Political Geography of Panregions

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review.ABSTRACT. German geopolitical writers in the 1930s proposed a tripartite division of the world into large panregions of American, European, and Japanese hegemony. This model is examined, with attention to imperialist ambitions in Africa. Six indicators of international relations (diplomatic ties, memberships in intergovernmental organizations, air-traffic links, trade and foreign investments, developmental aid, and arms sales and military intervention) are used to analyze the applicability of the model. The concept of Eurafrica is less valid now than it was before World War II because of waning colonial ties, activities of non-European states, and the marginal role of Africa in world affairs. Western European influence is decreasing in Africa. Eurafrica is still a premature geopolitical concept. THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEWto resource peripheries and cutting across latitudinally distributed environmental zones. To focus the discussion, we identify the origins of the concept and describe its variable content over time, analyze the case of Eurafrica, and determine whether the concept still merits attention in light of a halfcentury of global and regional changes.Most studies take for granted the ideological nature of German geopolitics and review the geopolitical concepts in the context of the period of World War II (1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945). The empirical basis of the concepts and the theoretical justification remain unexamined (Klein 1985; Parker 1985). We want to restore the link between pure and applied political geography and to examine geopolitics from the perspective of its contribution to politico-geographical knowledge. This approach does not neglect the ideological, ethnocentric nature of geopolitics; instead it is clearly exposed. However, there is the opportunity to rescue some potentially useful notions from the ideological debris. IMPERIALISM IN GERMAN GEOPOLITICS The concept of a world divided into panregions evolved from the debates in German Geopolitik on the merits of overseas expansion in comparison with settlement of eastern Europe and on the costs and benefits of colonial possessions. Although the roots of the political geography of German imperialism predated Friedrich Ratzel, his work inspired Haushofer and hisfollowers. Ratzel (1896), with his seven laws of the spatial growth of states, had provided a powerful political justification for the organic expansion of large states at the expense of small, weak neighbors. Five spatial concepts formed the core of Geopolitik, and all had antecedents in the works of Ratzel and Sir Halfor...

Regionalism: Old and New

“…The study of regionalism is also undergoing a methodological renewal that is manifested in the new divide between rationalist and constructivist research agendas regarding the processes of region formation. In the past, regions were often delineated and compared in time and space inductively by using data on the economic and institutional ties between states (for example, Russett 1967; O'Loughlin and van der Wusten 1990). Currently, most trade economists take regions as institutionally granted—for example, the European Union (EU), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Mercosur—using them to study changes in the shares of intra‐ and interregional trade (for example, Frankel 1997, 1998).…”

How German Geopolitics Passed Through the Netherlands, 1920–1945: A Case Study in the Geography of one of Geography's ‘Projects’

“…In 1941 and 1942 Loohuis published two papers, one in De Waag (), a Dutch Nazi‐affiliated review, and the other in Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (1942b). The former was concerned with the Pan‐region of Eurafrica, a concept repeatedly discussed in the German geopolitical literature (O'Loughlin & Van der Wusten ). The latter recounted how the Dutch long ago lost the Malay peninsula to the British and how Singapore was established as the main trading hub and the protector of the vital Malacca Straits.…”

The Social Structure of the World Polity

“…The degree of this potential regionalization of the "world" polity is unclear. Although debate over regionalization informs studies of economic globalization (Fligstein and Merand 2002;Kim and Shin 2002), scholarship on political globalization tends to neglect the substantial role of geography (Nierop 1989;O'Laughlin and van der Wusten 1990;van der Wusten and Nierop 1990). While global neo-realism anticipates regionalization throughout the period, as states consistently pursue local interests, world polity theory suggests that regionalization should peak after World War II, after "extensive universalistic organizing" of global IGOs encourages organizing at the regional level (Boli and Thomas 1999, p. 31).…”