The Jean Monnet Network on Transatlantic Trade Politics is proud to announce a forthcoming special issue of the journal Geopolitics titled “Spatial Imaginaries and the Geopolitics of Trade”. The special issue emerges from the Network’s work in Thematic Area 3, including a research workshop at the University of Warwick in April 2024. The editors are Ece Özlem Atikcan, Achim Hurrelmann, and Gabriel Siles-Brügge. The special issue examines trade through the lens of spatial politics. It argues that trade is not just about economics, but also about how a polity places and legitimizes itself in a geopolitical setting. Focusing on the European Union and the United Kingdom, the contributors examine how trade agreements, as well as political contestation about them, construct spatial imaginaries that define geopolitical boundaries, connections, identities and hierarchies.
All articles of the special issue are now available on the journal website:
Atikcan, Ece Özlem, Achim Hurrelmann, and Gabriel Siles-Brügge. 2025. Spatial Imaginaries and the Geopolitics of Trade: A Constructivist Perspective. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2578629.
Forest, Benjamin, Juliet Johnson, and Zarlasht M. Razeq. 2024. Territory, Place, Flow, and Scale: Spatial Analysis in the IPE of Trade. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2024.2355208.
Stiller, Kenneth T. 2025. The Changing Boundaries of Trade Governance: The Cases of the EU and the UK. Geopolitics, Early View, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14650045.2025.2454907.
Richardson, Benjamin. 2024. Labour Provisions in UK Trade Policy: Mapping the Spatial Politics of the Trade-Labour Linkage. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2024.2373123.
Garcia, Maria. 2024. Transcending Geography: The United Kingdom’s Accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. Geopolitics, Early View, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14650045.2024.2411339.
Escalante Block, Elena. 2024. Trade, Politics, and Patronising Otherness: Analysing the EU’s Moral Authority in EU-Trade Agreements. Geopolitics, Early View, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14650045.2024.2411330.
Hamilton, Scott Michael. 2025. Politicisation and Place: The Determinants of Labour and Environmental Provisions in Preferential Trade Agreements. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2489456.
Happersberger, Simon, and Caroline Bertram. 2025. Reversing the Gaze in EU Trade Policy: Communities, Hierarchies and Agency under Trade and Sustainable Development Chapters. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2468767.
Hee, Stefan. 2025. When Trade Hits Home: Distributional Effects of Trade and Populist Voting Across Space. Geopolitics, Early View, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2025.2485209.
The European Commission’s support for these publications does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
