Political geography - World-economy, Nation-state and locality
Ratzel
Ratzel (1897-1969) formuleerde zeven ‘wetten van de ruimtelijke groei van staten’. De
cruciale ‘wet’ is die van het middenleven en de tijden van een subdiscipline: in wezen
betoogt hij dat staten op natuurlijke wijze groeien naarmate de cultuur van de samenleving
‘geavanceerd’ wordt. Daarom kunnen staten nooit simpelweg door lijnen worden begrensd;
hij stelt zich eerder een wereld voor van vloeiende grenzen. Nieuwe staten, maar geen
nieuwe grenzen, zijn de norm geworden. Dit is precies het tegenovergestelde van Ratzels
staat als organisme en daarom lijkt zijn theorie ons vandaag de dag zo beangstigend.
Mackinder
In beide rollen hield hij rekening met de bedreigingen voor het Britse rijk vanuit nieuwe
opkomende staten: met andere woorden, hij was zowel een theoretische als een praktische
politieke geograaf, maar zijn zorgen waren het tegenovergestelde van die van Ratzel.
Ondanks dat Groot-Brittannië het grootste imperium ooit had, dacht Mackinder dat hij een
potentiële, fatale zwakte in zijn geografie had ontdekt.
Haushofer’s geopolitik: reviving a defeated state
Het Zeitschrift bevatte voorstellen en speculaties over de potentiële vrienden en vijanden
van Duitsland in Europa, geïnspireerd door Mackinder’s heartland thesis. Haushofer bracht
dit ook in verband met lebensraum (letterlijk ‘leefruimte’), afgeleid van Ratzels
organismemodel, wat opnieuw de territoriale expansie in Europa rechtvaardigde. Bovendien
leverde hij zijn kenmerkende bijdrage aan de politieke geografie door een Duitse interesse in
de koloniale wereld te behouden en te ontwikkelen. Dit zou kunnen worden bereikt, dacht
Haushofer, door de rijken van de oude imperialisten, met name Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk,
weg te vagen en de wereldruimte te reorganiseren in nieuwe panregio's. Dit zouden grote
intercontinentale ‘verticale’ zones zijn (van noord naar zuid) waarin één leidende staat
domineerde. Het basisargument was dat, aangezien elke panregio economisch
zelfvoorzienend kon zijn, er geen grondstoffen oorlogen zouden plaatsvinden: panregio's
waren een recept voor wereldvrede.
Hartshorne’s functionalism: creating a moribund backwater
Van Valkenburg stelde een cyclustheorie van de staat voor, gebaseerd op fysische
geografische modellen van erosieprocessen in riviervalleien - staten werden verondersteld
opeenvolgende stadia van jeugd, adolescentie, volwassenheid en ouderdom te doorlopen.
Deze ideeën deden sterk denken aan Ratzel; Uiteraard werden de VS in dit geval als
‘volwassen’ beschouwd, terwijl de Europese staten aan ouderdom leden. En tijdens de
Tweede Wereldoorlog stelde George Renner een zeer Ratzel-achtige hertekening van de
Europese kaart voor, waarbij kleine staten zouden worden opgeslokt door grotere. Van
bovenaf was macho-politieke geografie niet langer acceptabel in een nieuwe wereld waarin
een Verenigde Naties werd gebouwd, specifiek om respect voor soevereine grenzen te
garanderen.
,1 - A world system approach to political geography
World-systems analysis
Wereldsysteemanalyse gaat over hoe we sociale verandering conceptualiseren. Andere
benaderingen beschrijven dergelijke veranderingen in termen van samenlevingen die
worden gelijkgesteld met landen. In plaats van dat sociale veranderingen land voor land
plaatsvinden, postuleert Wallerstein een ‘wereldsysteem’ dat momenteel mondiaal van
omvang is. Dit is het moderne wereldsysteem, ook wel de kapitalistische wereldeconomie
genoemd.
Wereldsysteemanalyse is gebaseerd op de principes van de Annales-denkrichting. De
school pleitte voor ‘totale geschiedenis’ als een synthetiserende discipline om de scheiding
van onderzoek in disciplines tegen te gaan. Het meest opvallend was de roep om onderzoek
naar lange termijn structuren en -processen, in plaats van de traditionele historische focus
op ‘grote gebeurtenissen’ en ‘grote mannen’. De ideeën van de Annales-school vormen om
de volgende redenen een essentiële basis voor een politieke geografie-benadering:
● De focus op het grote geheel biedt een globaal beeld van structuren en processen.
● De focus op alledaagse ervaringen en culturele verandering betekent dat de
structuren en processen worden geïdentificeerd als de producten van sociale actie,
en niet voorbestemd of onveranderlijk.
● The focus on everyday experiences means that the view of political geography is
‘from below’ or democratized. Non-elites are seen as important actors.
● In combination, political actions of individuals, groups, and states are placed within
the context of large structures and seen to maintain and challenge those structures.
Modern social science is the culmination of a tradition that attempts to develop general laws
for all time and places. A well-known example of this tradition is the attempt to equate the
decline of the British Empire with the decline of the Roman Empire. Historical systems are
Wallerstein’s ‘societies’. They are systematic in that they consist of interlocking parts that
constitute a single whole, but they are also historical in the sense that they are created,
develop over a period of time and then reach their demise.
Although every historical system is unique, Wallerstein argues that they can be classified
into three major types of entity. Such entities are defined by their mode of production, which
Wallerstein broadly conceives as the organization of the material basis of a society. These
three modes of production are each associated with a type of entity or system of change.
A mini-system is the entity based upon the reciprocal–lineage mode of production.
This is the original mode of production based upon very limited specialization of tasks
(hunting, agriculture). Small groups, exist for a few generations.
A world-empire is the entity based upon the redistributive–tributary mode of
production. World empires have appeared in many political forms, but they all share the
same mode of production. This consists of a large group of agricultural producers
whose technology is advanced enough to generate a surplus of production beyond their
immediate needs. This surplus is sufficient to allow the development of specialized
non-agricultural producers. The distinguishing feature of these systems is the appropriation
of part of the surplus to the administrators, who form a military–bureaucratic ruling class.
,A world-economy is the entity based upon the capitalist mode
of production. The criterion for production is profitability, and the
basic drive of the system is accumulation of the surplus as
capital. In this system, the efficient prosper and destroy the less
efficient by undercutting their prices in the market. This mode of
production defines a world-economy. Historically, such entities
have been extremely fragile and have been incorporated and
subjugated to world-empires before they could develop into
capital-expanding systems.
Types of change
It is these entities that are the objects of change; they are the
‘societies’ of this historical social perspective. Within this
framework there are four fundamental types of change. The first
two types of change are different means of transformation from one mode of
production to another. The most famous example is the transition from feudalism (a
world-empire) to capitalism (a world-economy) in Europe in the period after 1450 (the
beginning of the capitalist world-economy). Transformation, the second type of change, as
an external process occurs as incorporation. As world empires expanded they conquered
and incorporated former mini-systems. These defeated populations were reorganized to
become part of a new mode of production providing tribute to their conquerors. Similarly, the
expanding world-economy has incorporated mini-systems and world-empires whose
populations become part of this new system. Discontinuities are the third type of change.
Discontinuity occurs between different entities at approximately the same location where
both entities share the same mode of production. The system breaks down and a new one is
constituted in its place (After the Roman empire). Continuities, the final type of change,
occur within systems. all entities are dynamic and continually changing. Such changes are of
two basic types – linear and cyclical. All world-empires have displayed a large cyclical
pattern of ‘rise and fall’ as they expanded into adjacent mini-systems until
bureaucratic–military costs led to diminishing returns resulting in contraction. In the
world-economy, linear trends and cycles of growth and stagnation form an integral part of
our analysis.
If social change can be adequately understood on a country-by-country basis then the
location of other countries on the ladder does not matter: each society is an autonomous
object of change moving along the same trajectory but starting at different dates and moving
at different speeds. World-systems analysis totally refutes this model of the contemporary
world. The fact that some countries are rich and others are poor is not merely a matter of
timing along some universal pathway to affluence. Rather, rich and poor are part of one
system and they are experiencing different processes within that system: Frank’s
development and development of underdevelopment. Hence the most important fact
concerning those countries at the bottom of Rostow’s ladder today is that there are countries
enjoying the advantage of being above them at the top of the ladder.
, Wallerstein identifies three such basic elements:
- A single world market: The world-economy consists of a single world market,
which is capitalist. producers do not consume what they produce but exchange it on
the market for the best price they can get, there is economic competition between
producers. The concrete result of this process has been uneven economic
development across the world.
- A multiple-state system: In contrast to one economic market, there have always
been a number of political states in the world-economy. single states are able to
distort the market in the interests of their national capitalist group within their own
boundaries, and powerful states can distort the market well beyond their boundaries
for a short time.
- A three-tier structure: Wallerstein argues that the exploitative processes that work
through the world-economy always operate in a three-tier forma Those at the top will
always manoeuvre for the ‘creation’ of a three-tier structure, whereas those at the
bottom will emphasize the two tiers of ‘them and us’. The continuing existence of the
world-economy is therefore due in part to the success of the ruling groups in
sustaining three-tier patterns throughout various fields of conflict
The external area is minder belangrijk dan de internal area en wordt vaak geexploiteerd.
Space itself can be neither core nor periphery in nature. Rather, there are core and periphery
processes that structure space so that at any point in time one or other of the two processes
predominates. Since these processes do not act randomly but generate uneven economic
development, broad zones of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ are found. Such zones exhibit some
stability. Like all core-periphery models, there is an implication that ‘the core exploits and the
periphery is exploited’. But this cannot occur as zones exploiting one another; it occurs
through the different processes operating in different zones. Core and periphery
processes are opposite types of complex production relations. In simple terms, core
processes consist of relations that incorporate relatively high wages, etc. It is important to
understand that these processes are not determined by the particular product being
produced. The semi-periphery is interesting because it is the dynamic category within the
world-economy. Much restructuring of space consists of states rising and sinking through the
semi-periphery. Political processes are very important here in the selection of success and
failure in the world-economy.
The dynamics of the world economy
First, economic and political changes are not the problem of any single state; rather, they are
part of worldwide dynamics. Second, different parts of the world experience global dynamics
differently.
Kondratieff cycles
They consist of two phases, one of growth and one of stagnation. Whereas historical
identification of these cycles is broadly agreed upon, ideas concerning the causes of
their existence are much more debatable. They are certainly associated with technological
change, and the A-phases can be easily related to major periods of the adoption of
technological innovations. Why did these technical adoptions occur as ‘bundles’ of
innovations and not on a more regular, linear basis? The world-systems answer is that this
Ratzel
Ratzel (1897-1969) formuleerde zeven ‘wetten van de ruimtelijke groei van staten’. De
cruciale ‘wet’ is die van het middenleven en de tijden van een subdiscipline: in wezen
betoogt hij dat staten op natuurlijke wijze groeien naarmate de cultuur van de samenleving
‘geavanceerd’ wordt. Daarom kunnen staten nooit simpelweg door lijnen worden begrensd;
hij stelt zich eerder een wereld voor van vloeiende grenzen. Nieuwe staten, maar geen
nieuwe grenzen, zijn de norm geworden. Dit is precies het tegenovergestelde van Ratzels
staat als organisme en daarom lijkt zijn theorie ons vandaag de dag zo beangstigend.
Mackinder
In beide rollen hield hij rekening met de bedreigingen voor het Britse rijk vanuit nieuwe
opkomende staten: met andere woorden, hij was zowel een theoretische als een praktische
politieke geograaf, maar zijn zorgen waren het tegenovergestelde van die van Ratzel.
Ondanks dat Groot-Brittannië het grootste imperium ooit had, dacht Mackinder dat hij een
potentiële, fatale zwakte in zijn geografie had ontdekt.
Haushofer’s geopolitik: reviving a defeated state
Het Zeitschrift bevatte voorstellen en speculaties over de potentiële vrienden en vijanden
van Duitsland in Europa, geïnspireerd door Mackinder’s heartland thesis. Haushofer bracht
dit ook in verband met lebensraum (letterlijk ‘leefruimte’), afgeleid van Ratzels
organismemodel, wat opnieuw de territoriale expansie in Europa rechtvaardigde. Bovendien
leverde hij zijn kenmerkende bijdrage aan de politieke geografie door een Duitse interesse in
de koloniale wereld te behouden en te ontwikkelen. Dit zou kunnen worden bereikt, dacht
Haushofer, door de rijken van de oude imperialisten, met name Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk,
weg te vagen en de wereldruimte te reorganiseren in nieuwe panregio's. Dit zouden grote
intercontinentale ‘verticale’ zones zijn (van noord naar zuid) waarin één leidende staat
domineerde. Het basisargument was dat, aangezien elke panregio economisch
zelfvoorzienend kon zijn, er geen grondstoffen oorlogen zouden plaatsvinden: panregio's
waren een recept voor wereldvrede.
Hartshorne’s functionalism: creating a moribund backwater
Van Valkenburg stelde een cyclustheorie van de staat voor, gebaseerd op fysische
geografische modellen van erosieprocessen in riviervalleien - staten werden verondersteld
opeenvolgende stadia van jeugd, adolescentie, volwassenheid en ouderdom te doorlopen.
Deze ideeën deden sterk denken aan Ratzel; Uiteraard werden de VS in dit geval als
‘volwassen’ beschouwd, terwijl de Europese staten aan ouderdom leden. En tijdens de
Tweede Wereldoorlog stelde George Renner een zeer Ratzel-achtige hertekening van de
Europese kaart voor, waarbij kleine staten zouden worden opgeslokt door grotere. Van
bovenaf was macho-politieke geografie niet langer acceptabel in een nieuwe wereld waarin
een Verenigde Naties werd gebouwd, specifiek om respect voor soevereine grenzen te
garanderen.
,1 - A world system approach to political geography
World-systems analysis
Wereldsysteemanalyse gaat over hoe we sociale verandering conceptualiseren. Andere
benaderingen beschrijven dergelijke veranderingen in termen van samenlevingen die
worden gelijkgesteld met landen. In plaats van dat sociale veranderingen land voor land
plaatsvinden, postuleert Wallerstein een ‘wereldsysteem’ dat momenteel mondiaal van
omvang is. Dit is het moderne wereldsysteem, ook wel de kapitalistische wereldeconomie
genoemd.
Wereldsysteemanalyse is gebaseerd op de principes van de Annales-denkrichting. De
school pleitte voor ‘totale geschiedenis’ als een synthetiserende discipline om de scheiding
van onderzoek in disciplines tegen te gaan. Het meest opvallend was de roep om onderzoek
naar lange termijn structuren en -processen, in plaats van de traditionele historische focus
op ‘grote gebeurtenissen’ en ‘grote mannen’. De ideeën van de Annales-school vormen om
de volgende redenen een essentiële basis voor een politieke geografie-benadering:
● De focus op het grote geheel biedt een globaal beeld van structuren en processen.
● De focus op alledaagse ervaringen en culturele verandering betekent dat de
structuren en processen worden geïdentificeerd als de producten van sociale actie,
en niet voorbestemd of onveranderlijk.
● The focus on everyday experiences means that the view of political geography is
‘from below’ or democratized. Non-elites are seen as important actors.
● In combination, political actions of individuals, groups, and states are placed within
the context of large structures and seen to maintain and challenge those structures.
Modern social science is the culmination of a tradition that attempts to develop general laws
for all time and places. A well-known example of this tradition is the attempt to equate the
decline of the British Empire with the decline of the Roman Empire. Historical systems are
Wallerstein’s ‘societies’. They are systematic in that they consist of interlocking parts that
constitute a single whole, but they are also historical in the sense that they are created,
develop over a period of time and then reach their demise.
Although every historical system is unique, Wallerstein argues that they can be classified
into three major types of entity. Such entities are defined by their mode of production, which
Wallerstein broadly conceives as the organization of the material basis of a society. These
three modes of production are each associated with a type of entity or system of change.
A mini-system is the entity based upon the reciprocal–lineage mode of production.
This is the original mode of production based upon very limited specialization of tasks
(hunting, agriculture). Small groups, exist for a few generations.
A world-empire is the entity based upon the redistributive–tributary mode of
production. World empires have appeared in many political forms, but they all share the
same mode of production. This consists of a large group of agricultural producers
whose technology is advanced enough to generate a surplus of production beyond their
immediate needs. This surplus is sufficient to allow the development of specialized
non-agricultural producers. The distinguishing feature of these systems is the appropriation
of part of the surplus to the administrators, who form a military–bureaucratic ruling class.
,A world-economy is the entity based upon the capitalist mode
of production. The criterion for production is profitability, and the
basic drive of the system is accumulation of the surplus as
capital. In this system, the efficient prosper and destroy the less
efficient by undercutting their prices in the market. This mode of
production defines a world-economy. Historically, such entities
have been extremely fragile and have been incorporated and
subjugated to world-empires before they could develop into
capital-expanding systems.
Types of change
It is these entities that are the objects of change; they are the
‘societies’ of this historical social perspective. Within this
framework there are four fundamental types of change. The first
two types of change are different means of transformation from one mode of
production to another. The most famous example is the transition from feudalism (a
world-empire) to capitalism (a world-economy) in Europe in the period after 1450 (the
beginning of the capitalist world-economy). Transformation, the second type of change, as
an external process occurs as incorporation. As world empires expanded they conquered
and incorporated former mini-systems. These defeated populations were reorganized to
become part of a new mode of production providing tribute to their conquerors. Similarly, the
expanding world-economy has incorporated mini-systems and world-empires whose
populations become part of this new system. Discontinuities are the third type of change.
Discontinuity occurs between different entities at approximately the same location where
both entities share the same mode of production. The system breaks down and a new one is
constituted in its place (After the Roman empire). Continuities, the final type of change,
occur within systems. all entities are dynamic and continually changing. Such changes are of
two basic types – linear and cyclical. All world-empires have displayed a large cyclical
pattern of ‘rise and fall’ as they expanded into adjacent mini-systems until
bureaucratic–military costs led to diminishing returns resulting in contraction. In the
world-economy, linear trends and cycles of growth and stagnation form an integral part of
our analysis.
If social change can be adequately understood on a country-by-country basis then the
location of other countries on the ladder does not matter: each society is an autonomous
object of change moving along the same trajectory but starting at different dates and moving
at different speeds. World-systems analysis totally refutes this model of the contemporary
world. The fact that some countries are rich and others are poor is not merely a matter of
timing along some universal pathway to affluence. Rather, rich and poor are part of one
system and they are experiencing different processes within that system: Frank’s
development and development of underdevelopment. Hence the most important fact
concerning those countries at the bottom of Rostow’s ladder today is that there are countries
enjoying the advantage of being above them at the top of the ladder.
, Wallerstein identifies three such basic elements:
- A single world market: The world-economy consists of a single world market,
which is capitalist. producers do not consume what they produce but exchange it on
the market for the best price they can get, there is economic competition between
producers. The concrete result of this process has been uneven economic
development across the world.
- A multiple-state system: In contrast to one economic market, there have always
been a number of political states in the world-economy. single states are able to
distort the market in the interests of their national capitalist group within their own
boundaries, and powerful states can distort the market well beyond their boundaries
for a short time.
- A three-tier structure: Wallerstein argues that the exploitative processes that work
through the world-economy always operate in a three-tier forma Those at the top will
always manoeuvre for the ‘creation’ of a three-tier structure, whereas those at the
bottom will emphasize the two tiers of ‘them and us’. The continuing existence of the
world-economy is therefore due in part to the success of the ruling groups in
sustaining three-tier patterns throughout various fields of conflict
The external area is minder belangrijk dan de internal area en wordt vaak geexploiteerd.
Space itself can be neither core nor periphery in nature. Rather, there are core and periphery
processes that structure space so that at any point in time one or other of the two processes
predominates. Since these processes do not act randomly but generate uneven economic
development, broad zones of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ are found. Such zones exhibit some
stability. Like all core-periphery models, there is an implication that ‘the core exploits and the
periphery is exploited’. But this cannot occur as zones exploiting one another; it occurs
through the different processes operating in different zones. Core and periphery
processes are opposite types of complex production relations. In simple terms, core
processes consist of relations that incorporate relatively high wages, etc. It is important to
understand that these processes are not determined by the particular product being
produced. The semi-periphery is interesting because it is the dynamic category within the
world-economy. Much restructuring of space consists of states rising and sinking through the
semi-periphery. Political processes are very important here in the selection of success and
failure in the world-economy.
The dynamics of the world economy
First, economic and political changes are not the problem of any single state; rather, they are
part of worldwide dynamics. Second, different parts of the world experience global dynamics
differently.
Kondratieff cycles
They consist of two phases, one of growth and one of stagnation. Whereas historical
identification of these cycles is broadly agreed upon, ideas concerning the causes of
their existence are much more debatable. They are certainly associated with technological
change, and the A-phases can be easily related to major periods of the adoption of
technological innovations. Why did these technical adoptions occur as ‘bundles’ of
innovations and not on a more regular, linear basis? The world-systems answer is that this
