Critical Geopolitics: Discourse, Difference, and Dissent

Abstract

In the 1980s international relations theory has been undergoing a major methodological and theoretical debate which has challenged much of the recent disciplinary orthodoxy. This has been inspired by the introduction of contemporary critical social theory and poststructuralist themes into international relations by a new generation of practitioners. Given the close intellectual proximity of international relations to political geography's concerns with geopolitics, these current debates are of great relevance to any attempt to retheorise global politics from the perspective of political geography. Although the recent revival of interest in political geography has led to a considerable interest in rethinking the historiography of the subdiscipline and to reevaluating its tainted past, the necessary accompanying theoretical rethinking has not progressed in a similar fashion. The theoretical issues discussed in the contemporary international relations literature have much to offer political geographers in pursuing this important task.