Connectivity, Geopolitics, and Maritime Networks: The Infrastructural Power of Shipping Flows

The Covid-19 pandemic, the global infrastructure push and the connectivity-turn in global politics has repositioned infrastructure and the management of material and digital flows at the center of geopolitics. This has renewed interest and incentivized investments in transport infrastructure globally and has fostered a competition for influence and sway in third countries via transport corridor initiatives and connectivity partnerships. Through the usage of maritime network analysis combined with qualitative methodology, this paper showcases the different roles states play in governing shipping flows through connectivity strategies, trade policy, infrastructure investment and other policies. In doing so, this paper argues that the control over the movement of goods has infrastructural power qualities, as theorized by Michael Mann, in that it extends the reach of states beyond its territory. States have attempted to acquire this infrastructural power historically to economically outcompete other states but also to obstruct rival states through the denial of access to global trade lanes. During the first period of globalization and western hegemony after WWII this
infrastructural power over the flow of goods was used to expand and grow international shipping lanes, this trend is now changing and conflicts over connectivity are growing.