This document outlines the development of geopolitics theory over 5 stages: 1) The late 19th/early 20th century race for imperial hegemony by theorists like Mackinder, Mahan, and Ratzel; 2) German Geopolitik in the 1920s-30s led by Haushofer to justify German expansionism; 3) American geopolitics in the post-WW2 era emphasizing containment of the Soviet Union; 4) The Cold War period saw both state-centric theories focused on balance of power and universalist theories examining global economic and environmental systems; 5) Post-Cold War theories debated American hegemony, globalization, and clashes of civilizations.

1. Theme “Major International Relations Theories”
February 26th
, 2015
Anna A. Dekalchuk,
Lecturer at the Department of Applied Politics,
Higher School of Economics – St. Petersburg
DG 6.
Geopolitics and IR theories

2. DG outline
1. 8-minute test
1. What is geopolitics?
1. Stages of geopolitics development
1. Stage 1
1. Stage 2
1. Stage 3
1. Stage 4
1. Stage 5

3. 1. Multiple Choice Test
8 minutes, 10 questions, only
one correct answer per question

4. 2. What is geopolitics?
GEOPOLITICS IS…
•the theory of the state as a geographical organism or
phenomenon in space (Rudolph Kjellen, 1916).
•the new national science of the state,… a doctrine on the spatial
determinism of all political processes, based on the broad
foundations of geography, especially of political geography (Karl
Haushofer).
•a dogma,… the faith that the state is inherently entitled to its
place in the sun (Derwent Whittlesey, 1939).
•geography utilized for particular purposes that lie beyond the
pursuit of knowledge (Richard Hartshorne, 1939).

5. 2. What is geopolitics?
GEOPOLITICS IS…
•a combined study of human geography and applied political
science… dating back to Aristotle, Montesquieu and Kant
(Edmund Walsh, 1944).
•the study of IR from a spatial or geographical perspective
(Geoffrey Parker, 1998).
•examination of the geographical assumptions, designations and
understandings that enter the making of world politics (John
Agnew, 1985).

6. 2. What is geopolitics?
GEOPOLITICS IS…
•not having a singular, all-encompassing meaning or identity…
[I]t is discourse, a culturally and politically varied way of
describing, representing and writing about geography and
international politics (Gearold O’Tuathail, 1998).
•a mode of analysis, relating diversity in content and scale of
geographical settings to exercise of political power, and
identifying spatial framework though which power flows.
Where do these definitions differ? What definition do you like the most?

7. 3. Stages of modern geopolitcs
STAGE 1. THE RACE FOR IMPERIAL HEGEMONY
STAGE 2. GERMAN GEOPOLITIK
STAGE 3. AMERICAN GEOPOLITICS
STAGE 4. THE COLD WAR-STATE-CENTRISM VS. UNIVERSALISM
STAGE 5. POST COLD-WAR PERIOD

8. 4. STAGE 1
Alfred Mahan
(1849-1914)
Halford Mackinder
(1861-1947)
Isaiah Bowman
(1878-1949)
Friedrich Ratzel
(1844-1904)
Rudolph Kjellen
(1864-1922)
influenced by their era of intense nationalism, state expansionism, and
overseas empire building as well as by social Darwinism
What is social Darwinism?
Coined the term
in 1899

9. 4. STAGE 1
Friedrich Ratzel
(1844-1904)
o Of German origin.
o His works present a scientific basis for states
expansionist doctrines (take the rise of Germany at
that time into account).
o A state as an organism fixed in the soil whose
spirit derives from mankind’s ties to the land.
o Focus on space and location.
o Space is dependent upon and contributing to the
political character of groups living in the space.
o Location provides space with its uniqueness.
o Frontiers are the “skins” or peripheral organs of
states, reflecting growth and decline.
o When correlated with continental areas organized
under a single government, states generate vast
political power.

10. 4. STAGE 1
Halford Mackinder
(1861-1947)
o Of British origin.
o His works reflect his concern over
supremacy of transcontinental rail over ships
(UK) in terms of time and reach (=> the rise
of Eurasian continental states as a threat to
British world hegemony).
o Initially focus on advantages of centrality of
place and efficient movement of ideas,
goods and people.
o The world as a closed system => nothing
could be altered without changing the
balance of all, and rule of the world still
rested upon force, notwithstanding the
juridical assumptions of equality among
sovereign states.
o The league of Nations and the balance of
power.
o He was strongly committed to cooperation
among states, democratization of the empire
into a Commonwealth of Nations, and
preservation of small states.

11. 4. STAGE 1
Halford Mackinder
(1861-1947)
o 1904: the “Pivot Area” is the inner area of
Eurasia, characterized by interior or polar
drainage and unreachable for sea powers.
o 1904: The rule of the heart of the world’s
greatest landmass could become the basis
for world domination (Russia+Germany, or
China vs. Maritime world).
o 1919: enlarged his map to include Eastern
Europe as Inner Eurasia’s strategic annex.
o 1919: “Who rules Eastern Europe commands
the Heartland: Who rules the Heartland
commands World-Island: Who rules World-
Island commands the world”.
o 1919: Mitteleuropa is central and is as
accessible to Germany as it is to Russia.
o 1943: five balancing units within the world
system (North Atlantic – Midland Ocean;
Asian Heartland powers; Monsoonal lands of
India and China; South Atlantic; Mantle of
Vacancies – from Sahara to Central Asia).
o 1943: discarded his 1919 dictum.

12. 4. STAGE 1
Halford Mackinder’s
Pivot Area, 1904

13. 4. STAGE 1
Halford Mackinder’s
Hearltand, 1919

14. 4. STAGE 1
Alfred Mahan
(1849-1914)
o Of American origin.
o His works reflect his idea that sea movement
is superior to land movement, however, he
also sees Eurasia as the most important
component of the northern land hemisphere
(and Russia in particular).
o Critical zone of conflict is between 30th
and
40th
parallels in Asia, where Russian land
power and British sea power met (so, Anglo-
American alliance).
o The US lay within the Western half of the
twofold global framework – the Oriental
(Asian) being the other half.
o He promoted the idea of the end of the US
isolationism.

15. 4. STAGE 1
Isaiah Bowman
(1878-1949)
o Of American origin.
o He was Woodrow Wilson policy
adviser.
o The League of Nations is not in
itself the framework for a new
world =>
o There is a need for different
leagues emerging for functional
purposes, each designed to
advance cooperation plans that
would reduce the causes for
international trouble (there is a
need for coordinated
international action).
o Absolutely functional logic as
David Mitrani had.

16. 5. STAGE 2
Karl Haushofer
(1869-1946)
Rudolph Hess

17. 5. STAGE 2
Karl Haushofer
(1869-1946)
o Of German origin.
o Journal for Geopolitics (Zeitschrift fur
Geopolitik, 1924-1939) and the Institute for
Geopolitics at the University of Munich.
o Idea was to undo Versailles by restoring the
lost territories and rebuilding Germany as a
world power (and no pretense of
objectivity).
o Not the original thinker (Ratzel, Kjellen,
Mackinder).
o Lebensraum (living space) and autarchy –
slogans for conflicts and total war.
o Borrowed ideas: Ratzel’s large states,
Mackinder’s World-Island, and panregions.
o Doctrines blut und boden (blood and soil)
and rasse and raum (race and space) – Nazi
ideology foundations.
o Close links to Rudolph Hess (Hitler’s Deputy
Fuhrer).

18. 6. STAGE 3
George RennerNicholas Spykman
(1893-1943)
Alexander de Seversky
(1894-1974)
Attention to the North pole and air lanesRimland theory (Eurasian coastal
lands): “Who controls the Rimland
rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia
controls the destinies of the world”

19. 7. STAGE 4: state-centrism
William Bullit
(1891-1967)
“Domino theory”
(1947)
Henry Kissenger
(born 1923)
Balance-of-power
linkage
George Kennan
(1904-2005)
“The long telegram”
1946 => the
Truman doctrine
1947 and the policy
of containment
Zbigniew Brzezinski
(born 1928)
“Linchpin” states &
“Eurasian chessboard”
COMES FROM POLITICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

20. 7. STAGE 4: universalism
THREE APPROACHES TO UNIVERSALISTIC GEOPOLITCS:
o Polycentric, international power system (S. B. Cohen,
G.R. Chrone);
o Unitary, economically based world sysstem (P. Taylor);
o Environmental and socially ordered geopolitics (Y.
LaCoste).
COMES FROM POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

21. 8. STAGE 5: post-cold war
EARLY 90S:
o Francis Fukuyama’s ideas over universal, homogeneous world;
o American politicians-drive geopolitics of US global hegemony;
o Robert Kaplan’s geopolitics of anarchy (North-South divide and
the “Last map”).
CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICS:
o Brzezinski’s Chessboard (politics-driven state-centric disciple);
o Huntington’s Clash of civilizations (politics-driven state-centric
disciple);
o Critical geopolitics of Agnew and O’Tuathail (geography-driven
universalistic disciple).