Editorial

As Geopolitics begins its twenty-fifth year, it is an exciting period of growth and transition at the journal. When the journal was founded, the dominant geopolitical debates were about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the possibility of a borderless world through globalization. However, from the start the journal turned a critical eye to the conventional wisdom. For example, in 1998 Simon Dalby presciently suggested that global apartheid rather than globalization was going to be the dominant system in the twenty-first century (Dalby 1998). Borders remain a central topic in the journal as scholars grapple with migrant deaths (Cuttitta 2018), border externalization, and expansionary wars that are redrawing political maps in Eastern Europe (Cottrell Studemeyer 2019; Toal 2018) and the Middle East (Meier 2018). The rise of China as a global geopolitical player both through geoeconomics (Sparke 2018) and traditional geopolitics (Woon 2018) has become a central topic for the journal. Increasingly, the geopolitical implications of climate change on resources, people, and political systems have become a key theme (Dalby 2018). Similarly, the rise of nationalist politics in many countries and the concomitant retreat from regional or global alliances will provide fodder for a generation of papers to come. In recent years, scholars have also considered the geopolitics of a range of unexpected topics and locations, including the emotional and affective spaces of humour (Van Ramshorst 2019), the geopolitics of television (Saunders 2019), migration and bribery in Angola (Åkesson and Orjuela 2019), and visas and the heteronormative order (Turner and Vera Espinoza forthcoming).

Over its quarter century in print, Geopolitics has had seven lead editors and several different editorial structures. Richard Schofield was the founding editor of the journal in 1995, then known as Geopolitics and International Boundaries (International Boundaries was dropped in volume 3) and he remained in that role until 1999. David Newman came on board as a co-editor in 1998 and served until 2014. From 1999 to 2008 John Agnew was his co-editor after which Simon Dalby joined him from 2009 to 2014. Virginie Mamadouh and Colin Flint took over as co-editors in 2014 and oversaw a period of substantial growth at the journal, with article submissions increasing by a factor of five during their tenure.

When Virginie and Colin stepped down in August 2018, it was clear that a larger editorial team was necessary to properly manage the volume of submissions to the journal.¹ Reece Jones, Professor of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai‘i, became the editor-in-chief of the journal and was joined by a team of five co-editors with different regional and thematic expertise: Scarlett Cornelissen, Professor of Political Science at Stellenbosch University (South Africa), Nancy Hiemstra Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University (USA), Corey Johnson, Professor of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (USA), Sarah Mills, Reader in Human Geography at Loughborough University (UK), and Takashi Yamazaki, Professor of Geography at Osaka City University (Japan). Polly Pallister-Wilkins, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) became the Forum and Review editor.

Every journal settles into a niche and for Geopolitics that has become special sections (4–8 articles) and special issues (9–11 articles). We find that these themed sections provide coherence and structure as the issue organizers and the authors are able to come together to say something broader than a single article is able to achieve. Over the years, there have been some outstanding and influential special issues including Blanchard and Flint (2017) on “The Geopolitics of China’s Maritime Silk Road.” Each issue of volume 24 included a special section on diverse topics including Nitoiu and Sus (2019) on “The Rise of Geopolitics in the EU’s Approach in its Eastern Neighbourhood,” Raza and Shapiro (2019) on “Politics on Border – Critical Reflections on the Pakistan-Afghanistan Borderland,” Deiana, Komarova, and McCall (2019) on ”Cross-Border Cooperation as Conflict Transformation: Promises and Limitations in EU Peacebuilding” and Hörschelmann et al. (2019) on “Peripheral Visons: Security, by, and for, Whom?” This year promises to continue the string of excellent special issues with Squire and Dodds (2020) “Subterranean Geopolitics” in this issue. We have two deadlines per year for special issue proposal consideration: June 1 and November 1. Guidelines can be found in the instructions for authors.

In addition to regular articles and special issues, the journal also publishes Geopolitical Forums and Book Review Essays. The Forums allow for a group of scholars to write short contributions around a shared theme. The quick review and production process for these provide a venue for publishing agenda-setting or important critical interventions in a timely manner. Recent Geopolitical Forums have included Allen et al. (2018) who brought together scholars to consider “Who Counts in Crises? The New Geopolitics of International Migration and Refugee Governance,” and Cairo et al. (2018) who wrote about “Territorial Peace: The Emergence of a Concept in Colombia’s Peace Negotiations.” Book Review Essays are longer pieces that make an argument about a particular field while reviewing several recent books such as Sidaway’s (2019) “Decolonizing border studies?” Proposals for Book Review Essays and Geopolitical Forums should be sent to Polly Pallister-Wilkins, the Forum and Review editor for the journal.

To celebrate our twenty-fifth year, we are happy to announce that we are expanding to five issues per year in 2020. This will allow us to accommodate more of the quality submissions we receive and to speed up the time from acceptance to publication at the journal. We also recently updated the cover art for the journal to reflect the contemporary focus. The field of geopolitics promises to continue to grow and will remain relevant in academia, politics, and the public life. We look forward to seeing what the next twenty-five years brings.

Notes

1. Virginie Mamadouh and Colin Flint stopped taking new submissions in August 2018 but have remained as editors through the end of 2020 to edit the papers and special issues that were already under review.