Nociones Fundamentales de Geografa Poltica

Qu es la geografa poltica?
cul es el uso de la geografa poltica?
Qu es la geopoltica?
en qu se diferencia la geografa poltica de la geopoltica?
Por qu es importante la geografa poltica?
Cox: Geografa Poltica Captulo 1
Segn Kevin Cox (2002), la geografa poltica se enfoca en el estudio del territorio y la
territorialidad. La geografa poltica estudia los territorios en referencia o alusin a los espacios
que son sujetos a disputa, defensa y conquista mediante la territorialidad. La territorialidad es,
entonces, la accin de defender, controlar, excluir e incluir dentro de un territorio (Pg1). El
territorio es el escenario, un lugar definido y descriptible donde los Estados y otras entidades
polticas ejercen control. La territorialidad, es la accin de ejercer control en un territorio.
Para el ejercicio de la territorialidad, el Estado es un actor de importancia crucial. Este ejercicio
[territorial] est directamente ligado a un aspecto material, que tiene que ver con el uso,
aprovechamiento y explotacin de recursos. Sin embargo, esta relacin material est condicionada
por las relaciones sociales, dentro y fuera de ese territorio. Los conceptos referentes al proceso
social son fundamentales para entender el territorio y la territorialidad (pg., 2).
La geografa poltica permite analizar el uso del territorio para efectos: sociales, econmicos,
polticos, ambientales, culturales y otros, donde exista un agente (o ms) que regule de manera
ordenada toda proceso social que afecte el uso de los recursos que existan dentro de un rea
establecida. Los conceptos clave para entender la geografa poltica en trminos operativos son la
movilidad y el asentamiento: lo que se puede mover (gente, bienes, etc.) generar unos impactos
en el territorio diferentes de aquellos que no se pueden mover con tanta facilidad (infraestructura,
industria, cultura). El territorio y la territorialidad se pueden concebir en diferentes aspectos que
incluyen la fragmentacin, la elongacin, la indentacin y perforacin del territorio a estudiar, no
slo en su composicin geogrfica (un archipilago como el japons podra tener en trminos
territoriales, una alta elongacin y fragmentacin) sino en su composicin socio-poltica.
Cox concibe a los Estados como entes complejos dentro de los cuales conviven grupos sociales
muy diferentes y con diversas agendas. Por ello es que el objeto de la geografa poltica se centra
en el territorio donde un Estado ejerce territorialidad, pero no se limita a ello.


Dodds: geopolitics, a very short introduction
Klauss Dodds (2007), dice que la geopoltica suministra maneras de entender el mundo de manera
visual mediante mapas, tablas y fotografas, as como maneras discursivas para resaltar
problemticas o asuntos de inters en poltica exterior. Los trminos empleados son, por lo
general, geogrficos. La geopoltica permite hacer modelos simplificados del mundo, con una
carga altamente grfica y discursiva.
La geopoltica busca explicar las dinmicas de poder entre los estados a partir de las
configuraciones geogrficas de los territorios que stos ocupan. Antiguamente las caractersticas
culturales y geogrficas, segn los expertos en geopoltica, determinaban la capacidad de ejercer
poder de los estados en el sistema internacional (cfr. Mahan, Mackinder et al.)
RESUMEN TEXTOS GEOGRAFA POLTICA
AUTOR: Guntram H. Herb
TEXTO: The Politics of Political Geography
CITA: Herb, Guntram. (2007). The Politics of Political Geography. En Cox, K; Low, Murray
& Robinson, Jennider (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Politica Geography (pp. 21-40).
Londres: SAGE Publications Ltd. Recuperado el 15 de abril de 2014 de URL
http://www.unice.fr/crookall-cours/iup_geopoli/docs/19015_4952_Cox_Ch01.pdf
HIPTESIS
1. A promising solution to understanding the politics of political geography is to focus on
its central concepts, such as power, territory, boundaries, scale, and place (Agnew et al.,
2003).Yet, the difficulty remains of deciding which concepts are truly central
(Mamadouh, 2004).
DESCRIPCIN
2. The discussion of the politics of political geography around the arguably most visible
structure at the heart of the political: the state (Pp. 21)
3. The term state simply offers the most succinct way to express the institutionalized
political authority and mode of social organization that is behind 'strategies o inclusion
and exclusion, of territory and territoriality', and thus at the heart of political geography
(Cox, forthcoming) (pp. 22).
4. Political geographers in the third tradition are critical of the activity, purpose, and
legitimacy of the state. They recognize multiple scales and expressions of power from
the bodies of individuals to global networks. Some of them focus on class and the
dominant influence of the capitalist world economy, others direct their attention to
diverse groups and communities, embrace the notion of hybridity of identities, and
examine the discursive power and production of knowledge. (pp. 22).
5. The tradition of Herodote are advocates of state power. The objective of geographic
work in this tradition is to support and justify the extension of the power of the
national state by outlining specific geographic features or areas that are crucial for
political control.

AUTOR: Charles Redway Dryer
TEXTO: Studies in Economic Geography
CITA: Redway, Charles. (1916). Studies in Economic Geography. En Geographical Review, vol2,
No. 4, pp. 289-300. Recuperado de http://www.jstor.org/stable/207357
HIPOTESIS
1. Economic geography is that part of anthropogeography which studies the relationships
between environments and economies and deals with natural resources, industries, and
the distribution of useful products.


AUTOR: W.F. Dood
TEXTO: Political Geography and State Government
CITA: Dood, W. (1920). Political Geography and State Government. En The American Political
Science Review, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 242-276. Recuperado de
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1943823

AUTOR: Jones, Martin; Jones, Rhys & Woods, Michael
TEXTO: An Introduction to Political Geography: Space, place and politics
CITA: Jones, Martin; Jones, Rhys & Woods, Michael. (2004). An Introduction to Political
Geography: Space, place and politics. Recuperado de http://www.univpgri-
palembang.ac.id/perpus-
fkip/Perpustakaan/Geography/Geografi%20manusia/An_Introduction_to_Political_Geogra
phy__Space__Place_and_Politics.pdf

DEFINICIN DE GEOGRAFA POLTICA
We define political geography as a cluster of work within the social sciences that engages with
the multiple intersections of politics and geography, where these two terms are imagined as
triangular configurations (Figure 1.1). On one side is the triangle of power, politics and policy.
Here power is the commodity that sustains the other two as Bob Jessop puts it, if money
makes the economic world go round, power is the medium of politics ( Jessop 1990a: 322)
(see Box 1.1). Politics is the whole set of processes that are involved in achieving, exercising
and resisting power from the functions of the state to elections to warfare to office gossip.
Policy is the intended outcome, the things that power allows one to achieve and that politics is
about being in a position to do. The interaction of these three entities is the concern of
political science. Political geography is about the interaction of these entities and a second
triangle of space, place and territory. In this triangle, space (or spatial patterns or spatial
relations) is the core commodity of geography. Place is a particular point in space, while
territory represents a more formal attempt to define and delimit a portion of space, inscribed
with a particular identity and characteristics. Political geography recognises that these six
entities power, politics and policy, space, place and territory are intrinsically linked, but a
piece of political geographical research does not need to explicitly address them all. Spatial
variations in policy implementation are a concern of political geography, as is the influence of
territorial identity on voting behaviour, to pick two random examples. Political geography,
therefore, embraces an innumerable multitude of interactions, some of which may have a
cultural dimension which makes them also of interest to cultural geographers, some of which
may have an economic dimension also of interest to economic geographers, some of which
occurred in the past and are also studied by historical geographers. (pp. 9-10)
DESCRIPCIN
1. The book emphasises the relationships between power, politics and policy, space, place
and territory in different geographical contexts.
2. An Introduction to Political Geography explores how power interacts with space, how place
influences political identities and how policy creates and remoulds territory.
3. Michael Mann (1984) has built on this definition by arguing that any definition of states
should incorporate a number of different elements: 1) a set of institutions and their
related personnel; 2) a degree of centrality, with political decisions emanating from this
centre point; 3) a defined boundary that demarcates the territorial limits of the state; 4)
a monopoly of coercive power and law-making ability.
4. Even though nationalism refers to an ideology that exists at a national scale, and draws
members of a nation together as one common community of people, individual
nations always draw on specific places as sources of ideological nourishment.
5. Along with place, the most potent way of imagining the nation is through reference to
particular landscapes. By landscape we mean not just the physical environment but also
the meaning and values that are ascribed to it by individuals or communities. Nations
tend to view particular types of landscape as ones that represent the values or the
essence of the nation (Pp. 92).
6. Generally speaking, nations tend to portray rural landscapes as ones that symbolise the
nature of the nation. Two, in particular, emphasise the important of rural landscapes to
the nation. (Pp. 92).
7. What this means is that individuals are more likely to adhere to nationalist principles if
they live in rural, rather than urban, areas. Folk culture is also important to many
nations: the rhythms of life in rural areas lead to the formation of peasant lifestyles and
these are prized as manifestations of the true character of the nation. In both of these
contexts, therefore, rural lifestyles and rural landscapes are to be cherished by the
nation. (Pp. 92). Two elements, folk culture and habitat. As well as helping symbolise
the purity of the nation, certain landscapes can be used as a means of emphasising the
differences that exist between one nation and another.
8. Broadly speaking, we can identify four main functions of landscapes of power. First,
they show who is in charge. Think, for example, of the castles of medieval Europe.
Second, landscapes of power remind people of dominant ideologies or economic
interests. An explicit example of this was the ubiquity of the red star on public
buildings in communist states, but the physical layout of the landscape and the
prominence of certain buildings can also convey this message. Third, landscapes of
power broadcast a statement about the status of a place and send a signal to rival
cities or countries. Fourth, landscapes of power engender a sense of loyalty to a place,
an elite or a dominant creed.
9. We explore the two main ways in which this happens first when local factors
influence voting decisions, and second when the geographical structure of the voting
system distorts the result. Electoral geographers have argued that geographical factors
can amplify social biases in voting. First, people tend to vote in a similar way to their
neighbours, even if their own socio-economic status suggests that their loyalties should
lie elsewhere. This neighbourhood effect operates because individuals interpretation
of political news and issues is mediated through local discussion, creating a
predisposition for people of all backgrounds to adhere to the dominant political
narratives of their locality. Second, party loyalties can be disrupted by personality
politics and issue voting. A friends and neighbours effect means that candidates can
generally expect to poll more strongly in their home area while anomalous results can
be produced when specific local issues overshadow issues in the national campaign.

AUTOR: Miguel Borja
TEXTO: Los desafos de la nueva geografa poltica en Colombia
CITA: Borja, Miguel. (2001). Los desafos de la nueva geografa poltica en Colombia. En
Revista Prespectiva Geografica. Recuperado el 21 de abril de 2014 en URL
http://virtual.uptc.edu.co/revistas2013f/index.php/perspectiva/article/view/1661

HIPTESIS
Existe un desinteres que ha coadyuvado a la desorganizacin en la administracin y gestin
publica de estado nacional, lo cual ha dado lugar al nacimiento de una serie de geografas
paralelas al mapa oficial de la Republica, funcionales a los actores de la guerra, los
deseguilibrios regionales y las tensiones geopolticas.
DESCRIPCIN
1. El estado moderno tiene como una de sus tareas centrales la de responder por la
administracin y gestin pblica de los territorios que conforman la nacin y
posibilitan la soberana.
2. Comenz a surgir una comunidad interesada en encontrar respuesta al desafo de
organizar el territorio nacional y sus regiones, con el din de atender las demandas
sociales para el manejo de la geopoltica, la biodiversidad, las culturalidades, el mar y
sus costas y la rbita geoestacionaria.
3. La geografa poltica permite comprender los procesos histricos a travs de los cuales
las comunidades se organizan polticamente bajo formas estatales y determinan un
conjunto de geografas poltico-administrativas.

AUTOR: Clmaco Ramrez Quintero
TEXTO: Poltica y Geografa: los recursos naturales como factores de integracin y dominio
CITA: Ramrez, Clmaco. (s.f.) Poltica y Geografa: los recursos naturales como factores de
integracin y dominio. Recuperado el 21 de abril de 2014 de URL
http://www.sogeocol.edu.co/documentos/pol_y_geo.pdf

OBJETIVOS
1. Reafirmar la relacin entre poltica y geografa.
2. Establecer que el territorio de los Estado Condiciona las decisiones politicas,
econmicas y sociales.
3. Mostrar con hechos tangibles que los recursos naturales son factores determinantes en
la integracin y el dominio de los Estados e incluso llegan a constituirse en poltica
nacional.
DESCRIPCIN
1. La poltica de los Estados se halla condicionada por su geografa. Los Estados son
organismos territoriales y fenmenos en el espacio; la poltica es la ciencia del gobierno
de los Estados.
AUTOR: Luis Daro Salas Marn
TEXTO: Anlisis crtico de la geografa Poltica sobre los movimientos sociales
CITA: Salas, Luis. (s.f.). Anlisis crtico de la geografa Poltica sobre los movimientos
sociales. Recuperado el 21 de abril de 2014 de URL http://www.egal2013.pe/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/Tra_Luis-Dar%C3%ADo-Salas-Mar%C3%ADn.pdf
HIPOTESIS
1. Los movimientos sociales de Amrica latina tienen claro que no solo se trata de
oponerse a los que tienen el poder hegemnico, ni quedarse a defender lo propio, sino
que buscan adems, construir alternativas de articulacin espacial entre esos
movimientos, especficos y plurales, mediante la accin poltica que pretende ser
horizontal.
OBJETIVO
1. Analizar, desde la geografa poltica, la dinmica desarrollada entre escalas y
movimientos sociales de Amrica latina, as como la crisis que esta accin produce al
poder de clase hegemnica.

DESCRIPCIN
1. El tema de los movimientos sociales en Amrica latina es escasamente tratado por la
geografa y en s por la geografa poltica. Y por otro lado, la creatividad ejercida por
algunos movimientos sociales y la experiencia en la organizacin poltica que otros
movimientos tienen, en conjunto, son necesarios para la eficacia de las escalas de lucha
poltica de las mayoras.

AUTOR: Jose Seoane & Clara Algranati
TEXTO: La geografa Poltica del Conflicto social en America Latina
CITA: Seoane, Jose & Algranati, Clara. (2005). La geografa Poltica del Conflicto social en
America Latina. En Observatorio Social de America Latina, ao 6, no 16. Recuperado el 21 de abril
de 2014 de URL http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/ar/libros/osal/osal16/CIntroCrono16.pdf
DESCRIPCIN
1. El incremento ms significativo se registra en la Regin Norte de Latinoamrica (un
31,4% respecto del cuatrimestre pasado), expresin particular del ciclo de luchas que
despierta la marcha de los tratados de libre comercio con EE.UU. y las
condicionalidades en trminos de polticas pblicas que los mismos suponen, siendo
que para esta regin slo en Puerto Rico se registra una cada de las protestas.
2. El crecimiento regional de la conflictividad social viene acompaado en este perodo
por un relativo cambio en el peso que le cabe a los movimientos sociales que los
impulsan, ya que crecen aquellos promovidos por jvenes u organizaciones
estudiantiles, por movimientos urbanos, y las protestas multisectoriales, mientras que
los protagonizados por los asalariados y campesinos se mantienen en valores similares
a los registrados para el pasado cuatrimestre.
AUTOR: Jose Luis Cadena Montenegro
TEXTO: Geografa poltica: tensin en las fronteras de Colombia como efecto de su
conflicto interno
CITA: Cadena, Jose. (2007). Geografa poltica: tensin en las fronteras de Colombia como
efecto de su conflicto interno. En Revista de Relaciones Internacionales, Estrategia y Seguridad, vol 2,
num 2, pp. 93-126. Colombia: Universidad Militar Nueva Granada.
Descripcin
1. Las fronteras de Colombia permanentemente han estado en situacin de tensin desde
su misma independencia y en tiempos modernos la situacin no ha cambiado. En la
primera dcada del siglo XX, Panam se independiz y al poco tiempo, el pas afront
un crudo conflicto en defensa de su territorio cuando Per lo invadi por su frontera
sur en 1932. Con la Repblica Bolivariana de Venezuela, especialmente, han sido
muchas las situaciones conflictivas por razones de delimitacin. Con Ecuador, Per,
Brasil y Panam en los ltimos aos se han presentado diversos incidentes relacionados
con el conflicto interno colombiano.
2. La lucha que mantiene Colombia con sus focos guerrilleros desde hace ms de cinco
dcadas, ha trado inestabilidad y una gran cantidad de muertes a lo largo de sus
fronteras.
3. Las acciones extraterritoriales de los delincuentes, buscan debilitar al Estado
comprometiendo sus relaciones polticas con los vecinos para tratar de
internacionalizar el conflicto con miras a obtener dividendos.

AUTOR: Jose Painter & Alex Jeffrey
TEXTO: Politics, Geography and Political Geography
CITA: Painter, Jose & Jeffrey, Alex. (2009). Politics, Geography and Political Geography. En
Political Geography: An Introduction to space and power. Londres: SAGE

ENFOQUE
1. Our approach views politics as a process, that is made up of geographically and
historically situated social and institutional practices. As we have seen, those practices
are both material and discursive in character. They are also, at least in part, purposeful
and strategic, and they depend on the availability of unequally distributed resources.
Lets unpack this in a little more detail, by outlining six key elements of the
interpretative framework.
A. People and their competing needs: It is people and the relationships between them
which make politics: political processes are produced by human activities and
human agency. As human beings, we all, individually and in social groups, have
needs, desires, wants and interests, which, with the possible exception of basic
biological necessities, are constructed (made meaningful) through discourse.
Politics arises from the impossibility of reconciling the wants, needs, desires and
interests of all individuals and groups instantly and automatically.
B. The role of strategic action: We develop and pursue strategies (purposeful
practices) in support of (our understanding of) our interests. Strategies need not be
grand or comprehensive: they may be mundane or small scale. Our strategies are
never wholly rational, since our knowledge of the circumstances in which we act is
always partial and imperfect, and many of the factors which influence outcomes are
beyond our control. This means in turn that while our strategies have effects, their
effects are often unintended. Strategic action potentially brings actors into conflict
or alliance with others pursuing similar or opposed strategies, and can consequently
generate both struggle and co-operation.
C. Resources and power: The ability of different groups and individuals to pursue
strategic action varies, as does its effectiveness, depending on the differential
availability of resources within society. Resources may be of many kinds. These
include: our bodies; other material resources of all sorts; discursive resources
(such as knowledge, information, language, symbols, and ways of understanding);
the compliance of other people; means of violence; and organizational resources
(the ability to co-ordinate, deploy and monitor other resources). Unequal access to
such resources accounts for differences in political power. Where conflicting
strategies are being pursued, the exercise of political power generates resistance
(counter-power).
D. Institutions: Strategic action often leads to the development of institutions of
various sorts. Once established, though, institutions escape from the intentions of
the initial strategy and develop independently. Institutions are then political actors
themselves, pursuing strategies which may be unrelated to those which established
them. Institutions also have their own internal politics, which also consist of
individuals and groups pursuing strategic action. The strategies of institutions are
the (often unintended) products of internal politics. As such they may be (and
often are) contradictory. Institutions exist on a different temporal (and often
spatial) scale from individual action. The fact that they endure over time and are
stretched over space is one source of their political power, and helps to explain
why and how they can become harnessed to very different strategies from those
intended by their creators.
E. Authority and sovereignty: Individuals, groups and institutions typically advance
claims to authority, through which they aim to secure the compliance of other
individuals, groups and institutions with their own strategic action. However, there
are no absolute grounds on which authority can be justified. All claims to authority
are assertions, rather than statements of fact. Claimants to authority usually pursue
(often again through strategic action) attempts to legitimate their assertion: that is
to secure consent to their claim from both other claimants and those whose
compliance to authority is sought. The process of legitimation is a discursive one
involving attempts to construct frameworks of meaning through which authority is
made to seem legitimate. Legitimation is rarely completed or absolute, but is a
continual struggle against those who contest it. In the absence of (or additional to)
consent, compliance with claims to authority may be pursued through coercion,
where the necessary resources (means of violence) are available. A claim to
sovereignty on the part of an institution is a special type of claim to authority: a
claim to being the highest authority for some defined group or area. Like all claims
to authority, it is rarely established and uncontested.
F. Political Identities: Our pursuit of different strategies and our positions in relation
to the strategies and claims to authority of others, constitute us in a variety of ways
as political subjects with particular political identities. These are thus partly the
products of our conscious intentions, but partly the outcome of the discursive and
material practices of others. To say that we are political subjects means that we
each, as human beings, have relationships to politics. Part of who we are is
produced through our political positions. For instance, we all relate to the state in
different ways, perhaps as voters, as users of public services, as asylum seekers, as
pupils in state schools or universities, or as the focus of various forms of legal
regulation. In different times and places, we take on different political identities,
sometimes deliberately, as part of a strategy and sometimes unwillingly or even
unconsciously.
G. Geografa:
1. Space. Geographers study the spatial distribution of human activities and
institutions of all kinds and their causes and effects. They are also interested in
the influence of spatial organization on social, political, economic and cultural
processes.
2. Place. Geography involves the study of place: the character of places, the
relationship between people and their places, and the role of places and the
difference between them in human activities.
3. Landscape. Geography focuses on the development of landscapes and the
meaning and significance of landscapes for people.
4. Environment. Geographers are interested in the relationship between people
and their environments, including their understandings of environments and
their use of environmental resources of all kinds.