Geopolitics at the End of the Twentieth Century

The Changing World Political Map

Nurit Kliot, David Newman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135305413
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

An excellent examination of how the collapse of the Soviet Union and the impact of globalization have brought about changes not only to the territorial configuration sovereignty of states and their boundaries, but also to traditional notions of state, boundaries, sovereignty and social order

These essays focus on the key regional and geopolitical characteristics of this global reordering, with an emphasis on Eastern Europe and South Asia. They discuss the territorial reordering which is taking place at the level of the state as boundaries are redemarcated in line with ethno-territoral demands; as borders are transversed by the movement of peoples, information and finance; and as the lines of territorial demarcation are perceived not only in terms of their fixed characteristics but as part of a process through which regional and ethnic identities continue to be formed and reformed. Each section ends with articles which focus on literature on geopolitics and boundaries. This is an invaluable addition to our understanding of contemporary world affairs.

The Worldviews of Small States:
A Content Analysis of 1995 UN Speeches

STANLEY D. BRUNN

All states have a place on the world political map that is defined by themselves and others. That place becomes significant when there are political and economic changes within states themselves and in the region. Power shifts, new democracies, the ebbs and flows of conflict are examples of the nature of intrastate and interstate dynamics that also lead to defining and redefining a state’s place in the world. The past decade provides ample evidence of new states having sought to identify where they fit and belong on regional and world political maps, and also of old states having redefined their roles.¹

It is not difficult to consider changes in the perceptions and worldviews of major global military, political, and economic players, such as Russia, Germany, China, Japan, or the USA, as these are in key leadership positions in G8 talks, the World Trade Organisation, the European Union, NATO, and the United Nations. They, by their histories of regional and global power and leadership, are among the major players dictating and influencing the world economic and political agendas. Citizens and leaders of other states watch and listen to what these megastate leaders say about themselves, their neighbours, their adversaries, regional hegemons, and pressing global issues. What they express is conveyed to major viewing and listening audiences not only by major transnational media such as CNN and Rupert Murdoch’s networks and affiliates, but also by official government pronouncements. Analysts carefully scrutinise the travels of institutional leaders, high-level delegations, and trade and cultural missions: where are they are going and why, not only in the case of friendly states, but also when travelling to sites for conferences and meetings to open dialogue with adversaries or to serve as mediators with disputing parties.

While political and media attention is focused on a few large states, there is another group of states that is far more numerous on the world political map. These are the small states, sometimes also called microstates and mini-states because of their small population or territory, or both. They are important and integral parts of the world map, even though most (and there are exceptions) do not have the economic and political importance of medium-sized and larger states. Small states by their demographies, territory, and economies have concerns and problems not shared by larger states. They may lack a strong agricultural and mineral resource base and access to the world’s oceans, and they may be historical or contemporary pawns of larger and more powerful neighbouring states. Size may be a weakness and make them vulnerable to aggressors or a lack of respect and representation in regional and global decision making. Their small size may also mean they are ignored by other states. But regardless of these fundamental features of size, demography, and location, each small state has a worldview of itself and the world. These small states and their worldviews are my focus. I assess these views through a content analysis of the speeches of leaders at the UN’s fiftieth anniversary session 22–24 October 1995. At this meeting there were presentations by original and new UN members, large and small states, new and long-standing democracies, and old friends and adversaries, all sitting in the same room.

My purposes are fourfold. First, I review the literature on worldviews and the politics and geopolitics of small states. Second, I examine what these leaders stated in their addresses; I look for key words and common themes. Third, I discern if there were any major issues or problems expressed by those leaders, and whether those problems that were expressed were unique to the state itself or problems expressed at a regional and global scale. I also examine if there were any regional differences. Were those worldviews from European small states any different from those in Africa or the Pacific Basin? The overall objective is to observe whether small states exhibit uniform concerns, or regional or individual concerns, or some combination of all these.

I define small states as those with less than five million people in 1995. There were 78 that met this criterion and made presentations at this UN gathering. Most are in Europe, the Pacific Basin, the Caribbean, and North Africa and Southwest Asia. They range in population from the Holy See (less than 1,000) to Jordan with 4.9 million and in size from 0.44 square kilometres for the Holy See to 1.5 million square kilometres for Mongolia. The 78 states have a combined population of approximately 135 million, which is slightly larger than Pakistan or less than France and Germany together. The combined land area is 8.8 million square kilometres (roughly the size of Brazil or the USA).

Discerning a Worldview

A state’s world-views can be measured using a number of variables and indices (Table 1). One measure is how the state depicts itself on regional and world maps. Does it place itself in the centre for maximum eye appeal? What colours does it use to refer to friends and adversaries? How does it demarcate and label conflicting territories, such as Israel/Palestine, Kashmir, and Cyprus? Worldviews are also expressed through diplomatic missions, official visits, and scholarly and citizen exchanges, membership in regional and international organisations, through trade patterns, military alliances, and loans and credits. Speeches represent another opportunity for a state to express its place in a region or the world. Political leaders make statements to their own citizens and to citizens in visiting states and at regional and global conferences. The content of formal addresses will reveal impressions, perceptions, and ideas not only about the leader’s own state, but how she or he looks at others. UN voting records may also reveal linkages and associations, for example, among former colonies to a European power or countries with similar religious, linguistic, and cultural heritages. A recent innovation that gives states a new vehicle to display their own history to global audiences is through official World Wide Web homepages. These pages and their hyperlinks often contain symbolic, colourful, graphical, and photographic information about the state for Web users. Text is often at a minimum. The visual contents are designed for tourists, developers, and international investment bankers.

TABLE 1
CRITERIA USED TO MEASURE A STATE’S WORLDVIEWS

Official maps and propaganda cartography
Presentation of history and geography in school texts
Authors of texts
Displays in museums and exhibits
Diplomatic missions: embassies and consulates
Diplomatic exchanges
Official state boosterism: promotion and advertising
Official iconography
Stamps and currency
Official visits
Trade missions and pacts
International trading partners
Membership in alliances: regional and international
Membership in IGOs and NGOs
Content of official WWW homepages

TABLE 2
ELEMENTS THAT HELP TO SHAPE A STATE’S WORLDVIEWS

Historical ties to other states
Experiences in the past, for example, colonialism and occupation
Recent political changes
Images and iconography
Strong personalities
Influences by regional and global superpowers
Internal political changes, for example, civil war and democratisation
Absolute and relative location

Thus the worldview of any state is formed, shaped, and continually being reshaped as a result of a number of processes (Table 2). These changes include historical ties to other units, changes of leadership, independence, and major events such as a conflict or environmental disaster or the passing away of a strong personality. In addition, small states are influenced by the actions of regional powers and superpowers. Relative location also is a key ingredient. Whether the state is central or peripheral to global centres of economic wealth and power is crucial, as is how many states it borders and whether those neighbours are friendly, unfriendly, or neutral. It is important to know whether a small state is landlocked or shelf-locked and how those positions affect its views.

Literature Review

Political and cultural geographers have used a variety of criteria to delimit, measure, and describe the worldviews of countries and regions. In 1904, Mackinder² considered Britain’s role in a world threatened by continental powers (especially Russia and Germany). His maps became powerful instruments affecting not only Britain’s policies, but also other European and North American states. Later, Spykman³ developed the concept of pan-regions; his maps as well illustrated regional foreign-policy priorities. Security and geopolitics operated hand in hand. Geopolitical and geostrategic views were also integral in the macro-political thinking, power shifts and the results of conflicts and treaties, and how the emerging regional powers were viewed following the Second World War. Cohen’s studies⁴ looked at global patterns. How individual states saw themselves were the focus of Kristof’s⁵ study on Russia’s homeland, Ginsburg’s⁶ and Tuan’s⁷ on China, and Dodds’s⁸ on the geopolitical imagination in the creation of Argentina.

Worldviews can also be observed through other activities, including diplomatic exchanges and membership in government and nongovernmental organisations,⁹ the travels of officials,¹⁰ and how political leaders themselves perceive local, regional, and global spaces.¹¹ UN voting patterns also provide insights into how states look at themselves.¹² The maps a state constructs for school use or official propaganda purposes also convey images about how a state wishes to present itself to its own citizens and to friends and adversaries. Bright colours, eye-catching icons, familiar illustrations, and emotionally laden words when combined with distorted map projections can serve ultra-nationalistic and propaganda purposes.¹³ Official maps are symbols of power, and especially if used by the state to advance its own purposes in times of conflict or to generate hostility toward or fear of others.¹⁴ Other state-produced products include textbooks, films produced by national film boards,¹⁵ designs and topics on currency and stamps,¹⁶ flags, anthems, monuments, museum displays, national contests, and recently, the symbolic, graphical and narrative content of official World Wide Web pages.¹⁷ The visits and appearances of dignitaries, and speeches by political leaders, whether as official addresses¹⁸ or words used in debates,¹⁹ also convey their impressions about world events, adversaries, and friendly states.

Small states have been studied by political geographers, political scientists and sociologists, anthropologists, economists, and educators.²⁰ Most of their works are descriptive, historical, or contemporary case studies of individual states. Few are catholic in perspective, in the sense that they seek to place small-state issues and problems in regional or global contexts. Such states have specific problems because of their small population or territory (or both),²¹ their unique cultures and histories,²² their insular character,²³ and as sites of recent conflict and media images and as landscapes of remembrance.²⁴ Additional problems occur as they conduct foreign policy,²⁵ regional political restructuring,²⁶ security,²⁷ maintaining defence forces,²⁸ and public administration.²⁹ Economic issues on the agenda include not only how they can or might be accommodated in regional trade blocs and globally restructured economies,³⁰ or issues of sustainability and tourism,³¹ but also poor states being adversely affected by international debt considerations³² and how they see themselves in a larger system.³³ Some states successfully use their size to promote themselves as having a unique role in global affairs, for example, as the headquarters of international agencies or sites for treaties;³⁴ examples are Sweden,³⁵ Switzerland,³⁶ and Finland. Media and telecommunications policies are also of importance to small states.³⁷ Lastly, there are questions about the future of small states in a larger political arena.³⁸

The UN Gathering and Speeches

The fiftieth anniversary session included speeches by 179 heads of state and another 20 intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the South Pacific Forum, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the Organisation for African Unity, and the European Union. Each speaker was asked to deliver their remarks in 15 minutes, but some took much longer. There were six UN members that did not make presentations: Soma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The World vie ws of Small States: A Content Analysis of 1995 UN Speeches
• 2. Ordering the ‘Crush Zone5: Geopolitical Games in Post-Cold War Eastern Europe
• 3. Economie Globalisation: Politics and Trade Policy in Ghana and Kenya
• 4. Geopolitical Change and the Asia-Pacific: The Future of New Regionalism
• 5. Global Stability Through Inequality Versus Peace Processes Through Equality
• 6. Reclaiming Geopolitics: Geographers Strike Back
• 7. Borderless Worlds? Problematising Discourses of Deterritorialisation
• 8. Discourses of Identity and Territoriality on the US-Mexico Border
• 9. African Boundaries and their Interpreters
• 10. Common Cause for Borderland Minorities? Shared Status among Italy’s Ethnic Communities
• 11. Bounding Whose Territory? Potential Conflict between a State and a Province Desiring Statehood
• 12. Seeking the Common Ground
• 13. Borders in a ‘Borderless’ World
• Notes on Contributors
• Abstracts
• Index