Grossraum and Geopolitics
Resituating Schmitt in an Atlantic Context
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7796985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew Specter (0000-0002-0946-3162, University of California, Berkeley, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 398-406 |
| Publication date | 2017-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History and Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/hith.12028 |
| OpenAlex | W2750604454 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Contemporary theorists of international relations and historians of empire have found utility in the spatial theory of “ Grossraum ,” or “great space,” that Carl Schmitt developed in the 1930s and 40s. This article asks whether Schmitt's concept of Grossraum can be fully disentangled from its German history—from the Nazi pursuit of Lebensraum in which it eventually culminated, but with which it is not identical either. I argue that Schmitt's Grossraum theory is neither merely a symptomatic reflection of the Third Reich's objectives, nor a free‐floating theory with strong potential for critiquing imperialism, but is best approached as an important moment in the transatlantic conversation among empires that unfolded between 1890 and 1945 about the sources, methods, and prerogatives of global power. It compares Schmitt with other figures in German geopolitics such as Friedrich Ratzel and Karl Haushofer in order to establish a genealogy of the distinction between land and sea powers, arguing that Schmitt's writings on Grossraum modernize and transmit to the twentieth century the most influential theories of political geography and geopolitics developed in the Atlantic world between 1890 and 1930
Archaeology · Context (archaeology) · Empire · Epistemology · Geopolitics · German · International relations · Nazism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
On the relevance of Carl Schmitt’s concept of Großraum in contemporary international politics
Securing conservation Lebensraum? The geo-, bio-, and ontopolitics of global conservation futures
Großraum versus Lebensraum . Die Interdependenzen geographischer, juristischer und rassenbiologischer Ordnungsvorstellungen
Everything Is Revealed in Maps
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |