Description
The most recent debates in the Political Marxist literature have revolved around the methodological emphasis on agency in class struggle, and the notion of “radical historicism” proposed by Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke. I advance that discussion here by exploring two key contributions of this “radical historicism” to a Marxist conception of Geopolitics. First, the notion of class as process and the genealogical conception of subjects, moving away from notions of consciousness and rationality derived from the logic of capitalism or from any other mode of production. Second, the different lens on the social production of space that effectively expands geopolitics beyond the narrow conception of “international” disputes between great powers. The main implication here is shifting the understanding of the state as the traditional core unit for analyses of geopolitics and international relations. By grounding it on long-duration analyses of state-formation as the outcome of competing spatial practices of accumulation – understood as geopolicies – it allows for a significant expansion of the empirical inputs that sustain theorisations of international relations. This results in a contribution to the debates about eurocentrism both in Marxism and International Relations, as it posits the necessity of historicist analyses of geopolicies that compete with those privileged by traditional accounts in both fields.
