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After clicking with left mouse button on book cover, an Amazon page (or publisher's) with book info appears in a new browser window.
Simon Dalby, "Security and Environmental Change", Polity Press, 2009
Jeremy Crampton, "Mapping: A Critical Introduction to Cartography and GIS", Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Stuart Elden, "Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty", University of Minnesota Press, 2009
Virginie Mamadouh, "Politics - Critical Essays in Human Geography", John Agnew and Virginie Mamadouh (editors), Ashgate, 2008
Saul Cohen, "Geopolitics: the Geography of International Relations", Roman and Littlefield, 2008
For the third consecutive year, the editor has invited the contributors of ExploringGeopolitics to define the most significant geopolitical development of the year.
Alex Chitty kicks off with a very balanced view on the influence of social media and the internet on popular uprisings as witnessed during what many call the "Arab Spring",
Simon Dalby continues with his views on the Durban Climate Conference. Based on its achievements, or actually the lack hereof, he concludes that "[t]he political implications of the realization that planetary governance structures have failed to constrain climate change may take years to play out; but this was the year when their failure could no longer be denied."
The other parts of the Geopolitical Review have been written by Jeremy Crampton/Stuart Elden, Saul Cohen, Virginie Mamadouh and Andrea Teti:
Cohen: 2011 Geopolitical Review - global events and US foreign policy
Crampton / Elden: 2011 Geopolitical Review - WikiLeaks / 'Occupy' protests
Mamadouh: 2011 Geopolitical Review - financialization and resistance
Teti: 2011 Geopolitical Review - Egyptian uprising, regime change, Muslim Brotherhood
From the events of the ‘Arab Spring’ to Wikileaks and the Occupy movement, the internet and social media have been central to many of the major political stories in 2011. From the streets of Cairo to the darkest corners of the US intelligence infrastructure, technology which has existed for decades seems to have become critical, not just to governments but to those who would subvert and undermine them.
The question of whether the ‘Arab Spring’ would have occurred without Twitter and Facebook has become something of a cliché, with commentators variously denying and lauding the catalytic effects of web access. As usual however, the reality is more nuanced.
When I spoke to a prominent member of the Egyptian protest movement in March she had the following to say:
Her comments exemplify the view of many protestors that the Arab Spring would have happened without the internet and social media, but that those technologies helped to empower and inform people quickly and without fear of retribution. Her suggestion that the internet has created a new form of mass media brings to mind the advent of satellite television in the 1990’s, when millions of people, especially in remote areas, were granted access to a non-monopolised media for the first time.
And so the events of 2011 provide a wealth of questions for 2012. As governments seek to gain greater control over ‘cyberspace’ and intelligence agencies sack older staff in favour of social media experts, so protestors and hackers are seeking new ways to subvert those in charge.
Will future uprisings be suppressed by better prepared agencies? Will yet more leaders fall prey to a growing army of young, angry and interconnected citizens? Will the leaks and revelations continue, and if so, will they have the real impact which has arguably eluded Wikileaks thus far? New patterns of net use have arguably changed the world in 2011, and may continue to in the coming year.
The key geopolitical development of 2011 is the Durban Climate Conference held in December. Its importance lies not in the agreement by most significant states to become involved in negotiating a legally binding regime to control greenhouse emissions, although this is significant in diplomatic terms.
Rather it is important because it has finally made it clear that international politics as currently practiced is incapable of constraining greenhouse gases within a range that could ensure the climate system will operate as we have known it in the last few centuries. A binding agreement in 2020 is simply going to be too late given current energy trends.
Clearly we are in new times now; the phrase used on the cover of the Economist back in May "welcome to the Anthropocene" makes eminently good sense as a summation of our current situation. The political implications of the realization that planetary governance structures have failed to constrain climate change may take years to play out; but this was the year when their failure could no longer be denied.
