Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-19DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103390
Andreas Malm , Kristoffer Ekberg , Christina Englund , Johanne Tagmose Grønkjær , Martin Charlier , Olivia Medin , Ståle Holgersen
{"title":"Green national paradox? How the far right turned Sweden from a (reputed) pioneer of climate mitigation to an obstructor","authors":"Andreas Malm , Kristoffer Ekberg , Christina Englund , Johanne Tagmose Grønkjær , Martin Charlier , Olivia Medin , Ståle Holgersen","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103390","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sweden has swiftly transitioned from being considered a progressive pioneer in climate mitigation to the forefront of late obstruction. The proximate cause was the general elections in 2022, after which the Sweden Democrats (SD) gained authority over the country's climate policies. This paper explores how the far right turned Sweden from a (reputed) pioneer of climate mitigation to an obstructor, and discuss if this transition is also an expression of a ‘green national paradox’. Through interviews with SD members and analysis of political documents, we observe how the SD <em>explicitly</em> and <em>extensively</em> exploits Sweden's progressive image to justify its obstructionist climate agenda. Focusing on energy and transportation policies, our study delves into the SD's perception of Sweden's global climate role and discusses how this is used by the far right in their policies towards climate mitigation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103390"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-09DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103388
Govand Khalid Azeez, Jonathan Symons
{"title":"Seizing the means of innovation: On the relationship between Marxism and ecomodernism","authors":"Govand Khalid Azeez, Jonathan Symons","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103388","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103388","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent efforts to articulate a “socialist ecomodernist” politics have spurred debate over the relationship between Marxism and ecomodernism. Degrowth-aligned socialists critique ecomodernism for its productivism and naive techno-optimism; ecomodernist socialists respond that ecomodernism's grounding of ecological politics in human material needs and focus on production's technological metabolism broadly aligns with historical materialism. This paper first outlines the homologies and contradictions between Marxism and ecomodernism and then turns to one area of potential dialectical synthesis: addressing capitalism's ecological crises requires a systematic account of technological innovation. To this end we put forward eleven axioms distilling Marx's philosophico-anthropological account of technology. These axioms reflect Marx's understanding of technological innovation as both a source of tension, since productive forces consistently outpace the social world and the relations of production, and crucial to transcending class societies. We argue that a Marxist response to climate breakdown must address how a communist movement will manage the unintended, indirect ecological impacts of production. Marxists have always understood that the proletariat must control the means of production in order to address class-based inequality. In the era of climate breakdown, Marxists must be equally explicit about technological innovation. If we are to protect nature while progressing toward Marx's “realm of freedom”, the task now is also to seize and reconfigure the means of innovation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103388"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144581069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-16DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103389
Emily Benton Hite , Sarah Posner , Jerry K. Jacka
{"title":"Violent environments and the low-carbon energy transition: Cautionary tales from Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea","authors":"Emily Benton Hite , Sarah Posner , Jerry K. Jacka","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103389","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Two decades on, we seek to expand Peluso and Watt's seminal 'Violent Environments' (2001) with the advent of decarbonization efforts to transition to a low-carbon future, which can have violent outcomes for residing communities. Our expanded political ecology of violence coalesces the violences of extractivism inherent in the transition, which manifests at varying tempos (slow to fast) and degrees of legibility (invisible to visible). Our research in Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea highlights the violences that progress in new environments shaped by historical processes of colonialism and imperialism, accumulation by dispossession, climate change, and decarbonization efforts, among others. We offer to reorient our theoretical agenda in the era of the 'capitalocene' that critically identifies, scrutinizes, and attends to the myriad forms of violence that are correlated with a low-carbon energy transition. In conclusion, we urge social scientists to invoke a thoughtful engagement with violences, recognizing conflicts embroiled in politicized decarbonization efforts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103389"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144633781","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-07-02DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103387
Andrew Brooks , Mark Griffiths
{"title":"Genocidal warfare in Gaza and the issue of balance in political geography","authors":"Andrew Brooks , Mark Griffiths","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103387","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103387","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103387"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145018481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-08-05DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103393
Sebastian van Baalen , Thao-Nguyen Ha
{"title":"Domains of dominance: Political territorial control and conflict-related violence in postwar Abidjan","authors":"Sebastian van Baalen , Thao-Nguyen Ha","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103393","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103393","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Why do some city districts experience more severe postwar violence than others? Existing research on both postwar and electoral violence indicates a relationship between “strongholds” and political violence, but often overlooks the violence's spatial character. We adopt a spatial perspective and view postwar violence in cities as part of a contest for political territorial control. Our argument is that postwar violence will be more severe in districts where the opposition exercises higher degrees of territorial control, which pushes the incumbent to use violence to dismantle opposition control, and the opposition to violently defend their turf. We put our theory to an initial test by comparing three districts in postwar Abidjan, drawing on a combination of georeferenced event data, field research, and secondary sources. The study highlights the close connection between space and postwar violence, and underscores the need for more spatial conceptualizations of strongholds in studies of political violence.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103393"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144771310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-09-01Epub Date: 2025-08-13DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103404
Xavier Guillaume , Jesse van Amelsvoort
{"title":"Playing empire at home: Het Beursspel and Dutch popular colonial geopolitics in the 1940s","authors":"Xavier Guillaume , Jesse van Amelsvoort","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103404","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103404","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How is the geopolitical imaginary of colonial spaces produced in popular culture? This question is at the heart of this contribution which seeks to analyse how board games, as a popular culture artefact, are a venue to research the modes by which such spaces are not only represented but also 'at play’. Games are a window to people's geopolitical imaginaries and practices not only through games' representations and imaginaries, but also their level of embeddedness and acceptance. Our article focuses on the social semiotics of a Dutch board game commercialised in the early 1940s – <em>Het Beursspel</em> [The Stock-Exchange Game] – and how its visuality and gameplay helps us to bring to the fore a central aspect of the still very little-known Dutch people's representations and engagements about the Dutch empire. The ‘empire at home’ was strongly internalized and taken-for-granted as a natural extension of the Netherlands as part of an imperial globalised political economy, even in a time when the Netherlands itself and its ‘Oost’ (contemporary Indonesia) were occupied by the Axis forces.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"122 ","pages":"Article 103404"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144831159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-19DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103379
Andreas Kallert, Simon Dudek
{"title":"The rural consolidation state. A critical examination of municipal consolidation strategies in Bavaria (Germany)","authors":"Andreas Kallert, Simon Dudek","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103379","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103379","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines the effects of austerity policies on financially weak rural municipalities in Germany, focusing on debt support programmes that make financial aid conditional on municipal efforts to increase revenues and cut expenditures. These programmes effectively enforce austerity at the municipal level. Drawing on Streeck's concept of the consolidation state and austerity urbanism literature, we develop the concept of the rural consolidation state to analyse the specific challenges rural municipalities face under austerity. To this end, we identify five characteristics that shape the possibilities and limitations of fiscal consolidation for rural municipalities. Based on a case study of Bavaria's debt support programme, <em>Stabilisierungshilfen</em> (stabilisation aid), we find that austerity operates differently in rural settings than in cities, often leading to distinct forms of discontent and embitterment in the countryside.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103379"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144313752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-25DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103361
Hanieh Molana
{"title":"Haunted Temporalities: Ghosts and the geohauntologies of the Iran-Iraq war and the production of the nation-state through martyrdom","authors":"Hanieh Molana","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103361","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103361","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) left enduring imprints on Iranian history, identity, landscape, and memory. The geographic remains and memories of the War can be easily observed in city landscapes, grave sites, museums, schoolbooks, city murals, films, and street names. But this paper seeks to geolocate the invisible traces of the War in a way that make an appearance today and how they are reproduced by the state. In this article, I argue for a reinterpretation of the Iran-Iraq War, its affective absence, and its geohaunting of a society's collective temporality. Through an ethnographic analysis of Tehran's National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defence, the paper illuminates how these hauntings permeate public consciousness, and shape collective temporality. I present the concept of geohauntology to highlight the central geographical aspect of invisibilities, hauntings, memories, and ghosts in geographical research and in the study of memory and remembrance more broadly. I conclude by analyzing the ways in which the Iranian state strategically curates and controls these spectral presences, while mobilizing the ghosts of the Iran-Iraq War as instruments of governance, national memory, and ideological reinforcement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103361"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471396","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Political GeographyPub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-07-16DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103357
Ekin Kurtiç
{"title":"Salvage work: The making of movable nature for post-submergence life","authors":"Ekin Kurtiç","doi":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103357","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103357","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article critically examines environmental salvage projects undertaken in northeastern Turkey by focusing on political and technoscientific actors who design and implement them. In 2012, Turkey's first project to salvage rare plants before their submergence in a dam reservoir was implemented in the Çoruh Valley. This was the first instance of resettlement and restoration efforts associated with large dams to encompass plant life. A few years later, when another dam upstream was to be built in the same valley, fruit trees and fertile soil were designated as valuable ecologies to be salvaged. By examining these state-led projects, this article examines the inextricable relationship between ruination and restoration, in which state officials and experts play a central role. I argue that state-led salvage projects legitimize and exacerbate the very ruination they claim to mitigate by portraying it as inevitable. The governmental practice of making nature movable is a salvage work that ends up moving nature out of the way of infrastructure and extraction projects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48262,"journal":{"name":"Political Geography","volume":"121 ","pages":"Article 103357"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}