Critical Geopolitics

Critical Geopolitics scholars have structured these heuristically in three intertwined dimensions: Formal, practical and popular geopolitics. This chapter summarizes the contribution of work in the critical geopolitics tradition to European Studies around three broad topics: the EU's self-representation as a geopolitical and “global” actor and, related, the perceptions of EU actorness abroad; critical perspectives on local and regional development and, more generally, space- and scale-making in EU policy; and a wide range of scholarship on the bounding of Europe – both symbolic (for e.g. the framing of the borders between East and West) as well as material, with critical work on border and migration management at and beyond the borders of the EU. Critical Geopolitics is well suited to account for such sensitivity and multiple perspectives, not just as a basis for understanding how the Union works, but also for the formulation of future, alternative (geo)political visions.