The empty signifier of ‘connectivity’: how infrastructure reorders the world

Mohammadbagher Forough and Anna Fünfgeld

Review of International Political Economy, 2025, vol. 32, issue 5, 1593-1617

Abstract: ‘Connectivity’ has emerged as a global buzzword for large-scale infrastructure initiatives but remains under-theorised. This paper addresses this gap by conceptualising connectivity as an ‘empty signifier’, using China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and ASEAN’s Master Plan on Connectivity (MPAC) as primary case studies, alongside lesser-developed initiatives like the EU’s Global Gateway or those driven by the US and G7. Applying Laclau’s Political Discourse Theory (PDT), we theorise connectivity as a hegemonic empty signifier that universalises one specific developmental model (Chinese or Western) while subsuming alternative models. Drawing on PDT’s insights into ‘third way’ politics, we critique the ideological misrepresentation of development and connectivity as purely technical. To explore how connectivity initiatives produce new geographic constructs (e.g. ‘new Silk Roads’ and ‘Indo-Pacific’), we combine PDT with critical geopolitics, which reveals how politics is spatialised and space politicised. We analyse connectivity discourses along three analytical lines: (a) their strategic ambiguity, (b) their role in constructing geographies and identities, and (c) their misrepresentation of development and infrastructural connectivity as exclusively technical. In conclusion, we discuss how global connectivity initiatives are reordering the contemporary world and underscore the value of PDT for understanding IPE and International relations.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2025.2504457

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