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enterprises (a crisis of over-accumulation);
or (iv) a large portion of the total labour
force cannot be profitably employed in the
production of commodities (a crisis of
unemployment or underemployment). These
various manifestations of crisis are closely
related, with one often leading to or accom-
panying another.
Human geographers, most prominently
David Harvey, have built upon and refined
Marx’s original work to develop a more coher-
ent and geographical theory of the dynamics of
capitalist crises. In work central tomarxist
geography, Harvey (1999 [1982]) has pro-
posed a threefold theory of capitalist crises.
His ‘first cut’ explains how the crisis tenden-
cies above are inherent to capitalism. His ‘sec-
ond cut’ focuses on their temporal
displacement via fiscal and monetary arrange-
ments that stave off crises by laying the seeds
of larger problems in the future (e.g. increased
household reliance on credit cards, or balloon-
ing national deficits). His ‘third cut’ explores
the ways in which geography can be used to
combat crisis tendencies (see also Harvey,
2001); for example, by massive investments
in new locations or the opening of newmar-
kets, and suggests that crises of capital accu-
mulation are culturally mirrored in crises of
representationthat materially affect the ways
in whichtimeandspaceare constructed and
construed (Harvey, 1989b) (see figure: see also
time__space compression). The stateplays
critical roles in the above processes.
Collectively, these theoretical refinements help
to explain how capitalism has survived and
expanded despite regular crises, contrary to
the predictions of classical Marxism. Similar
questions have been taken up inregulation
theory, which explores the role of minimally
necessary fits between narrowly ‘economic’activities (regimes of accumulation) and broader
social and political conventions and institutions
(modes of regulation) in producing and overcom-
ing periodic crises (Walker, 1995). Meanwhile,
ecological Marxism has sought to bringnature
into crisis theory, pointing out that severe envir-
onmental degradation and other failures of
environmental regulation may both precipitate
a crisis, and be important objects of political
struggle during one (O’Connor, 1998). jmSuggested reading
Harvey (1999 [1982], 2001).critical geopolitics The emergence of crit-
ical geopolitics withinpolitical geography
situates power not in the hands of a sovereign
state or individual, but in more relational ways
that traverse a spectrum of scales of social life.
Influenced by post-structuralism and
responding to the realist approaches of inter-
national relations in conventional geopolitical
discourse, critical geopolitics has not simply
contested the claims ofinternational rela-
tions(IR) theory and international political
economy (IPE), but taken them apart by
exposing the assumptions of each and challen-
ging the taken-for-granted categories of analy-
sis within IR in particular. Drawing inspiration
from the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques
Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, critical geopolit-
ics is a less a theory of howspaceand politics
intersect than a taking apart – a deconstruc-
tion – of the normalized categories and narra-
tives of conventional geopolitics.Suchan
approach challenges seemingly commonsense
understandings and practices of ‘peace’, ‘vio-
lence’ and ‘war’ within the state system
(Dalby, 1991).
Critical geopolitics is defined by its decon-
structive impulse (see deconstruction),crisisGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 121 31.3.2009 9:45pmCRITICAL GEOPOLITICS