Editor
Introduction
Spurring a growing interest in geopolitics and a widespread confusion about its meaning, I decided to found the Dutch website Geopolitiek.nl in 2006. The wish to attract both more foreign visitors and contributors made me decide to start with ExploringGeopolitics in 2009.
As website editor, my main responsibilities are conducting interviews, maintaining the academic network and designing and coding of the website.
I am currently doing the master program 'Geopolitics, Territory and Security' at King’s College London, after earlier obtaining a Master's degree in Financial Economics. In between, I worked as country risk analyst, getting a firm grasp of the global economy, world politics and international security.
Editorial: website structure
In December 2009, the structure of the website changed somewhat. What happened, and why?
- The section Editorial ceased to exist. Editorial messages will be posted on this page from now on.
- The three editorials that I wrote in 2009 also disappeared. Being hardly visited, these pages were actually idle content.
- The editorial pages on which I discussed quotes are no longer part of the website as well. Most of the discussed topics have been subject of interviews with experts in the fields, leaving little added value for my reflections on these matters. I am however looking for allternative ways to present thought-provoking quotes.
- The thematical world maps have been removed too. Updating them was no priority as the maps attracted relatively few visitors. More importantly, the website increasingly focuses on academic geopolitical insights, and not on statistics.
- I have renamed all Geopolitical Passport pages, which so far only contained name of interviewee. Topics that are discussed in interviews have been included in page names to improve search engine visibility.
- I have removed bibliography of International Centre for Geopolitical Studies as this list contained many French books. The French content on the website confused some visitors (thinking that website was bilingual, English-French), while hardly being beneficial (as lion's share of visitors does not read French). I am thinking of publishing an alternative bibliography, based on Geopolitical Passport recommendations, English books in ICGS list and other sources. Any advice in this regard would be very welcome!
- I have replaced the slogan "Because there are many ways to look at power and space" by "Offering valuable academic insights into key geopolitical questions". The new slogan makes immediately clear what the main function of the website is. I further removed the French quote from a book by Philippe Moreau Defarges on the banner and used an English quote of Simon Dalby from an interview on this website instead. This change aims to emphasise that English is the principal language of the website and arouse a further interest in the website among first-time visitors.
Editorial: website visitors
Comparing visitors' numbers of last and first quarter of 2009, I noticed some interesting trends:
- The Netherlands, still the largest source of visitors during the first quarter, ranked sixth during last quarter. This reflects the introduction of English as principal language, which led to removal of all Dutch pages in July 2009.
- The language change partially explains the leading positions of the US (first, also linked to its large population and widespread access to internet) and UK (second) during the last quarter.
- Contrary to The Netherlands, Belgium has remained an important source of visitors, maintaining its third position. I have no explanation for this persistency. Anybody?
- Canada's fourth position is also remarkable, pushing France into fifth position. Other industrialised countries in the visitors top 10 are Germany and Italy.
- The website experienced a strong rise in interest from India (from 10th to 7th position) and Pakistan (from 19th to 9th position). A significant share of the population in both countries speaks English, while contributions on Pakistan and Afghanistan likely further explain the popularity in these countries.
- All in all, ExploringGeopolitics attracted visitors from around 90% of all United Nations members. In some countries, the website was not visited at all, resulting from a virtually non-existent internet infrastructure (e.g. Mauritania and Niger) or strict government restrictions (e.g. Cuba and North Korea).