Still a long journey to decentralize geopolitics

Abstract

In this brief response paper, we respond to the insightful commentaries that critically engage with our original article in this forum. First, we discuss whether Confucian culture is fundamental to Chinese geopolitics, emphasizing how and why culture is part of a wider epistemic resource. We also note that our model is not normative, but an analytic framework for understanding complex non-western situations. Second, we discuss the geographies and scales of our model, noting a core tension between geopolitics at the state level and in everyday life. Third, we address the ‘gap’ between theory and practice under our Confucian model, noting that there is often a strategic inclusion (or exclusion) of Confucianism in practice. We finish by emphasizing that our paper is part a longer journey to further decentralize the western hold upon geopolitics.

Subverting geopolitics: The reinvention of geography in post‐revolutionary Mexico

“…Over the past few decades, scholars have proposed to ‘decentralise geopolitics’ (An et al, 2021) by elaborating alternative ways whereby geopolitical events can be understood and analysed outside, and against, the asymmetric power relations that produce them (Koopman et al, 2021). This body of literature, normally gathered under the label of ‘critical geopolitics’, has primarily focused on the foundational nature of discourse in moulding and imagining the geographies of politics (Dalby, 1991; Ó Tuathail & Agnew, 1992), shifting the attention toward other subjects in addition to, or in alternative of, the state (Atkinson & Dodds, 2000; Dalby & Ó Tuathail, 1998; Dodds et al, 2013; Ferretti, 2021a; Koopman et al, 2021; McCormack, 2022; Sharp, 1993, 2013; Sparke et al, 2004).…”