Abstract
The sovereign state as a unit of the politico-spatial analysis of the world politics has been theoretically challenged for over three decades. Despite its opponents, developments during the last decade seem to show that it still remains the decisive category for the analysis of geopolitical units in time.
Yet, new politico-spatial forms of organisation - both violent and non-violent - are taking place all around the world with such a persistence, that they become difficult to overlook. This article sets out to propose an alternative vantage point, which will allow for the analysis of these two contradictory developments - sovereign-state dominance and the occurrence of novel political forms.
It integrates two concepts that are necessary to grasp the multitude of historico-geographical developments: the notion of nomos, which is understood as a politico-spatial unit defined by a sanctified way of life on a territory, and an analysis of various nodes and technologies through which power is exercised - chiefly the controlling mechanism of gaze - in order to allow for the governance of territory and its inhabitants. In this way, relevant politico-spatial units in the empirical terrain can be situated and identified.
The offered analytical framework allows for the discovery and analysis of hidden, mistreated or as-of-yet-ignored forms of politico-spatial organisations, spanning from local up to regional levels.