Megan Ouellette Abstract Abstract This study constitutes an analysis of American conceptualizations of the Czech Republic as presented in presidential materials from 1989 to 2009 and American media reporting the cancellation of the Third Site of ballistic missile defence from 14-25 September 2009. It draws on the previous research offered by constructivist interpretations of international relations and the field of critical geopolitics to explore how, and for what purpose, certain American sources of geopolitical reasoning have portrayed the Czech Republic. By comparing and contrasting the ways in which the Czech Republic has been conceptualised in presidential materials over a period of twenty years and in media sources over a two-week period relative to a particular event, the study identifies trends and thematic (in)consistencies in American "mental maps" of the Czech Republic. It shows the extent to which media reporting on President Obama's ballistic missile defence policy shift recycled pre-existing conceptualizations of the Czech Republic broadcasted on the presidential level over the twenty years prior to the policy shift. The results of content analyses of each set of texts reveal that the Czech Republic holds specific symbolic and strategic value that ultimately points back to a particular...

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O processo de tentativa de emancipação do Alcântara, transcorrido em finais de 1995 sem que o município fosse criado, é um dos casos de fracasso em pleno período denominado Febre Emancipatória, em que diversos municípios foram criados. Para compreender o insucesso deste caso analisaremos, por meio da Geopolítica Crítica e da análise dos discursos, os diferentes grupos representados, bem como sua argumentação para a divisão ou a manutenção do território. A identificação dos grupos representados, bem como dos argumentos mobilizados por estes grupos, nos permitiram inferir, em comparação com aqueles que tiveram êxito na emancipação, as razões do exemplo em estudo não ser exitoso. Adicionalmente foram discutidas a regulamentação da escala local no Brasil, bem como a dinâmica social recente do município de São Gonçalo, para apontar as possibilidades de um novo movimento em prol da emancipação, apontando-se a potencialidade de um novo movimento emancipatório, seja pela construção de um aparato jurídico que regulamente a restrição imposta a criação de novos municípios, seja pelas disparidades entre as áreas que foram alvo deste movimento. / The process of attempted emancipation of Alcântara, passed in late 1995 without the municipality was created, is a case of failure in full period called "Fever Emancipation", in which several municipalities were created. To understand the failure of this case we analyze, through the Critical Geopolitics and discourse analysis, the different groups represented, as well as their arguments for the division or territory maintenance. The identification of the groups represented, as well as the arguments mobilized by these groups, allowed us to infer, compared with those who had successful emancipation, the reasons for such a study not be successful. In addition to regulation of local scale in Brazil were discussed, as well as recent social dynamics of São Gonçalo, to point out the possibilities of a new movement for emancipation, pointing out the potential of a new emancipatory movement, either by construction a legal apparatus that regulates the restriction imposed the creation of new municipalities, either by disparities in areas that were the target of this movement.

O processo de tentativa de emancipação do Alcântara, transcorrido em finais de 1995 sem que o município fosse criado, é um dos casos de fracasso em pleno período denominado Febre Emancipatória, em que diversos municípios foram criados. Para compreender o insucesso deste caso analisaremos, por meio da Geopolítica Crítica e da análise dos discursos, os diferentes grupos representados, bem como sua argumentação para a divisão ou a manutenção do território. A identificação dos grupos representados, bem como dos argumentos mobilizados por estes grupos, nos permitiram inferir, em comparação com aqueles que tiveram êxito na emancipação, as razões do exemplo em estudo não ser exitoso. Adicionalmente foram discutidas a regulamentação da escala local no Brasil, bem como a dinâmica social recente do município de São Gonçalo, para apontar as possibilidades de um novo movimento em prol da emancipação, apontando-se a potencialidade de um novo movimento emancipatório, seja pela construção de um aparato jurídico que regulamente a restrição imposta a criação de novos municípios, seja pelas disparidades entre as áreas que foram alvo deste movimento. / The process of attempted emancipation of Alcântara, passed in late 1995 without the municipality was created, is a case of failure in full period called "Fever Emancipation", in which several municipalities were created. To understand the failure of this case we analyze, through the Critical Geopolitics and discourse analysis, the different groups represented, as well as their arguments for the division or territory maintenance. The identification of the groups represented, as well as the arguments mobilized by these groups, allowed us to infer, compared with those who had successful emancipation, the reasons for such a study not be successful. In addition to regulation of local scale in Brazil were discussed, as well as recent social dynamics of São Gonçalo, to point out the possibilities of a new movement for emancipation, pointing out the potential of a new emancipatory movement, either by construction a legal apparatus that regulates the restriction imposed the creation of new municipalities, either by disparities in areas that were the target of this movement.

Until very recently, Colombia was the only country in the world that still permitted the eradication of illicit crops –primarily coca and to a lesser extent, opium poppies— through aerial fumigation. It was a controversial practice for a number of reasons, chiefly the damage caused to plants, animals, and people living in or near fumigated areas. A favored tactic in the U.S.-supported War on Drugs, aerial eradication actually contributed to the spread of illicit crops to increasingly remote areas of Colombia, such as the collectively titled lands of both indigenous and black communities. Concerns about the practice of aerial eradication, however, appeared completely disconnected from the positive framing of the policy and guidelines governing its implementation. Employing mixed methods, both ethnographic and cartographic, this dissertation examines how these contradictory discourses —aerial eradication explained by officials involved in its operation versus described locally by people living in or near fumigated areas— materialized in 2015, the last year the aerial eradication program was in operation. This study engages critical social science theory to deconstruct dominant conceptualizations of territoriality, geopolitics and environmental conservation, while at the same time proposing alternative understandings of those concepts grounded in local experiences. This research finds that aerial eradication authorities overstated the accuracy of aerial eradication operations by: 1) downplaying the incidence of pilots spraying legal crops, 2) invalidating local reports on the effects of aerial eradication, and 3) requiring technical evidence far beyond the means of poor rural Colombian farmers. Furthermore, in the specific context of the collectively titled black communities of the Pacific region, aerial eradication authorities did not respect the right to previous consultation per Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169. This dissertation concludes that that aerial eradication —justified by notions of security and environmental conservation that had little to do with black communities of the Pacific region— operated as a means of displacement. This displacement was literal in the sense that aerial eradication made life difficult for people to live in affected communities and figurative because local knowledge was pushed aside in favor of the external interpretations of the effects of this counternarcotics policy.

This diploma thesis focuses on the analysis of Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) towards the sub- regions of Central Eurasia (the Middle East and Central Asia) in the period between 1991 and 2010. Theoretically, this thesis combines a modified version of social constructivism with the assumptions of critical geopolitics. Interconnecting social constructivism with the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), this thesis targets the domestic level of analysis. Therefore, the ideational background of the decision-makers is examined. Although, the potential impact of the identity variable on the TFP articulation is investigated after 1991 only, the genesis of the long-term identity conflict within the Turkish (Ottoman) society is also included in the analyses. Given the geopolitical part, this thesis draws upon the basic critical insight that the geopolitical argumentation is based on discursive rather than material factors. The aim is to identify the geopolitical metaphors which had been, in the examined period, applied while dealing with the above mentioned sub-regions. At this stage, the theoretical approaches are logically synthetized and the genesis and usage of the geopolitical metaphors is examined in relation to the identity of those who formulated them. This diploma thesis proves that the identity conflict...

Global energy transitions and rises in demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) are predicted to reshape global politics in yet uncertain but profound ways. With CRMs being vital for Europe’s decarbonization process, the present study sets out to examine the EU’s geopolitical discourse by taking an inquisitive yet critical stance focusing particularly on the new “geopolitical” Commission’s geopolitical reasoning on CRMs. Building upon critical geopolitics, a discourse analysis was conducted on 9 European Commission communications (2019–2020). Three key observations were made: first, a ‘geopolitical’ and ‘assertive’ EU is crucial in an increasingly ‘fragile’, ‘polarized’ and ‘competitive’ world. Second, securing CRMs is a ‘security question’, requiring ‘strategic approaches and partnerships’, notably with ‘resource–rich regions’ and particularly with Africa. Third, the EU’s narrative is ambiguous. While classical geopolitical assumptions are distinguishable, it remains questionable whether the EU will depart from its familiar path of liberal cooperation, multilateralism and trade when scouting for CRMs, although its role as a “benign ally” can be questioned. Further studies on the EU’s geopolitical reasoning, along with its actual practice in the area of CRMs, are warranted. Likewise, a critical reading of reports and foresight preceding EU policymaking is encouraged, to better comprehend how the EU’s dominating geopolitical discourse on CRMs and subsequent practice is produced in the first place.

This thesis deals with Japanese foreign and security policy through the optics of critical geopolitics, specifically the "geopolitics as culture" notion developed by Gearóid Ó Tuathail. Using this notion as an analytical framework, the development of Japan's foreign and security policy from the establishment of a modern Japanese state till present days is analyzed, with three main concepts being addressed: (1) foreign policy traditions; (2) geopolitical and geostrategic discourses; (3) and strategic and geopolitical culture. For reasons of narrowing the topic down and applying the concept more consistently, one specific element of Japanese foreign and security policy is at the centre of attention: Japan's "maritime identity". The goal of the thesis is to identify and characterize Japan's geopolitical imagination and attempt to determine if and how has this imagination been expressed in the country's security policy with regard to the maritime identity. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Recent calls from progressive, subaltern and postcolonial geopoliticians to move geopolitical scholarship away from its Western ontological bases have argued that more ethnographic studies centred on peripheral and dispossessed geographies need to be undertaken in order to integrate peripheralised agents and agencies in dominant ontologies of geopolitics. This thesis follows these calls. Through empirical data collected during a period of five months of fieldwork undertaken between October 2014 and March 2015, it investigates the ways through which an Indigenous community of the Canadian Arctic, Tulita (located in the Northwest Territories' Sahtu region) represents geopower. It suggests a semiotic reading of these representations in order to take the agency of other-than/more-than-human beings into account. In doing so, it identifies the ontological bases through which geopolitics can be indigenised. Drawing from Dene animist ontologies, it indeed introduces the notion of a place-contingent speculative geopolitics. Two overarching argumentative lines are pursued. First, this thesis contends that geopower operates through metamorphic refashionings of the material forms of, and signs associated with, space and place. Second, it infers from this that through this transformational process, geopower is able to create the conditions for alienating but also transcending experiences and meanings of place to emerge. It argues that this movement between conflictual and progressive understandings is dialectical in nature. In addition to its conceptual suggestions, this thesis makes three empirical contributions. First, it confirms that settler geopolitical narratives of sovereignty assertion in the North cannot be disentangled from capitalist and industrial political-economic processes. Second, it shows that these processes, and the geopolitical visions that subtend them, are materialised in space via the extension of the urban fabric into Indigenous lands. Third, it demonstrates that by assembling space ontologically in particular ways, geopower establishes (and entrenches) a geopolitical distinction between living/sovereign (or governmentalised) spaces and nonliving/bare spaces (or spaces of nothingness).