Author Archives: Dr Gerard Toal

About Dr Gerard Toal

Irish born academic living in Washington DC researching geopolitical competition and territorial conflicts in post-Communist Europe. Author of CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS (1996), BOSNIA REMADE (w C Dahlman) and NEAR ABROAD: PUTIN, THE WEST AND THE CONTEST OVER UKRAINE AND THE CAUCASUS (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Fears and Fantasies about the “Flesh of the Nation”

Posted on November 25, 2014

Yesterday Adis Maksic defended his Ph D dissertation “Mobilizing for Ethnic Violence? Ethno-National Political Parties and the Dynamics of Ethno-Politicization.” Adis is a Sarajevo native who was fortunately able to come to the United States with his family after his family suffered a … Continue reading →

Posted in Affect, Bosnia, Bosnian war, Cartography, Current affairs, Democracy, ethnic cleansing, genocide, Georgia, nationalism, neuropolitics, South Ossetia, World political map | Leave a comment

Airspace in De Facto States: Remarks on Ukraine Crisis at the New School, 3 October 2014

Posted on November 18, 2014

Given the recent helicopter shoot down in Nagorno Karabakh, and the ongoing fighting over Donetsk airport, I’m posting below some remarks I made at the New School conference last month on the Ukrainian crisis. Point 2 addresses airspace. On Overlapping … Continue reading →

Posted in Current affairs | 2 Comments

Introduction: Virtual Special Issue on Russian Geopolitics

Posted on August 29, 2014

Elsevier has placed a number of its political geography articles on Open Access, in a Virtual Special Issue on Russian Geopolitics. Most, but not all, are from Political Geography. Below is the text of my introduction to the Issue, which was … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Geopolitics, Geography, Political Geography, Presidency, Putin, Robert Kaplan, Russia, state theory, World political map | Leave a comment

Social Survey Research in De Facto States After Crimea

Posted on June 17, 2014

I’m very happy to announce that I’ve a new home office, as a year long house extension project has come to an end. I will seek to renew my writing for this site, though I’m conscious that time spent writing here and … Continue reading →

Posted in Abkhazia, Caucasus conflict, Congress, Current affairs, De Facto States, Democracy, Geography, Political Borders, Political Geography, Putin, South Ossetia, World political map | Leave a comment

The Crimea Precedent & the Post-Soviet De Facto States

Posted on March 20, 2014

The well-known Political Science blog The Monkey Cage, now owned by the Washington Post (now owned by Jeff Bezos; we all work for Amazon now) posted earlier today a concise 3 graph summary of what our De Facto State Research Survey reveals … Continue reading →

Posted in Abkhazia, Armenia, August War, Caucasus conflict, Current affairs, De Facto States, ethnic cleansing, Five Day War, forced displacement, Geography, Nagorny Karabakh, Putin, Russia, Saakashvili, World political map | Tagged | 1 Comment

Bosnia by the Black Sea? Could Crimea be another BiH?

Posted on March 14, 2014

I have an op ed on this topic on the Open Democracy Russia website under the title “Could Crimea Be Another Bosnia?” http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/gerard-toal/could-crimea-be-another-bosnia-republika-srpska-krajina For Bosnia specialists, below is the source I used for the opening quote. Specialists will know I … Continue reading →

Posted in Bosnia, Bosnian war, Current affairs, De Facto States, Political Borders, Political Geography, Putin, Radovan Karadzic, referendum, Rhetoric, unilateral declaration of independence | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Global Conflicts. My Online Course Syllabus

Posted on January 7, 2014

    I’ve been teaching ‘global conflicts’ at Virginia Tech for over twenty years, initially as an undergraduate course called “Geography of Global Conflicts.” In 1995, I offered the course online for the first time. The course has evolved considerably … Continue reading →

Posted in ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, Geography, Kurdistan, Kurds, Nagorno-Karabakh, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Nagorny Karabakh, nationalism, Political Borders, Political Geography, South Ossetia, Turkey | Tagged | Leave a comment