political geography

1. Md. Firoz Al Mamun
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Islamic University, Kushtia
Bangladesh

2. Introduction to Political Geography
• What is Geography?
• Geography is often referred to as the spatial science, that is, the
discipline concerned with the use of earth space. Geography might better
be defined as the study of spatial variation, of how and why- things
differ from place to place on the surface of the earth. Geography,
therefore, is about space and the content of space. The term ‘geography’
can refer to quite a wide range of ideas. As far as human’s activity is
concerned, it is often thought to involve four (overlapping) aspects:

3. • i. Space: Geographers study the spatial distribution of human activities and
institutions of all kinds and their causes and effects. They are also interested
in the influence of spatial organization on political, economic and cultural
processes.
• ii. Place: Geography involves the study of place: the character of places, the
relationship between people and their places, and the diverse role of places in
human activities.
• iii. Landscape: Geography focuses on the development of landscapes and the
meaning and significance of landscapes of people.
• iv. Environment: Geographers are interested in the relationship between
people and their environments, including their understandings of
environments and their use of environmental resources of all kinds

4. • All of the traditional concerns remain central to human geography.
However, all of them have been subject to considerable rethinking
and reformulation. In the past it was often assumed that space and
society were separate things which may have influenced each other
in various ways, but which could in principle be examined and
analyzed independently. More recently many geographers have
insisted that spatial relations are inseparable from society. All social
relations are constituted spatially, and there can be no possibility of
a non-spatial social science.

5. What is politics?
• Politics is the science of governments of states. It is also defined
as the art and practice of government of human societies. In the
common-sense view, politics is about governments, political
parties, elections and public policy, or about war, peace and
‘foreign affairs’. All of these are immensely important. However,
these common-sense assumptions are rather limited. They refer
to what is called ‘formal politics’. Formal politics is defined as
the operation of constitutional system of government and its
publicly defined institutions and procedures.

6. • The implication is that politics is a separate sphere
of life involving certain types of people
(politicians and civil servants) or organizations
(state institutions). The rest of the people interact
with this separate sphere in limited and usually
legally defined ways. Formal politics is seen as
something that can sometimes affect everyday
life, but is not really part of everyday life. But the
reality is that formal political system has much
more impact on our lives that are often realized.

7. Informal politics can be summed up by the phrase ‘politics is
everywhere’. A good example is the idea of ‘office politics’.
Office politics obviously does not have much to do with the
political system of governments and elections, but it is a common
knowledge why it is referred to as ‘politics’. It is about forming
alliances, exercising power, getting people to do things,
developing influence and protecting and advancing particular
goals and interests. Understood like this, politics really does seem
to be everywhere.

8. There is an informal politics of the household (parents attempt to
influence children, women to do more housework than men do). In
industry, some groups of workers do better out of industrial change
than others,(the aims of management and workers often conflict). In
the field of education, some subjects and points of view are taught
while others are not, come children benefit more from education than
others even of television (some people have more chances to have
their say on TV than others). In fact, if informal politics is to be
mentioned, there is no aspect of life, which is not political; politics is
really everywhere.

9. • Above all, politics is about people and their relationships to
others. Most people, most of the time, like to think of
themselves as individuals. Autonomous and capable human
beings, not subject to the whims and an individual may think
of himself as free, but his/her freedom is partial, limited and
dependent on other people and organizations.

10. • What is Political Geography?
Political geography is a branch of human geography. It is
concerned with humans and their activities, especially those
activities that are political in nature. The field of political
geography grew from geographers’ interest in the spatial nature of
the national state. Political geography is the analysis of how
political systems and structures from the local to international
levels- influence and is influenced by the spatial distribution of
resources, events, and groups and by interactions among sub-
national, national and international political units across the globe.

11. It focuses on, in one hand, how groups interact- particularly the ways
they manipulate each other: in pursuit of controlling resources and, on
the other, on how these social, economic, and political activities
determine the use of and thereby modify, the resource base. It is
simply the relationship between spaces and political processes which
is the focus of attention.
The political geography of international relations, then, often comes
down to control over key resources and flows of commodity such as
oil, a specific border crossing, or the “global commons”-and who is
best connected in the global system in terms of communications, trade
and ideal flows.

12. The Geopolitics come from the German word
‘Geopolitik’
which come from two Greek word ‘Geo’ and
‘Politikos’ where Geo means –Earth and Politikos
mean Pertaining to the state.

13. • Definitions of political geography given by some prominent political
geographers:
• According to Hartshorne (1954) it is defined as “the study of the areal
differences and similarities in political character as an interrelated part of
the total complex of areal differences and similarities”. It is concerned
with the spatial interaction between political and geographical
phenomena, and one of the most fundamental issues concerns the
location of the subject on the spectrum between geography and political
science.
• Cohen and Rosenthal (1971) stated, “… Without much attention to the
political, our geographical insights are likely to be limited and sterile.”

14. • … Political geographers are concerned with the geographical
consequences of political decisions and actions, the geographical factors,
which were considered during the making of any decisions, and role of
any geographical factors, which influenced the outcome of political
actions (Pacione). E.g. the Suez Canal and its contribution to the
importance of Egypt in world politics .
• … Humanistic political geography is concerned with uncovering the
dynamic social processes whereby the spatial dimensions of the natural
and the societal world are organized and reorganized into geographically
delimited and symbolically meaningful provinces by national and
transnational groups (Brunn and Yanarella).

15. • Political geography is a sub-division of human geography, is
concerned with a particular aspect of earth man relationships and
with a special kind of emphasis the relationship between
geographical factors and political entities. Weigert.
Political geography draws from other social and behavioural sciences,
such as political science, economics, history and psychology, but
concepts from physical geography also is important to the students of
the discipline. The non-human elements of the world, such waterbeds,
landforms, climates and resources, are important in the study of
political decisions and actions.

16. The two integral parts of political geography are spatial distributions
and political phenomena. Spatial distributions include objects that are
spread out from each other in space, on the surface of the earth. E.g.
Population, minerals, cities, rivers etc. Spatial distributions, then, are
collections (sets) of objects in which the objects are of a similar type,
with each object having a particular location on the surface.

17. Differences between Geopolitics and Political Geography
Geopolitics Political geography
1. The struggle over the control
of geographical entities with
an international and global
dimension, and the use of
such geographical entities for
political advantage.
-Colin Flint, Introduction to
Geopolitics,
Political geography studies and
teaches the connection between
spatial facts and political
conditions, events and
developments. -Friedrich Ratzel

18. Geopolitics is the study of how
geography affects
international power dynamics.
Political geography is the study
of how the political system
affects geography.
Geopolitics is concerned with
the ways in which geography
influences international
politics.
Political geography is concerned
with the ways in which political
systems shape physical space.
Geopolitics looks at the use of
space to achieve power and
influence.
Political geography examines the
ways in which political systems
distribute resources across
different places.

19. Geopolitics Examines the
relationship between nations
and states.
Political Geography Examines
the relationship between a state
and its territory.
Geopolitics looks at the
geopolitical implications of
geographic features and the
strategic importance of certain
locations.
While political geography
examines the distribution of power
in different places.
Geopolitics studies how nations
and states use geography to
their advantage.
Political geography studies how
different political systems use and
manage physical space.

20. Geopolitics considers how
geopolitical strategies can be
used to gain an upper hand in
international politics.
Political geography looks at
how political systems shape the
physical environment.
Geopolitics is based on
geography.
Political geography is based on
politics.
Geopolitics = How
Geography shapes Politics.
Political Geography = How
Politics shapes Geography.

21. Geopolitics is actually a
theory.
Political geography is actually
technique.
The field of geopolitics is art. The field of political geography is
science.
Geopolitics is a political
subject.
Political geography is a
geographical subject.
The space of geopolitics is
broad and macro.
The space of political geography
is detailed and micro.

22. Political geography concept nature & scope:
• Political geography is the field of human geography that is concerned
with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political
processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves
affected by spatial structures. Conventionally political geography adopts
a three-scale structure for the purposes of analysis with the study of the
state at the center, above is the study of international relations (or
geopolitics), and below it is the study of localities. The primary concerns
of the sub-discipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships
between people, state, and territory.

24. • According to Vladimir Kolossov, Political geography is an
academic discipline studying the interaction between political
activity of people and integral geographical space, which
includes physical, economic, social, cultural, and political
spaces.
• According to Oxford Dictionary of Geography, Political
geography is the geographical analysis of political studies
which concerns with spatial expression of political ideas, the
consequences of decision making by political entity and with
those geographical factors that influence political activities or
political problem.

25. THE CONCEPTS
• Political geography focuses on the twin ideas of territory and
territoriality. These are the defining concepts of political
geography as they bring together the ideas of power and space:
territories as spaces that are defended, contested, claimed
against the claims of others; in short, through territoriality. The
other two principle ideas in political geography are The State
and The Social Processes.

26. 1. Territory: Territory and territoriality are inseparably
interrelated. Territory is to be understood through its
relations to those activities we define as territorial: the
exercise of territoriality, in other words.
• Territoriality: Refers to how people use space (territory) to
communicate ownership or occupancy of areas and
possessions. Territories are spaces which people defend by
excluding some activities and by including those which will
enhance more precisely what it is in the territory that they want
to defend.

27. State:
• When we talk about state and its relation to various forms of social
power, we need to bear in mind that the state form is not a universal.
There have been societies which lacked states. Some of these exist at
the present time in, the jungles of Amazon or Borneo. Particularly in
less developed countries, the power of the state, its ability to penetrate
and regulate social life is weak.
• The Social Process and Political Geography:
No human science can ignore the relationship to nature, including, of
course, our own nature (as in the socialization process). Any social
process (or any action we perform in society) has a diversity of aspects.
People are irreparable social creatures.

28. They depend on others (e.g., the systems of communication like
language through which they acquire ideas about nature and how to
appropriate useful things from it; they depend on others through a
division of labor) Finally, the social process is always cultural,
always political and always spatial. It is always political because
some invariably have power over others by virtue of (e.g.) some
skill or knowledge lacking but important to others. And it is always
spatial because it requires connections over space with others and
(again) the material world in its entirety.

29. NATURE
Political geography is a diverse and ever-changing field of geographic enquiry.
Modern Political Geography Considers:
• Influential of political power on spatial region
• Argues states are organized into formal and informal regional groupings.
Political geography is a science, arts and philosophy, too.
It is a science because it follows the scientific methods of the
observation, the collection of the data, the hypothesis, the theory and
the model building ever open to the scientific scrutiny in terms of the
relationship among variables under the study and the validity of such a
relationship.

30. • It is an art, since it involves quite a subjective approach, too in
terms of the skillful organization of the field studies, the
collection of the data, the map drawing and the interpretation
of the results.
• It’s a philosophy in terms of ever trying to philosophize the
questions of the human beings and the environment
relationship in the political terms. It tries to frame the
postulations as to what, why, how and where a political
activity takes place in a particular corner of the globe or the
spatial point in the universe.

31. • Finally, among other things, it is interdisciplinary, flexible,
dynamic, friendly and far-reaching, too.
• Political geography has extended the scope of traditional
political science approaches by acknowledging that the
exercise of power is not restricted to states and bureaucracies,
but is part of everyday life.
• In particular, contemporary political geography often
considers:
• How and why states are organized into regional groupings,
both formally (e.g., the European Union) and informally (e.g.,
the Third World)
• The relationship between states and former colonies, and how
these are propagated over time, for example through neo-
colonialism.

32. • The relationship between a government and its people
• The relationships between states including international trades and
treaties
• The functions, demarcations and policing of boundaries
• How imagined geographies have political implications
• The influence of political power on geographical space
• The political implications of modern media (e.g., radio, TV, ICT,
Internet, social networks)
• The study of election results (electoral geography)
Political geography has been shaped by a variety of influences,
including intellectual currents within the broader discipline and
political events and practices beyond the academy.

33. SCOPE
• The scope, ambit or area of the political geography is quite
vast both in the temporal and the spatial terms, besides the
applicability.
• Although Hartshorne and Alexander opine that “the
geographer is concerned primarily with variations from place
to place rather than from time to time” yet a geographer can’t
escape studying the temporal aspects, too in terms of studying
the varied geographical patterns of the phenomena prevailing
at any given point of time on the Earth.

34. The Temporal Aspect/Scope
• With the emphasis on the current contemporary situation, it includes in
its domain the scope of going back into the times, since the ills of
many countries today have their roots in the past geographical
economic spatial patterns like during the great age of discovery, 30
million young people aged 15-35 years were removed from the Africa
during the Slave Trade Era which depleted the human resources of that
continent.
• It caused a lack of the significant political development in the Africa
whereas the slave trading nations like the U.K., Spain, etc., flourished
and built up the enormous monetary and the capital assets

35. • which helped them later to kick start and sustain economic/political
development in their own countries. This led to the spatial variation
in the economic/political development in that bygone era. But its
repercussions are still felt in the Africa where the economic/political
development has quite been low due to the bequeathing of no
significant economic/political development by their preceding
generations.
• Thus, one may divide the temporal aspect into following broad
categories: i. Ancient ii. Medieval iii. Great Age of discovery iv.
19th century v. 20th century vi. Contemporary vii. Recent viii.
Present

36. The Spatial Aspect/Scope
Political geography has enormous spatial scope which includes the
following aspects/points:
The Vertical:
It includes the spatial locations right from the ocean bed to the
mountain top and the related economic/political phenomena. It includes
the aspects like the asthenosphere, the lithospheric, the atmospheric and
the galactic. For example, there is a lot of extra-terrestrial scope. With
the opening up of the extraterrestrial scope, the political geography
shall have to take into consideration the availability of the
economic/political activities/possibilities in the outer space like the
Moon, the Mars, etc.

37. 3.The Political Activities Scope
The Production: It includes the studies of the production of all kinds of the
political activities at all the levels from the local to the international.
The Exchange: It includes the value addition to each political product, goods,
services created by the specialized services provided at each level of the handling,
including the packaging, the promotion, the financing and merchandising of the
political product.
The Consumption: It includes both the pattern of the political consumption and
the spatial aspects of the political consumer behavior.
The Developmental Scope: It includes the study of the spatial variation in
terms of the political development, i.e., the different categories of the
countries like the more developed and the less developed countries.

38. The Other Aspects/Scope
The Integrative Scope: It includes the study of the spatial
variation in the political activities in terms of an integrated
approach to all the spheres, i.e., the lithosphere, the atmosphere,
the hydrosphere and the biosphere. It includes the studies of the
underground spatial aspects like the asthenosphere, the sial, the
sima, the mantle and the core so as to determine their influence
on the political activities of the human beings

39. • The Global Scope: It has the global scope because of the
variations in the level and the inter-dependencies that exist in the
international political development. The whole Earth has become a
global system with the shrinking economic/political distance.
• The Theoretical Scope: It has enormous theoretical scope. The
theories are used to explain as to why the political activities happen
spatially, i.e., the Heartland, the Rimland and the Lebensraum are
the excellent examples. It includes the concepts in the analytical
work like the neighborhood effect.

40. The Interdisciplinary Scope:
• It takes the help of the other subjects like economics, agriculture,
climate, math, etc., to gauge the effects on the spatial variation in the
political activities, of the factors like the climate and the economy of a
nation, the macro forces associated with the transition of the world
polity from an authoritarian to a democratic base, the international
political system and the multinational corporations.
• The Methodological/Approaches Scope: Broadly speaking, the
following are the “15 Golden” or the main methods of/ways
of/approaches to the study of “the political geography” and any other
sub-discipline in the field of the geography or any other subject:

41. • The Descriptive, Analytical, Prescriptive
• The Empirical (inductive)/Normative (deductive)/Optimizer.
• The Deterministic (environmental/natural, human, nature-human)
• The Subjective/Artistic, Objective/Scientific
• The Holistic/Whole/homogeneity, Isolationist/Parts/Hetero-genetic,
Particularistic.
• The Systems, Systematic
• The Political: The Socialist, Capitalist, Communist, Democratic,
Fascist, Liberal, Neo-liberal, Neo-conservative
• The Activity, Principle
• The Quantitative/Mathematical, Qualitative/Behavioral/Humanistic
• The Temporal, Spatial, S patio-Temporal

42. • The Philosophical, Theoretical, Practical/Applicability
• The Ecological/Environmental/Consequential, Inter-
disciplinary
• The Gender, Racial
• The Civilian, Military
• 15. The Economics, Geographical, Econ-Geographical

43. Thank You