Analytical Paper One
Non-US Geopolitical Imaginations
As we have discussed in class to date, geopolitical images of the world - although frequently presented as if they come from nowhere in particular and so reflect everyone's understanding of the geopolitical world - are in fact highly nationally particularistic, with actors in each state constructing their own geopolitical visions.
In class and in many of our readings this semester, we will be critically analyzing the US geopolitical visions that inform American foreign policy and public perceptions of the world.
For your first research paper, you are to choose one or two political leaders from a country other than the United States, and explore the modern geopolitical imagination evident in their speeches, statements and documents. The specifics of this assignment are provided below.
First, select one or two political leaders in a non-US country that you would like to research. Make sure that foreign policy documents, reports, and speeches by political elites are available to you (CAUTION! These are not to be American analyses of the practical geopolitics of other countries, nor are they to be media or popular geopolitical sources, but must come directly from official governmental sources of the country you choose).
In addition to hard copies of official documents, many countries now have English language versions of this material (i.e., political statements, speeches, etc.) online. Also, speeches by political leaders at the UN General Assembly that happen every year can be good sources.
Using these official documents, investigate the geopolitical imagination present in the practical geopolitical sources you select for critical analysis.
As we did with President Obama's Farewell Address and Donald Trump's Inaugural Address, you should think of the leader(s) you choose as politicalcartographers painting a geopolitical map of the world (or a world region) with their speeches.
Use Agnew's text, and particularly his four major elements in the construction of the modern geopolitical imagination, to analyze the geopoliticalcoding present in the official documents you have selected.
Paper One should be approximately 5 pages in length (double-spaced), and is due on March 3 in class.
CAUTIONARY NOTE
This is NOT a foreign policy analysis per se, and you are not being asked to research US-based writings and analyses of the foreign policies of other countries (i.e., something you might typically do in a political science/IR class).
Also, you are NOT being asked to act as traditional geopoliticians in critiquing the foreign policies of other countries and offering your own ‘better' geopolitical vision in their place.
Rather, you are being asked to act as a critical geopolitical analyst, and to analyze the geopolitical imaginations of one or two political elites in a non-US country, by decoding their speeches and documents.