The Value of Space: Geopolitics, Geography and the American Search for International Theory in the 1950s

Abstract

members sought to conclude their works and consider the foundations of international theory, there was no reference to either geography or geopolitics. Wariness towards spatial thinking in international theory outlasted the group's discussions. Recently, Harvey Starr, a leading International Relations (IR) scholar, proposed spatial theory as a means to revive the conceptual foundations of the discipline of IR. On April 4, 2013, in his Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association in San Francisco, Starr advocated for a serious consideration of space and place in IR. 5 He replicated the common repudiation of 'deterministic' and 'immutable' geopolitics, in favour of a dynamic version. The juxtaposition of time and space, the involuntary and universal temporality and the voluntary localised spatiality of politics, could provide, for him, a sustainable theoretical renewal for IR. Starr's public call for spatial thinking in IR suggests that space is not a commonly used theoretical lens in the field today. His address proved that key concepts, notably 'space', 'place', and 'geopolitics', are still in need of 'introduction' into international theory. Most IR scholars todayregardless of their theoretical and normative assumptions-still do not think seriously about space. Why was space downplayed by the 1953 study group? As a heterogeneous group of scholars, their theoretical and normative assumptions were more diverse than the realist and behavioralist approaches that eventually predominated in IR. Their pluralistic and multidisciplinary background suggests that they could have been willing to think about space seriously. Yet they analysed geopolitical and spatial thinking from a misguided moralistic viewpoint that missed their theoretical potential. They identified two main problems with geopolitics: it was too deterministic, and it was too 'ideological', or in other words too closely tied to a rigid and intolerant worldview advocating expansionism and imperialism. Natural determinism and ideological commitment thus limited, for them, the interpretative and analytical power of geopolitics. Rather than investigating the full scope of geopolitical and geographical scholarship in American international studies at the time, the study group reduced existing literature to a simplistic narrative and missed an opportunity to integrate it into the nascent discipline of IR.

Kenneth Waltz's approach to reading classic political theory and why it matters

“…On a similar 1953 working group, set up by the Council on Foreign Relations, see e.g. Rosenboim 2019.…”