Geopolitics
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"As this series has shown the idea of freedom that we live with today, is a narrow and limiting one, that was born out at a specific and dangerous time, the Cold War. It may have had meaning and purpose then, as an alternative to communist tyranny, but now it's become a dangerous trap." --closing remarks of the The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom (2007). |
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Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ gê "earth, land" and πολιτική politikḗ "politics") is the study of the effects of geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and; relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation or a quasi-federal system.
At the level of international relations, geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. These include area studies, climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and applied science of the region being evaluated.
Geopolitics focuses on political power in relation to geographic space. In particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history. Academically, geopolitics analyses history and social science with reference to geography in relation to politics. Outside academia, a variety of groups offer a geopolitical prognosis, including non-profit groups and for-profit private institutions (such as brokerage houses and consulting companies).Topics of geopolitics include relations between the interests of international political actors, interests focused to an area, space, geographical element or ways, relations which create a geopolitical system."Critical geopolitics" deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political/ideological functions for great powers during and after the age of imperialism.
According to Christopher Gogwilt and other researchers the term is currently being used to describe a broad spectrum of ideas, in a general sense used as "a synonym for internal political relations", but more specifically "to imply the global structure of such relations", which builds on "early-twentieth-century term for a pseudoscience of political geography" and other pseudoscientific theories of historical and geographic determinism.
See also
- The Wealth and Poverty of Nations by David S. Landes
- Balkanization
- Critical geopolitics
- Geopolitik
- Geojurisprudence
- Geostrategy
- Guns, Germs, and Steel
- Intermediate Region
- Lebensraum
- Natural gas and list of natural gas fields and Category:Natural gas pipelines
- Petroleum politics
- Political geography
- Realpolitik
- Space geostrategy
- Sphere of influence
- Strategic depth
- The Great Game
- Theopolitics
- Water politics
