Questioning Geopolitics: Political Projects in a Changing World-System

The authors of this work reject the notion that globalization is an analytically useful term. Rather, globalization is seen merely as the framework of the current political debate on the future of world power. Some of the other ideas advanced by the authors include: the explicit prediction that East Asia is not going to become the centre of the world; the contention that the USSR collapsed for the same reasons that nearly brought down the United States in 1973; and the notion that the regional economic networks that are emerging from under the modern states are in fact rather old formations. The articles in the volume are organized around three main themes. Part 1 explores both the changing patterns of global power from the viewpoint of geopolitics and the Gramscian approach to the study of international relations. Part 2 further develops the debate among a number of eminent historians and sociologists - both the apologists for and the opponents of globalization are challenged in new and unexpected ways. Part 3 traces the emergence of several regional economic networks and explores the ambiguous problems of security and identity posed by the old-new transborder formations.