Five theses on geoeconomics

Abstract

For over a century, spatialised economic representations of variegated political strands have found a convenient linguistic shell in the term geoeconomics. Since the 1990s, iterations of geoeconomics, usually citing the US-based strategist Edward Luttwak, have become subject to attendant scrutiny by geographers. However, the longer arc of geoeconomic postulates and reasoning, deeply entwined with key 20th century political moments and economic events has long been overlooked. Notably, nearly all of these arguments share a common desire to twist the economic spaces of capitalism towards particular national-political aims that nonetheless are planetary in reach. Invariably this means that geoeconomics’ entanglement with imperialism merits careful consideration. Alongside the range of other interventions assembled in this set, we therefore call for a broad and sustained effort to respond to the present ‘geoeconomics boom’, that is fuelled by a transatlantic, and increasingly trans-Pacific, think-tank industry. In these contexts, we chart vectors for a critical geoeconomics in the form of five condensed theses inviting further debate.