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Spaces and Spheres

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The Global Society and Its Enemies

Part of the book series: Global Power Shift ((GLOBAL))

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Abstract

Space is political. The sphere of politics is spatial. Every political order is relational to space. It applies in space (and time)—and may change with it. For most of the time, the world has been understood as the way in which its territories were delineated and used. Today, the popular term to frame such changes is “power shifts”. The most fundamental geopolitical dichotomy, however, is as old as human civilization: land-based power versus sea-based power. Since the days of ancient Greece the issue has been relevant. In the twenty-first century, the spaces of the world are divided among 193 UN member states, to which have to be added around three dozen dependent territories and states of lesser recognition. Yet, territorial acquisition has not lost its appeal and the notion of state sovereignty remains tied to the factual control of land. Residual states or failed states have become a prominent feature of global narratives while the complexity of the maritime agenda, beyond the single issue of climate change and its impact on survival in atoll states and coastal areas, is often underestimated in the international political and academic debate. Together, territorial spaces and maritime spheres frame the future of the global economy and, most likely, also all possible dimensions of geopolitics and the troubles it can bring about.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hobbes (1981) (first edition 1651) and Hobbes (2010) (first edition 1668). For an interpretation of Thomas Hobbes see Kühnhardt (1999, pp. 123–164).

  2. 2.

    Gould and White (1986).

  3. 3.

    For a comprehensive analysis see Kühnhardt (1992).

  4. 4.

    See Williams (2007).

  5. 5.

    See Bellamy (2009).

  6. 6.

    Kühnhardt (2010a, b).

  7. 7.

    Leslie and Elijah (2015).

  8. 8.

    See Blunden (2012) and Nordquist et al. (2016).

  9. 9.

    See Fitzmaurice and Tamada (2016).

  10. 10.

    Stang (2015, p. 13).

  11. 11.

    Jokela (2015, pp. 35–42).

  12. 12.

    Daily Telegraph (2007).

  13. 13.

    See Torres Camprubí (2016).

  14. 14.

    Hein (2015).

  15. 15.

    See Viñas (2015) and Titz (2015).

  16. 16.

    See National Science Foundation (2004).

  17. 17.

    For details see the bilingual (English and German) ‘World Ocean Review’, online at: www.worldoceanreview.com/en/ Accessed January 31, 2017.

  18. 18.

    See the report about a series of conference activities sponsored by the German Draeger Foundation, Sustainable Ocean: Reconciling Economic Use and Protection (2011).

  19. 19.

    See Aybak (2001), Kubicek (2013) and Weaver (2016).

  20. 20.

    See Meiner (2010).

  21. 21.

    MacKinder (1904); on the legacy of MacKinder see: Kearns (2009).

  22. 22.

    Thayer Mahan (1890, p. 29).

  23. 23.

    UNCTAD (2015).

  24. 24.

    von Rooyen (2011, p. 5).

  25. 25.

    See Mukherjee et al. (2002) and Jopp and Kaestner (2012).

  26. 26.

    Schönherr (2013).

  27. 27.

    See Rahman (2010), Pejsova (2016) and Fels and Vu (2016).

  28. 28.

    Lederman and Hennessey (2015) and Perleznov (2015).

  29. 29.

    The Pacific Islands Forum is also of interest in the context of the phenomenon of globalized actorness discussed earlier: Ahead of the Paris COP21 Climate Change Summit in December 2015, the PIF released a statement insinuating that France had endorsed the PIF position in favor of a legally binding climate agreement, an idea certainly not originating in the PIF. In a globalized world of universal actorness (global solipsism), every person or institution can claim the copyright of a new idea, especially if it is a good one: Pacific Islands Forum Update (2015).

  30. 30.

    See Wan (2015).

  31. 31.

    See Erdbrink (2016).

  32. 32.

    For inspiring reading see: Feiler (2001, 2002).

  33. 33.

    See Hanf (1993).

  34. 34.

    See Hast (2014).

  35. 35.

    See Gu (2010).

  36. 36.

    See Green (1996).

  37. 37.

    See Nye (1990, 2004).

  38. 38.

    See von Braun et al. (1999).

  39. 39.

    Smith (2015).

  40. 40.

    Huntington (1996).

  41. 41.

    Gambetta and Hertog (2016).

  42. 42.

    See Tibi (2007).

  43. 43.

    A recent (and critical) reflection on “Asian values” occurred on the occasion of the death of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in 2015. Beside Malaysia’s Mahatir Mohammed Lee Kwan Yew was a leading advocate of ‘Asian values’. See Taroor (2015).

  44. 44.

    For interesting details and arguments see Schmiegelow (1997).

  45. 45.

    See Aksar (2011).

  46. 46.

    See Howell (2002).

  47. 47.

    At the 2016 Eight Summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states, held on May 31 and June 1, 2016 in Port Moresby, the explicit recognition of the Chagos Islands, better known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (Diego Garcia), as a territory under colonial rule without self-determination was demanded: online at: http://www.acp.int/content/declaration-8th-summit-acp-heads-state-and-government-acp-group-states Accessed January 31, 2017.

  48. 48.

    Greenpeace UK (2016).

  49. 49.

    See Weiser (2004), Turvey (2007), Scheyvensa and Momsen (2008) and Kelmana (2010).

  50. 50.

    Quoted in: Gandhi (2015).

  51. 51.

    Kühnhardt (2010a, b).

  52. 52.

    See Giorgetti (2015) and Kalicki and Joubin-Bret (2015).

  53. 53.

    Weber (1946, p. 78) (original 1921).

  54. 54.

    According to estimates, ransoms paid in the Sahel zone between 2008 and 2013 amounted to 96 million euro. During this period 39 Western citizens were kidnapped, 29 of them were freed again, see Callimachi (2014).

  55. 55.

    Collier (2008).

  56. 56.

    See Bermann et al. (2000).

  57. 57.

    Albrow (1996).

  58. 58.

    See Akoutou et al. (2015) and Awuah (2016).

  59. 59.

    See Caldwell (2009).

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    Ludger Kühnhardt

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Kühnhardt, L. (2017). Spaces and Spheres. In: The Global Society and Its Enemies. Global Power Shift. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55904-9_3

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