Gdzie leży Polska? Konstrukcja położenia geopolitycznego państwa w Europie Środkowej
Where does Poland lie? Construction of the geopolitical location of a country in Central Europe

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article, entitled “Where is Poland? Constructing the State’s Geopolitical Position in Central Europe”, is to introduce the concept of country location, understood as governmental policy, redefining the geopolitical position of the country and its role in international relations, as framed by the processes of European integration. The author starts the analysis with the presumption that public diplomacy and nation branding are the basic tools of countries’ location. The hypothesis of the study says that although the very idea of location is deeply rooted in constructivism as a theory of international relations, it is not at odds with the realist approaches. To verify this hypothesis, the author confronts a country’s location with the concept of the “spatial turn” in social sciences. She elaborates on the cases of Poland and the Baltic states. The author presumes that centrally located Poland as a middle rank country is a case that is suitable for location. The author implements discourse analysis, indicating these narratives in discourse on politics in Poland after 2004, which consisted of orientational metaphors, shifting Poland from the east to the west, and then to the north. Eventually, the author coins the idea of a swinging location, illustrating it with Poland’s going back to Central Europe, “between the seas”.

• Details
• Contents