Political geography II: The end of territorial integrity

The post-World War II consensus on the inviolability of sovereignty and territorial integrity has changed dramatically in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. The relatively stable relations between sovereign states in the United Nations era have frayed and the liberal international order, the American and European dominance of global affairs upheld through the maintenance of the rules-based status quo, is under threat from different actors including China, Russia, Israel, and, perhaps surprisingly, the United States. This second progress report on political geography reviews the recent literature on geopolitical trends that challenge the primacy of the sovereign state system based on the mutual recognition of territorial borders.