider some of the “long term” aspects of the displacement problem along the Myanmar‐Thai border and the vital contribution geographers can make to the study of displacement.

‘Where ignorance is bliss ‘tis a folly to be wise’ (Thomas Gray 1716–1761) – controversy in the basement blocks of Scotland

The Millennium Issue The year 2000 is the Millennium year and it is appropriate that the Scottish Journal of Geology should mark it in some way. The Editorial Board feel that at this time, at the beginning of what is arguably its 4th century, it is important to bring out the unique and varied character of Scottish geology. After some discussion it was decided to invite short essays from scientists for whom the geology of Scotland has had a special importance and who have themselves had a particular influence on Scottish Geology. We asked for personal approaches to what is significant about the geology of Scotland. In what way has it inspired? Is it because of the intrinsic importance of the discoveries made here or more simply the influence of the environment? We hoped that some contributions would take a more geopolitical view. How much influence has Scotland had on the development of the science of geology as a whole and is there anything left here to discover? We have been delighted with the contributions we have received. A recurrent theme has been the influence of place and it is clear that many of our contributors are as aware of the scenery and their feelings about this important legacy as they are about the (in some ways) more mundane geological issues. Many have included a historical viewpoint, and have reminded us how great a part was played in the last century by observers in Scotland in putting the science of geology together from its diverse beginnings. These contributions appear in both issues of this volume of the Journal and are identified by photographs of the authors and brief notes on their careers.

Imagined Proximities: The Making and Unmaking of Southeast Asia as a Region

AbstractThis essay adopts an international relations perspective in understanding Southeast Asia as a region and stresses regionalism as the chief agent in regional construction. It argues that the modern, post-Second World War concept of Southeast Asia resulted from a deliberate effort by a group of governments in the region to develop a regional identity based on political and strategic considerations. Regionalism and regional identity were seen by these governments as an important way of furthering nationalism and national interests. This, in effect represented a shift from the colonial, orientalist and geopolitical views of Southeast Asia's regionness to a more indigenous and essential political idea of Southeast Asia emerging out of the evolution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). "Nations come and go - why shouldn't regions?" Don Emmerson (Emmerson, 1984:20)

Not glass but diamond: An evaluation of the geopolitical world view of Saul B. Cohen

(1998). Not glass but diamond: An evaluation of the geopolitical world view of Saul B. Cohen. Geopolitics: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 113-124.

Las fronteras del Istmo Centroamericano: Una geopolítica de larga duración

Contrariamente a muchas ideas generadas, las fronteras que dividen a América Central en siete Estados diferentes, no tienen por origen las fracturas políticas provocadas por las guerras de independencia del principio del siglo XIX. Ellas son el resultado de un largo proceso de elaboración y de consolidación. Nacido en el momento de la conquista española, y que aún no ha terminado. El fin de este estudio es volver a colocar a lo largo del tiempo una geopolítica muy contemporánea para, de esta manera, entender mejor la formación de los territorios y de las naciones que comparten el istmo. Bajo esta perspectiva, la frontera ya no debe ser percibida como una línea sencilla, sino como un espacio cuya extensión puede evolucionar según la época y los medios de comunicación disponibles para facilitar la integración regional de los países centroamericanos (principalmente la panamericana o CA-I). Marginadas por mucho tiempo por razones económicas y políticas, las zonas fronterizas pueden convertirse en nuevos ejes de desarrollo en un espacio marcado por la presencia de numerosos enclaves y por la debilidad de los flujos interregionales.

The Reception of Herder in Central Europe: Idealization and Exaggeration

Herder' s reception in the Slavic countries presents a delicate chapter in the history of German cultural influence in East Central Europe. Herder's various deliberations on the history and future of the Slavic nations barely exceed a dozen pages; yet since the early nineteenth century, these segments, particularly in the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784-91) and the Journal meiner Reise aus 1769, have inspired a variety of responses ranging from works of Romantic poetry to treatises in regional historiography and passionate manifestos of patriotism. Overwhelming as the list of studies concerning Herder' s geopolitical views and their regional impact appears (Cf. Drews, Dybek, Gesemann, Otto Mann, Sundhausen, Keyser, Ziegengeist), there have been few inquiries that seek to sustain their findings by applying Herder's general principles of historiography. This is particularly true of studies written in languages other than German, including English. This article investigates a number of representative excerpts from Herder's regional reception in the early nineteenth century; then it proceeds to compare the main assertions of these excerpts with Herder' s own observations on East and Central European history. For the following reasons, the investigation will focus on Herder' s influence on the Slavic cultures of the Hapsburg Monarchy: first, Slavic peoples of the multinational empire (particularly the Czechs and Slovaks) showed extraordinary receptivity toward any West European encouragement of their self-determination. Second, because of its passionate tone and ideological orientation, the AustroSlavic response presents a particularly complex case of Central European intercultural communication. Third, the primary wave of reception in the AustroSlavic cultures has set the tone for Herder' s general evaluation in East Central Europe to the present day. Herder's rise to prominence in Germany's Eastern neighbours coincided with the efforts of the Hapsburgs directed at a cultural and linguistic integration of the Monarchy. As a result of Maria Theresa' s and Josephs II's initiatives, Latin was