ABSTRACT
Against the backdrop of global trends, the main directions, methodological approaches, and the most striking research results in the field of geopolitics and political geography in 2011–2021 are considered. Political geography is being widely integrated with adjacent scientific areas. Russian political geography and, to a much lesser extent, geopolitics are based on a wide range of concepts known in world literature. Researchers in these areas are promptly responding to current foreign policy and other challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. Particular attention is being paid to geopolitical publications about the pivot of Russian foreign policy to the East and the Greater Eurasia concept. Since the 2010s, the theory of critical geopolitics has become more widespread in Russia, operating not with speculative reasoning, but with large amounts of information analyzed by modern quantitative methods. The flow of studies of state borders and frontiers is growing. In such publications, a large place is occupied by works devoted to the growing gradients in the pace and directions of economic development between former USSR countries. Shifts in the topic of border studies are associated with the deeper study of security issues. Many works reflect the desire to preserve the positive experience of cross-border cooperation between Russian and European partners in a deteriorating environment. The greatest number of Russian publications on regionalization at different spatial levels involve the Baltic Basin. There is a growing body of research on territorial conflicts and separatism. Russian geographers and representatives of related sciences have made a significant contribution to studying the problems of uncontrolled territories and unrecognized (partially recognized) post-Soviet states. Conflicts around unrecognized (partially recognized) states in the post-Soviet space are considered in relation to their internal differences, complex composition, vicissitudes of formation and identity of the population, influence on neighboring regions of Russia and in historical retrospect. © Russian Academy of Sciences. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
For all, 2020 was beyond extra ordinary. While at the start of 2020 much of the world was transfixed on Donald Trump and the upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States, a virus began emerging in China. In the early months of 2020, the term's coronavirus or COVID-19, would become too familiar and by March 2020 as the world faced the first major Pandemic since the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918. In the U.S., the reactions and beliefs about the ferocity of the virus and the mitigation strategies to halt the spread became deeply entangled in the nation's already highly partisan political divides. This chapter will focus on the impacts of COVID-19 on the 2020 presidential election. Specifically, this chapter will provide a temporal and spatial representation of COVID-19 on the 2020 election cycle from the presidential primaries, to the presidential campaigns, the November 3, 2020 election, and ending with the January 20, 2021 inauguration of newly elected President Joe Biden. It was clear, after the election distinct spatial patterns between COVID-19 rates and partisan preference were identifiable. In general, higher rates of COVID-19 correlated with higher support for Donald Trump. Maps and statistical analyses complement the investigation of a uniquely intertwined political geography between the spread of COVID-19 and American electoral politics. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
The paper deals with some fundamental problems of the subfield of social/sociological theory, particularly in our Latin American context, taking as a stimulus or pretext some of the problems raised in the book La gran transformación de la sociología, by Esteban Torres. After some initial remarks about the consequences of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic on our sociological activity, the text proceeds in three successive steps. First, some discussions are raised about the appropriate scale for sociological analysis (including a defense of middle range theorizing);then, we reflect on the temporality involved in theorizing, the challenges of social acceleration and the dead ends of "theoricism";finally, a discussion is raised about the meaning of theorizing from the "South". The conclusions reaffirm the need to continue the debates in this field, valuing Torres' contributions but also highlighting some important differences with his proposals. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] El trabajo se ocupa de algunos problemas fundamentales del subcampo de la teoría social/sociológica, en particular en nuestro ámbito latinoamericano, tomando como estímulo o pretexto algunos de los problemas planteados en el libro La gran transformación de la sociología, de Esteban Torres. Luego de algunas observaciones iniciales acerca de las consecuencias de la irrupción de la pandemia de COVID-19 sobre nuestra actividad sociológica, el texto avanza en tres pasos sucesivos. Primero, se plantean algunas discusiones acerca de la escala adecuada para el análisis sociológico (que incluyen una defensa de la teorización de alcance intermedio);luego, se reflexiona acerca de la temporalidad implicada en la teorización, los desafíos de la aceleración social y los callejones sin salida del "teoricismo";finalmente, se plantea una discusión acerca del significado de teorizar desde el "Sur". Las conclusiones reafirman la necesidad de continuar los debates en este campo, valorando los aportes de Torres, pero sin dejar de subrayar algunas importantes diferencias con sus propuestas. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Utopia y Praxis Latinoamericana is the property of Revista de Filosofia-Universidad del Zulia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Myanmar, a nation situated between India, China and Southeast Asia, has long histories of colonialism, violence, and resource extraction. This special issue introduction, written in the midst of Myanmar's 2021 military coup and the COVID-19 pandemic, offers two critical and feminist interventions–‘remaking' and ‘living with'–to understand the contested and embodied political geographies of extractive resource frontiers in Myanmar. ‘Remaking' focuses on the long roots of resource frontiers, underscoring the historical and spatial processes through which Myanmar's plural authorities have restructured diverse territories for accumulation and extraction from the pre-colonial period to the recent ‘democratic transition'. ‘Living with' resource frontiers bring attention to people's everyday lives, and why and how they adapt, resist, comply, suffer and profit from resource frontiers. In bringing together a diverse set of literatures with original empirical research, the articles in this collection offer analyses of Myanmar's pre-coup period that inform contemporary post-coup politics. Together, they demonstrate the material, affective, and embodied nature of resource frontiers as they are (re)made and lived with–in and beyond militarised spaces like Myanmar. © 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
ABSTRACT
The characteristics of the electoral process in European countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic are described in this article. Following the pandemic, the world has been adjusting to changes in the social and political realms that have occurred over the previous year. Because political institutions are accountable for decisions made, restrictions put on businesses and citizens, and the efficiency of the coronavirus fight, the electoral institutions, which face challenges in all European nations, receive the most attention. To do this, the author provides an outline of electoral geography as a popular tool for understanding political processes, analyzes elections as a credible institution required for power legitimization, and identifies electoral practices in the COVID-19 pandemic. Electoral geography methods and a comparative analysis of electoral practices are used in the research. Trust, it is decided, creates a climate in society, which contributes to the development and successful settlement of problems. In a trusting society, residents can choose from a variety of voting options, and elections become the most crucial measure of that trust. Electoral practices have been reflected in the pandemic restrictions. However, there is a clear trend toward the active implementation of remote electronic voting, which isn't flawless yet but is a strategic goal in current election campaigns. Simultaneously, greater demands are placed on the election process' security, control, openness, and transparency. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Against the backdrop of global trends, the main directions, methodological approaches, and the most striking research results in the field of geopolitics and political geography in 2011–2021 are considered. Political geography is being widely integrated with neighboring scientific fields. Russian political geography and, to a much lesser extent, geopolitics are based on a wide range of concepts known in world literature. Researchers in these areas are promptly responding to current foreign policy and other challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. Particular attention is paid to geopolitical publications about the pivot of Russian foreign policy to the East and the Greater Eurasia concept. Since the 2010s, the theory of critical geopolitics has become more widespread in Russia, operating not with speculative reasoning, but with large amounts of information analyzed by modern quantitative methods. The flow of studies of state borders and frontiers is growing. In such publications, a large place belongs to the works devoted to the growing gaps in the pace and directions of economic development between former USSR countries. Shifts in the topics of border studies are associated with a deeper study of security issues. Many works reflect the desire to preserve the positive experience of cross-border cooperation between Russian and European partners in a deteriorating environment. Most of Russian publications on regionalization at different spatial levels involve the Baltic Basin. The body of research on territorial conflicts and separatism is growing. Russian geographers and other scholars have made a significant contribution to studying the problems of uncontrolled territories and unrecognized (partially recognized) post-Soviet states. Conflicts around them are considered in relation to their internal differences, complex composition, intricacies of formation and identity of the population, influence on neighboring regions and in historical retrospect.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has overwhelmed health systems around the globe, and intensified the lethality of social and political inequality. In the United States, where public health departments have been severely defunded, Black, Native, Latinx communities and those experiencing poverty in the country's largest cities are disproportionately infected and disproportionately dying. Based on our collective ethnographic work in three global cities in the U.S. (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Detroit), we identify how the political geography of racialisation potentiated the COVID-19 crisis, exacerbating the social and economic toll of the pandemic for non-white communities, and undercut the public health response. Our analysis is specific to the current COVID19 crisis in the U.S, however the lessons from these cases are important for understanding and responding to the corrosive political processes that have entrenched inequality in pandemics around the world.