Towards critical geoeconomics?

Abstract

This intervention paper discusses the recent paper on the history of geoeconomics by Mallin and Sidaway. Some notes are made on the conceptual potential of critical geoeconomics vis-à-vis contemporary geopolitical scholarship. A particular focus is on the relationship between the concepts of geoeconomics and geopolitics. Conceptualising geopolitical and geoeconomic discourses as if they were distinct or even complementary geostrategic discourses – typical especially in mainstream strategic analysis and International Relations – risks reproducing the discursivism and noncritical outlook of state-centric geostrategic arguments.