New Trends in Political Geography

The Section explores new and innovative approaches to the issues dealt with in the fields of political geography and geopolitics. The aim of the Section is to present contemporary questions and methods towards research of space and spatial interactions. It thus aims at issues like border studies, territoriality, migration, violent (territorial) non-state actors, great power geopolitics, spatial analysis of integrative processes, state failure and so on. The Section is aiming at both practical as well as theoretical analysis of recently ongoing trends related to the process of re-bordering, border hardening, re-territorialization or deemed de-globalization as a reaction to: "The sense of external threat giving a rise to a desire to minimize or stop contact with an undesirable or dangerous neighbor (KOLOSSOV 2015: 45)" - stemming from the modern world- particularly from Russian federation aspiring for an exclusive sphere of influence or the unstable modern world are Europe´s geographic proximity. Response to both threats rests in the construction of physical barriers of various forms. Although the process of re-bordering is by far not a new phenomenon, but it was the migration wave of 2015 which brought to the EU: “…paradigmatic shifts: from drawing an optimistic perspective of a borderless world (or the ‘Europeanisation’ of national borders) to a focus on re-bordering, fencing and increasing securitization…” (KOLOSSOV, SCOTT 2013: 10). While two decades ago, the process of globalization geographically shrank the world, inter-state and intra-state barriers are rising again, triggered by various factors military threats to migration or terrorism. Although driving forces behind border hareding process are still being debated as e.g. Carter and Poast reject the impact of migration: “However, we do not find any support for the idea that a higher number of refugees flows are associated with building walls” (CARTER, POAST 2015: 25)“, the concept of Teichopolitics suggest a different storyline. Nevertheless, “relationships between borders and national sovereignty remain important to research debate as these are at the heart of contemporary geopolitical orders” (KOLOSSOV, SCOTT 2013: 4), which is currently witnessing the highest number of border barriers separating neighboring countries in the history of human kind. The three proposed Panels are: New trends in political geography; Borders and territoriality in the 21st century; Violent non-state actors in world geopolitics.