Today’s news isn’t anything special, but it got me thinking Geopolitics and colourful maps. Don’t worry, I can hear you shouting ‘please don’t start talking about something that sounds like a really boring volcanic eruption of jargon.’ Actually geopolitics like everything hijacking the word geography, involves people, the impact we have on our environment and the effect our environment has on us. And this is where Human geography gets really interesting.
I heard this morning that Israel has threatened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, potentially starting World War 3 in the process. This might sound like a tit-bit of news (you might not even have noticed it) but by Israel being geographically placed where it is, combined with millennia of religious tension and a psychotic dictator thrown in for good measure, you start to not only see trouble but the impact geography has on international politics.
And you don’t have to look to the Middle East to see the impact geography has on the political world. Look at this map of the UK from the 2010 General Election.
Draw a line at Birmingham and you have to squint to see Labour constituencies south of it and the ones you can see nation-wide are mostly in major conurbations. We now just accept this as the way things are, but why is the Labour heartland in Northern cities and Conservatives’ mostly in Midland and Southern countryside and towns?
The answer begins with a bit of geographical history: space in pollution generating, noisy, dirty cities was generally reserved for the labour force, whereas land in the countryside (and factories in the cities) were traditionally owned by the country gentry. Obvious right? But it means from the beginnings of both major parties the city-based Labour force and country-based traditionalists had their political environment and views affected by the environment around them.
This geographical map has of course changed over 200 years, but not much. Places like Liverpool and Doncaster may have been Labour heartlands from the party’s beginnings, but the breakdown of public services and manufacturing during the last Conservative government continued to foster socialist communities long after the factories and mines disappeared. So, knock on doors with a blue ribbon on in Kensington, Liverpool and you’ll be knocked out, knock on doors in Kensington, Chelsea and you could be looking at your Dad’s business partner.
For these reasons and others, the UK is pretty much cemented in this political map for generations to come, give or take those marginal constituencies where elections are now always decided. Who was that calling for voting reform because we’re stuck in a vicious political cycle? They should have taken Geography, then maybe the argument would have been more convincing.
I know this probably isn’t the most enlightening thing you’ve heard today, but I hope it’s made you think about the effect where you live has on the politics that surround you. Geopolitics is interesting, honestly, even if I had to add in a colourful map to make it so.
Geog Blog 