Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Dodds, K. (2019). Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Very Short Introductions.

Chapter Summary

The third edition has six chapters and a short postscript, about 145 pages of main text, followed by references, further reading and an index. The author is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London. The publisher's description opens with the remark that geopolitics is a slippery term and sets out the book's position: geopolitics is far more than the influence of rivers, mountains and climate on politics, and geography matters, though not necessarily in the way pundits and presidents assume. The first two chapters define the term and trace its troubled history; the next four examine geopolitics through architectures of power, popular culture, identities and objects. New in this edition, according to the publisher, are sections on populism and economic nationalism, with Make America Great Again, One Belt, One Road and Brexit as examples of territorial framing for political projects.

Chapter 1: What is geopolitics?

The opening chapter identifies three qualities of geopolitics: a concern with influence and power over space and territory; the use of geographical frames to make sense of world affairs; and an orientation to the future, offering predictions on the assumption that states' basic interests in resources, territory and population do not change. It distinguishes two broad ways of understanding the term: classical geopolitics, centred on the relationship between state power, territorial interests and the geographical environment, and critical geopolitics, which focuses on discourse and ideology.

Chapter 2: Intellectual poison?

The longest chapter, at about thirty pages, charts the history of geopolitics from before the Second World War to the present: its origins, its development and its reception, including the charges that it was intellectually fraudulent, ideologically suspect and tainted by association with Nazism and fascism. It then introduces critical geopolitics, and notes how readily presidents and commentators use the word to signal danger, threat and power and to predict the future.

Chapter 3: Architectures

The chapter introduces "geopolitical architecture", the ways in which states and other organizations access, manage and regulate the meeting of territories and flows, and so draw lines between inside and outside, citizen and alien, domestic and international. It considers two subjects: sovereignty and its role in the territorial state and its borders, and the architectures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in which states try to control spaces they judge disorderly or ungoverned.

Chapter 4: Popular geopolitics

Here the focus is the connection between popular culture and geopolitics, with emphasis on the power of images and sound. Film and television are treated as significant in shaping geopolitical cultures; established news media remain important, but the chapter argues that the internet, social media, blogging and podcasting will demand growing attention, since they can amplify the controversial and emotive side of geopolitics.

Chapter 5: Identities

Geopolitics is presented as being at heart about imagining and articulating differences between selves and others. The chapter examines the role of emotion and affect in that process, how fear, dread, hope and peace can be inflamed or manipulated by media and leaders, and how identity narratives operate at scales from the individual and the subnational to the pan-regional and global.

Chapter 6: Objects

The last chapter argues that geopolitics is imagined through objects and also exercised with them. Flags, pipelines, maps, waste and action toys are discussed as things that can shape geopolitical relations, express state authority and bring human and non-human elements of geopolitics together.

Postscript

A brief closing section of two pages.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Definition and history

• Geopolitics: a concern with power over space and territory, the use of geographical frames to interpret world affairs, and a habit of prediction.
• Classical geopolitics: the study of the relationship between state power, territorial interests and geographical environments.
• Critical geopolitics: an approach focusing on the discourses and ideologies through which geography is used to describe world politics.
• The contested history of geopolitics: the term's association with Nazism and fascism and its later revival.

Chapters 3–4: Architectures and popular culture

• Geopolitical architecture: the arrangements through which states and other bodies regulate territories and flows and draw borders between inside and outside.
• Sovereignty: the authority of the territorial state over its space and borders.
• Popular geopolitics: the shaping of geopolitical ideas through film, television, news and social media.

Chapters 5–6: Identities and objects

• Self and other: the imagined differences between groups on which geopolitical narratives rest.
• Emotion and affect: the feelings, such as fear and hope, that bind identity and geopolitics together and can be manipulated.
• Geopolitical objects: material things, from flags to pipelines, through which geopolitics is imagined and exercised.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Takes the slipperiness of the term seriously. Rather than offering a single definition, Chapter 1 breaks geopolitics into three qualities and two traditions, and Chapter 2 confronts the term's discredited past before introducing critical geopolitics. Readers who meet the word in the news gain tools for asking how it is being used.
• Beyond the state. The publisher stresses that geopolitics affects citizens, corporations, international bodies and social movements as well as governments, and the later chapters follow through, treating popular culture, identities and everyday objects as sites of geopolitics.
• Up to date at publication. The third edition adds material on populism and economic nationalism, and Chapter 4 addresses social media and podcasting alongside film and television.
• Concrete entry points. Chapter 6's choice of objects such as flags, pipelines, maps, waste and toys gives students tangible starting points for essays and seminar discussion.

Limitations

• Thematic rather than regional. The book is organised by concepts, not by world regions or conflicts; readers wanting a survey of particular geopolitical rivalries will need other sources, though the publisher notes the use of regional case studies.
• Classical theory is compressed. The classical tradition, represented in the book's vocabulary by figures such as Halford Mackinder and Haushofer, is covered within the historical chapter, and the rest of the book follows architectures, popular culture, identities and objects. Students who need the classical theorists in detail will have to read them elsewhere.
• Dated by events. Published in 2019, it predates the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and other later developments.
• A thin conclusion. The postscript runs to two pages, so the book ends without a sustained synthesis of its themes.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the political geography list this is the briefest introduction and the natural first reading on geopolitics specifically. Sara Smith's Political Geography: A Critical Introduction is the introductory textbook for the field as a whole, treating power in space at every scale from the global order to bodies and everyday life; Dodds's chapters on popular geopolitics, identities and objects prepare readers well for its feminist and critical approach. Flint and Taylor's Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State, and Locality treats geopolitics within a world-systems framework, a structural counterpart to Dodds's cultural emphasis.

Painter and Jeffrey's Political Geography is a theoretically engaged text built around the state, territory, citizenship, nationalism and geopolitics, suitable after Dodds for students who want the concepts developed in depth. Elden's The Birth of Territory is a scholarly history of the concept of territory that Dodds's Chapter 3 touches on through sovereignty and borders. De Blij's Why Geography Matters More Than Ever argues for the continuing force of place, distance and environment in global politics, and can be read against Dodds's warning that geography matters, but not necessarily in the way pundits assume.

How to Use This Book

No background is required beyond an interest in current affairs. The book suits first-year students in geography, politics and international relations, and general readers who want to understand how the term is used and misused.

A suggested plan:

• Chapters 1–2 first, in order: the three qualities, the two traditions and the history together form the conceptual base for the rest.
• Chapter 3 next, as the bridge between classical concerns with states and borders and the critical approaches.
• Chapters 4–6 in any order, according to interest or course topic; they work well as seminar readings on media, identity and material culture.

Read actively: take a current news story that uses the word "geopolitics" and analyse it with Chapter 1's three qualities, or pick an object in the manner of Chapter 6 and trace the relations it embodies. Because the edition dates from 2019, follow up recent events with current sources, and use the references and further-reading list to move on to the longer texts in the course.