Texts “are at the heart of the critical geopolitics enterprise” as “texts construct geopolitics” (Müller 2013: 49). Texts are not necessarily only written or verbal statements, as for instance canonical texts, speeches, policy documents or monuments. Signs, for instance, like a semaphore, a painting or a grimace can also be analysed as text (Neumann 2009: 63). Their production and consequent dissemination is the result of perpetual geo-graphing (Dodds & Sidaway 1994: 518) – a continuous “writing of global space” (Ó Tuathail 2005).
Müller defined texts and discourse as the two “conceptual linchpins in critical geopolitics analysis” (2013: 54): “In the classic understanding of critical geopolitics and its text-based take on discourses as narratives, texts constitute the fibres in the fabric of narratives” (Müller 2008: 328).48 As compared to classical geopolitics and its ‘objective science’ approach on how geographical variables irrevocably influence global politics, critical geopolitics places emphasis on the very construction of meaning in texts (Müller 2013: 50).
48 Narratives can be characterised as interpretative frameworks needed to eventually make sense of a
complex situation: “the result between the overlapping of various discourses which can provide a much clearer picture of the processes behind the creation of ideas and influence on political and social reality” (Niţoiu 2013: 242). Discourses, on the other hand, are the very processes through which ideas and social practices are created and institutionalised; eventually only institutionalised discourses, through political and social practice, have the potential to create widely shared narratives (Ibid.: 241– 242).
Understanding geopolitics as text allows critical geopolitics to perceive space as something (intentionally) created with its textual illustration outlining a multitude of potentially differently perceived meanings, depending on the respective context. Each of these multiple meanings every text inheres can consequently answer a specific political purpose (Ibid.: 50). In order to deconstruct a text and filter its very own different meanings – to map a text’s meaning – the ‘critical’ researcher has to be aware that “texts are polysemic” and their meanings consequently “actualised in concrete contexts and with reference to other texts” (Ibid.: 51). If texts are considered one essential variable of geopolitics, its deconstruction and spotting of alternative meanings, and the readings thereof, in order to expose the contingency of geopolitics is the very task and contribution of critical geopolitics (Ibid.: 52). Accordingly, deconstruction is understood as part of an encapsulating process to unlock a perceived natural fixation on spatial meaning in language and text. Instead of assuming a natural presupposition of using space and territory in language, it is rather a deliberate way of producing a certain objective meaning (Albert 1998).
Formal, Practical, Popular and Structural Geopolitics
Texts that construct global space can come in a multitude of forms (Müller 2013: 50). Geopolitical reasoning in that regard occurs on various levels, narrated across the realms of formal, practical, popular and structural geopolitics (Ó Tuathail 1999: 109–111; Müller 2012: 384). This four-fold typology highlights the plurality of geopolitical reasoning and helps to analyse how social institutions are involved in day-by-day geopolitical processes (Aalto 2002: 145). More precisely, it refers to the geopolitical practices of the strategic community within a state or across a group of states (formal geopolitics and the already outlined writings of ‘classic’ intellectuals,
see Subchapter 2.1) or of state leaders and foreign policy bureaucracies (practical
geopolitics, as for instance speeches, policy documents or government records). Additionally, it also concerns the artefacts of transnational, media-shaping popular culture (popular geopolitics, such as newspaper articles, novels, movies or larger public debates) and the contemporary geopolitical conditions, such as globalisation or the proliferation of risks across the globe (structural geopolitics) (Ó Tuathail
1999: 109–111; Ó Tuathail & Dalby 2002a: 4).49 The geopolitical culture of a particular region, state or inter-state alliance is the sum of these four realms, with each form having different sites of production, distribution and consumption (Ibid.: 5), as seen in Figure IV. The result of conceptually widening the objects under research from the traditional structure of geopolitical intellect (formal and practical) across a more complex geopolitical landscape (including the popular and structural), led to the understanding that “geopolitical intellect is as much of the masses as of the elite, and as such implicates a variety of sites of practice” (Coleman 2013: 499).
Figure IV: A Critical Theory of Geopolitics as a Set of Representational Practices
Source: (Ó Tuathail & Dalby 2002a: 5)
However, the analysis of practical geopolitics – the voices of “a state’s privileged story tellers” (Dodds 1993: 71) – is key to the objective of this dissertation. Scrutinising official texts (in the present case, the EU’s 7+1 Arctic policy documents) helps to highlight the geopolitical visions that underpin political decision-making and the related storyline-making of political leaders and its related bureaucracies (Müller 2013: 51). Criekemans defined the study of practical
49 For further readings on popular geopolitics and the analysis thereof see inter alia (Sharp 1993;
geopolitics as the “extent to which the aforementioned interaction [between the politically acting human and his surrounding territoriality] generates an impact on the (foreign) policy or the relevant ‘dominance’ of the political entity which one wants to analyse” (2007: 624).50 Nonetheless, this particular analysis of historical and contemporary geopolitical reasoning remains a scientifically difficult task as researchers “need to become ethnographers of foreign policy behaviour”, yet without comprehensively receiving the necessary background information of day-to-day foreign policy-making (Ó Tuathail 2002b: 605). Consequently, this complicates the task to empirically reconstruct a policy formulation process in a scientifically coherent and correct manner. However, Ó Tuathail criticised that many analyses of foreign policy-making go astray as they tend to apply a broad interpretive approach of policy reconstruction and consequently attribute an “unjustified coherence and consistency to the policy” as such (Ibid.: 605). Accordingly, aspects of internal tensions (within the foreign policy-making apparatus) on how to classify a geopolitical crisis, challenge or opportunity tend to be neglected by the often used analytical framework (Ibid.: 605).
Unpacking Practical Geopolitics
Ó Tuathail stressed a four-level framework, as illustrated in Figure V (page 66) of how to analyse practical geopolitical reasoning and simultaneously also considering the influencing aspects of popular geopolitics as creating and conditioning factors of how (international) crises, awareness or outcries erupt and are consequently represented and covered (Ibid.: 607).51 In that regard, the power of media representation has to be understood as “an important source of both spatial and political discourse” with policymakers strongly affected by perceptions, ideas and beliefs that circulate in the realm of popular culture (Sharp 2000; Steinberg, Bruun & Medby 2014: 275).52 Ó Tuathail’s suggested analytical focus lies on:
50 Own translation of: “(…) in welke mate de eerder genoemde wisselwerking een invloed genereert
op het (buitenlands) beleid of op de relatieve ‘machtspositie’ van de politieke entiteit welke men wenst te analyseren.”
51 Policymakers draw on these popular understandings of geopolitics in order to create awareness or
gain acceptance for a certain policy (Müller 2013: 51).
1. The categorization and particularization of a certain geopolitical issue (“the grammar of geopolitics”)
2. The assemblage and construction of a consequent storyline 3. The used geopolitical script
4. The foreign policy process as such (2002b: 608)53
Figure V: A Framework for the Analysis of Practical Geopolitical Reasoning
Source: (Ibid.: 608)
Adapted to the Arctic case on hand, this framework is used for the analysis on the production of the Union’s geopolitical Arctic storyline (see Subchapter 7.2). However, in order to scrutinise the Union’s storytelling along this framework, it is considered necessary to first trace the evolution of the EU’s Arctic policy-making process by closely putting the 7+1 policy documents under the analytical microscope. Hence, one has to work backwards to see how the Union’s Arctic story has evolved.54 Consequently, after Subchapter 6.1 illustrating the EU’s Arctic endeavour pre- and related established parameters by policymakers (Pinkerton 2013; Steinberg, Bruun & Medby 2014: 275).
53
The final level of the proposed framework regards the geopolitical discourse as a problem-solving discourse which does not only construct and narrate certain visions of (global) space but is in itself already a problem-solving process, aiming to promote a certain normative order (Ó Tuathail 2002b: 621–622). This process is divided into four, interrelated purposes of analysis: problem definition, geopolitical strategy, geopolitical accommodation and problem closure (Ibid.: 622). With the EU’s Arctic (foreign) policy still being processed, this level of Ó Tuathail’s framework is not per se analysed in Subchapter 7.2 but to some extent addressed in Subchapter 7.3.
54 Stephenson (2012) applied this framework for analysis when scrutinising the framing of the EU’s
2007/2008, Subchapter 6.2 offers a close-up analysis of the in total 8 documents and seeks to identify the evolution of the main elements over time. Thus, each respective Section (see Sections 6.2.1 to 6.2.8) highlights the document’s key discursive features, summarised in a table at the end of the each Section. These tables highlight to some extent, yet often neither sequential nor explicitly, five central characteristics running through the documents: problem, uncertainty, opportunity, choice and solution.
Based on this in-depth description and examination of each policy document, the building blocks of the Union’s distinct Arctic geopolitical storyline are reconstructed. In order to do so, the processes leading to that storyline need to be classified and particularized at first. According to Ó Tuathail the final assemblage of a geopolitical storyline comprises a scalar, situational, agent-related, causal and interest-related category, delineated along the questions: Where? What? Who? Why? So what? (Ibid.: 609)
• The scalar categorization – “the activity of specifying location” – is central to geopolitical reasoning, with the local, the regional and the global scale inevitably interrelated to each other (Ibid.: 610). Only the designation of a certain crisis, conflict or issue as ‘geopolitical’, makes this particular local and regional matter a representation of global relevance (Ibid.: 610).
o How has the EU designated the Arctic (= the local), its challenges and opportunities as a matter of EUropean and/or global affair?
• The situational description refers to the construction of distinct scenarios in order to render a certain ‘geopolitical drama’ as meaningful (Ibid.: 612).
o How has the Arctic been classified as ‘relevant’ and ‘important’ for the Union?
• The third process – the agent-related typification – relates to the necessity to determine the involved actors in the ‘geopolitical drama’ (Ibid.: 614).
o Who have been the Arctic-relevant actors and how were they perceived and distinguished from a EUropean perspective?
• The next matter of interest is the depiction of causality. In which ways do actors create a certain causality (= a causal relation) of incidents and how are particular intentions and motivations imputed to these actors? (Ibid.: 614–615)
o Why has the Arctic been a matter of specific EUropean consideration based on which incidents?
• The last pillar refers to the immediate importance of an incident/crisis – ‘the geopolitical drama’ – for a certain actor. This is often popularly phrased as the ‘geostrategic significance’ and based on the rather simple question: What is at stake for ‘us’? (Ibid.: 616)
o What have been the Arctic-related interests of the Union?
These five social processes (= the elements of a policy challenge) are the core of geopolitical knowledge and “specific to the policy challenge under construction” (Ibid.: 617). Consequently and based on these categorization, the referred to ‘grammar of geopolitics’ is embedded into one or several relatively coherent and comprehensive geopolitical narratives (= higher-level storylines) (Ibid.: 617–618).55
In addition to the geopolitical storylines, Ó Tuathail stressed the need to introduce a distinction between geopolitical scripts and storylines (Ibid.: 619). Accordingly, a performative geopolitical script refers to the “directions and manner in which foreign policy leaders perform geopolitics in public, to the political strategies of coping that leaders develop in order to navigate through certain foreign
55 Similarly, Jones argued that in order to create the basis for a EUropean political action, the different
elements of a policy problem have to be brought together into a convincing geopolitical narrative (2011: 42).
policy challenges and crises” (Ibid.: 619). Scripts outline a certain performance, whereas storylines sketch the relevant geopolitical arguments that provide a “relatively coherent sense-making narrative for a foreign policy challenge” (Ibid.: 619). A script can include many related storylines – “a public relations briefing book” – and sets the rules of how foreign policymakers perform in a given situation. These tacit rules contain certain fixed elements but also remain flexible to approach and satisfy a different kind of audience (Ibid.: 619–620). However, the legitimacy of and support for a certain policy can only be maintained if the communicator, in the present case the foreign policymaker, performs the script in a publically and diplomatically convincing way (Ibid.: 620).
Summary
Texts, produced in the realms of formal and practical geopolitics, remain the cornerstone of critical geopolitics (Müller 2013: 63). In that regard, Müller argued that the analysis of texts requires sufficient strengthening and needs to explicitly consider the applied context a certain text is embedded in (Ibid.: 63). Discourse analysis must keep in mind the specific political and social context of geopolitical power and its ways of distributing that kind of power is embedded in. Consequently, texts can only get connected to politics via the discourse/context they are embedded in. These particular discourses set the rule of the (geopolitical) game and accordingly have (political) power (Ibid.: 54). Ó Tuathail & Agnew suggested that geopolitics has to be defined as a discursive practice that produces space which are characterized by particular places, peoples and dramas (1992: 192). A particular geopolitical discourse demarcates a certain spatial perception of world politics as ‘right’, meaning-full and consequently a valid aspect of knowledge (Müller 2013: 55). It encompasses all the differently used languages of statecraft, used by policy leaders and officials in order to define their very own role in current world affairs (Ó Tuathail 2002b: 607).
3.1.2. … and the Element of Spatial Argumentation
In order to systematically scrutinise the arguments the EU and its institutional actors have used to strengthen their geopolitical presuppositions, this dissertation also draws on argumentation theory and Toulmin’s (1969) argument model. However, it is not considered necessary to illustrate argumentation theory – the study on how a certain conclusion can be reached through (logical) reasoning – in detail, but to specifically demonstrate how arguments and the very act of argumentation produce explicit spaces and geographies (Felgenhauer 2009). Moreover, it is by all means not relevant to evaluate a certain argument as logical/rational or illogical/irrational but rather to understand the alleged claims and reasoning behind an explicit argument (Ibid.: 266). According to Toulmin (1969) specific elements/categories are inherent to a (persuasive) argument: a claim/conclusion, data/fact, a warrant and a support mechanism (= backing), with both the claim and the fact being the core of every argument. Whereas a claim is a statement one wants to get accepted, data aims to support that very conclusion. The warrant again links the provided facts with the claim and eventually justifies the claim as relevant. Furthermore, background knowledge supports the warrant and is classified as ‘backing’. Both the warrant and the backing are mostly implicit but nevertheless essential elements of an argument (Felgenhauer 2009: 266–267). In order to visualise Toulmin’s model, Felgenhauer appropriately enough chose an Arctic example and illustrated Russia’s submission of an extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean, see Figure VI (page 71). As this case is particularly touched upon in the Sections 4.3.1 and 4.4.1, it is not crucial to further explain the example into detail and/or question the validity and plausibility of the used arguments. However, the illustrations and Felgenhauer’s exemplification coherently demonstrates the application of the argumentation model. Thus, geography and a distinct logic of space is used to justify a political claim, as it is particularly obvious in the ‘warrant’ element (Ibid.: 272).
Figure VI: Argumentation Model (the North Pole Case)
Source: Own compilation based on (Ibid.: 271)
According to Felgenhauer the argumentation model is only a complementary method – a micro process – that can be used as an additional part of discourse analysis in order to explicitly scrutinise certain segments of the discourse. Hence, it aims to highlight and exemplify single passages of a certain discourse that contain an argumentative character within itself (Ibid.: 274). The argumentation model helps to extract the geographical foreknowledge of the actor under analysis and consequently visualises the implicit geographical content of spatial communication (Ibid.: 276). The model is not used when scrutinising each EU Arctic policy document but only when assessing some of the speeches given by various EUropean policymaker, see Chapter 7.