Theorizing the State Geographically: Sovereignty, Subjectivity, Territoriality

Kuus, Merje & Agnew, John

In COX, KEVIN, LOW, MURRAY, ROBINSON, JENNIFER (2007) The SAGE handbook of political geography, London: SAGE.

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Theorizing the State Geographically

STATE SOVEREIGNTY AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

Westphalian

sovereignty (states exercising ultimate control over territory) no more than an ideal. Does not capture actual spatiality of power (p. 96)
Limited number of works in Political Geography with a focus on state sovereignty: Agnew and Corbridge (1995), Murphy (1996, 1999), OTuathail et al. (1998), Dalby (2002), Kofman (2002), Mountz (2004), Agnew (2004), Marston (2003), Glassman (1999), Sidaway (2002), Newman (2001), Anderson (1996), Agnew (1999), OTuathail (2000)

Focus in state as a bureaucracy rather than in states as territorial polities endowed with popular sovereignty or how the state is constituted or takes on meaning (p. 96)

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Theorizing the State Geographically

STATE SOVEREIGNTY AS SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

However state sovereignty is which aligns territory, identity and political community
Therefore, it

is sovereignty which enables narratives of borders, identity and society (p. 97) Constructivism/postmodernism/post-structuralism addresses this issue by taking the state as a historically specific construct

2 assumptions to be challenged:
1) 2) states are subjects that express an identity (subjectivity) state power is exercised over blocks of space (territoriality)

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Theorizing the State Geographically

SOVEREIGNTY AND SUBJECTIVITY

The

notion that the states advances its interests in the international arena rests on the idea of the state as a subject (derived from modernist conception of the autonomous self)
The

interests advanced are those of a pre-existent subject: agency is prior to action and action is separated from its agent State action is supposed to flow from its subjectivity (the real identity and its interest)

Presupposes pre-given subjects: the ideal of state sovereignty is a product of the actions of powerful agents and the resistances to those actions by those located at the margins of power (Biersteker and Weber)

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Theorizing the State Geographically

SOVEREIGNTY AND SUBJECTIVITY

The

critique from post-structuralism: the state is constituted by its practices. In fact, the state is its practices (does not pre-exists its actions)
The

state is not the source but the effect of power (Marston, 2003)

It

is through those practices that the alignment between territoriality and identity is effected (p. 98)
The

category of sovereignty is not pre-existent, but constructed through practices operating in the name of the state
State power is material and surely exists; however, it cannot be represented outside discourse, and thus materiality is part and parcel of the discourse of sovereignty

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Theorizing the State Geographically

SOVEREIGNTY AND TERRITORIALITY

The 2nd

assumption holds that state authority is exercised territorially (bounded)

Territoriality

emerges as a historical strategy of rule, particularly after Westphalia However, sovereignty can also be exercised non-territorially through networks, for instance. It has not to be predicated on and defined by strict and fixed territorial boundaries (p. 101)

Territoriality

is only one type of spatiality, implying:

1) 2)

blocks of rigidly bordered space domination as the modality of power

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Theorizing the State Geographically

SOVEREIGNTY AND TERRITORIALITY

However, other forms of space control and power exist:

1) Centralized and diffused power (Mann, 1993)

2)

Despotic and infrastructural power (Mann, 1984)

Based on the 4 forms, a typology of sovereignty regimes emerges:

State territoriality Consolidated Open

Central state authority

Stronger Weaker

CLASSIC INTEGRATIVE

GLOBALIST IMPERIALIST

Ex. Classic (Western states), Imperialist (US & Central America, France & West Africa), Integrative (EU), Globalist (US today)
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Theorizing the State Geographically

CONCLUSIONS

Key question to address how state power is discursively and practically produced and spatially operationalized in both territorial and non-territorial forms (p. 104)

Studying the state as a process in its own right rather than a preexisting entity (p. 104)

Eroding the intellectual division between Political Geography as concerned with the internal workings of the state and International Relations with the state system

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