Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Eric Gustavo Cardin (2015) A Expansão do Capital e as Dinâmicas das Fronteiras. Jundiaí: Paco Editorial, 235 pp. ISBN: 978-85-8148-831-8.

Intense structural changes have occurred in the Amazon region. New actors have a determinant role: organized civil society, provincial governments and international cooperation. Changes are perceived according to different interests at the global, national and regional scales, resulting in conflicts that turn it difficult to implement public policies. Today, the Amazon is not a mere frontier, but a region by itself, that demands a development consolidation policy. Strategies to attain this goal are: institutional enforcement, Science, Technology &Innovation and regionalization.

Bruno Tertrais y Delphine Papin (2018) Atlas de las fronteras. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 139 pp. ISBN: 978-94-376-3898-0.

This is a commentary on ‘The Principle of the New World Order’, a geopolitical essay written by Japanese Philosopher, Kitarō Nishida in 1944. This essay has been a source of postwar controversy over the philosophical justification of Japan’s involvement in the Second World War and the relationship between Japanese thoughts and Western colonial domination in Asia. As a text of Japanese formal geopolitics, the essay is a historical example to illustrate how Japanese academics geopolitically situated their country and themselves within the imperial rivalry during the War. The essay attracted not only criticisms that problematized Nishida’s approach to politics (imperialism and nationalism) and justification of the War, but also positive reviews that appreciated his proposal of a multicultural worldview countering Western modernity (i.e. the world dominated by the West). The translation of the essay is not easy to read but contains important insights into how to see the current world (dis)order under hegemonic powers.

This is a commentary on ‘The Principle of the New World Order’, a geopolitical essay written by Japanese Philosopher, Kitarō Nishida in 1944. This essay has been a source of postwar controversy over the philosophical justification of Japan’s involvement in the Second World War and the relationship between Japanese thoughts and Western colonial domination in Asia. As a text of Japanese formal geopolitics, the essay is a historical example to illustrate how Japanese academics geopolitically situated their country and themselves within the imperial rivalry during the War. The essay attracted not only criticisms that problematized Nishida’s approach to politics (imperialism and nationalism) and justification of the War, but also positive reviews that appreciated his proposal of a multicultural worldview countering Western modernity (i.e. the world dominated by the West). The translation of the essay is not easy to read but contains important insights into how to see the current world (dis)order under hegemonic powers.

The Sahel region is a crossroads of interrelated challenges that accumulate a broad typology of weaknesses: underdevelopment, poverty, insecurity, corruption, ethnic conflicts, fragile states and dependent economies. All these factors make it a friction zone that can lead to diverse conflicts. The objective of this article is to identify the geopolitical factors that characterize the development and human security of this frontier region, which are preventing the Sahel countries to avoid the consideration of fragile states. The result of this study indicates that the region will not be able to transform the vulnerabilities that characterize it into positive dynamics if one does not act on three levels: population participation, institution building and cooperation promotion.

María Eugenia Arguiano Téllez y Daniel Villafuerte Solís (coords.) (2016) Migrantes en tránsito a Estados Unidos. Vulnerabilidades, riesgos y resiliencia. Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 215 pp. ISBN: 978-607-479-228-7.

The First World War created no other principles for world formation than an abstract notion of national self-determination. Such an abstract notion could not solve the historical challenges the world faced, of which the outbreak of the Second World War provided evidence. Each state/nation must realize its world-historical mission to construct the world-historical world in which states/nations would be united to form ‘a global world (sekai-teki sekai)’ while maintaining their own historical uniqueness. For such historically unique entities to be united into the whole without losing their uniqueness, it would be necessary an intermediate process of forming ‘a particular world (tokushu- teki sekai)’. In this process, each state/nation transcends itself, connects to neighboring states/nations, and follows its own regional (supra-national) tradition at the same time, leading to the establishment of non-Western worlds. East Asian nations must realize their world-historical mission and construct a particular world based on the idea of East Asian culture. There must be a central player to tackle such challenges and no country but Japan would be in the position to play such a role.

The First World War created no other principles for world formation than an abstract notion of national self-determination. Such an abstract notion could not solve the historical challenges the world faced, of which the outbreak of the Second World War provided evidence. Each state/nation must realize its world-historical mission to construct the world-historical world in which states/nations would be united to form ‘a global world (sekai-teki sekai)’ while maintaining their own historical uniqueness. For such historically unique entities to be united into the whole without losing their uniqueness, it would be necessary an intermediate process of forming ‘a particular world (tokushu-teki sekai)’. In this process, each state/nation transcends itself, connects to neighboring states/nations, and follows its own regional (supra-national) tradition at the same time, leading to the establishment of non-Western worlds. East Asian nations must realize their world-historical mission and construct a particular world based on the idea of East Asian culture. There must be a central player to tackle such challenges and no country but Japan would be in the position to play such a role.