Using Critical and Progressive Geopolitics to Approach the Conflict in Syria

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The Syrian Civil War poses many important geopolitical issues, such as what to do about the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons, the fate of millions of displaced people and refugees and the appropriate role of the “international community” in resolving and preventing such conflicts. This paper delivers analysis of the history of the Syria and the civil conflict, geographical context, the current global system and conflict resolution in the context of progressive and critical geopolitical approaches presented by Dodds and Kearns. Synthesis reveals that the approach of critical and progressive geopolitics is sufficient to dissect the issues posed by the Syrian Civil War. However, in practice, it is impossible to avoid falling into the trap of what Donna Haraway describes as perpetuating cultural narratives.
Feminist scholar Donna Haraway points out that, through the lens of realism, historic studies of the global system have created certain narratives about international politics that are clearly more important than others. Our current political-ideological construction is presented with undertones of realism that Western Liberal Democracies were founded on and heavily influences our perspective on global issues. The threefold division of critical geopolitics attempts to unravel these constructions. Practical geopolitics refers to the “policy-oriented geographical templates used by political leaders such as President Bush as they represent global politics (Kearns, 2009).” Formal geopolitics is concerned with how intellectuals identify American realism in statecraft. Popular geopolitics considers the ways in which the everyday citizen makes sense of geopolitical issues produced and reproduced through popular c...

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...s the Taliban to eject American and Western military and is not sufficient to provide a peaceful, cultural and ethnic sensitive resolution.

Works Cited

(2013) “Middle East: Syria Profile”. BBC News http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14703995 Web retrieved: March 15, 2014

(2013) “Population by year, by province and territory (Number)”. Statistics Canada: Government of Canada. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo02a-eng.htm Web retrieved: March 15, 2014

(2014) “Top Sites." Alexa Top 500 Global Sites. Amazon. http://www.alexa.com/topsites Web retrieved: March 19, 2014

Donnelly, J. (2005) Universal Human Rights in the Theory and Practice. New Delhi: Manas in Collaboration with Cornell UP. Print.

Kearns, G. (2009) "Progressive Geopolitics." Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford Mackinder. Oxford: Oxford University. Print.

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