Definition of Geopolitics and its concepts

1. 6.53
ONE MORE THING
ABOUT
GEOPOLITICS
Ronn Joseph J. del Rio, LPT

2. CRITICAL
TURN IN IR
STUDIES
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3. POSITIVISM OF IR
STUDIES
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 Objective reality independent from the
observer
 Objective laws and rules of relations
among states rational choice is
possible
 Realism
 Liberalism

4. CRITICAL VIEW ON IR
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 What does critical approach critize?
 Not the preceding theories
themselves
 But their positivist back ground
 IR as both theory and practice are
not independent from the human
who develops concept and makes
decisions

5. GORBACHEV AND THE
TURNING POINT IN IR
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 “Ideological differences should not be
transferred to the sphere of interstate
relations, nor should foreign policy be
subordinate to them …”
 Refusal from Cold War geopolitics
 Didn’t follow the logic of hard realism
 On the one hand, it was a political
decision
 On the other hand, it changed global
international relations

6. CONSTRUCTIVIST
APPROACH
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 Alexander Wendt was the “The Father
of Constructivism or Socio-
constructivism”.
 “Anarchy is what states make of it:
The social construction of power
politics” (International Organization,
1992)

7. CONSTRUCTIONIST
APPROACH
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Are determined by:
• Historical experience
• Ideology, culture, religion
• Knowledge
 Construct and give meaning to reality

8. GENDER THEORY
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 Explain how gender factor influenced
international relations:
• From the very early ages IR were
driven by patriarchy
• Nowadays men and women have
more equal rights
• However, the sphere of IR is still
dominated by masculine
doctrines

9. POSTSTRUCTURALISM
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 Try to explain, how existing theories
and approaches push the world in a
certain direction
 Focus on discourses in written and
spoken texts, popular culture and
deconstruct the policy through
discourse

10. CRITICAL
APPROACH(ES)
IN
GEOPOLITICS
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11. GEOGRAPHY IS ABOUT
MAKING WAR
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 Yves Lacoste said in “La Geographie, ca
sent, d abroad, a faille la guerre”
(“Geography is first and foremost about
making war”, in 1976)
 Geography – a discipline that supported
imperial order overseas
• Geographical knowledge and the
study of of space – socially produce
• The need for a thorough revisionism
within the discipline of geography

12. HOW DEVELOP CRITICAL
GEOPOLITICS?
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 What does critical approach critize?
 Not the preceding theories
themselves
 But their positivist back ground
 IR as both theory and practice are
not independent from the human
who develops concept and makes
decisions

13. GEAROID O TUATHAIL:
TO CONCLUDE …
13
 Geopolitics – a problem solving
theory for the conceptualization and
practice of statecraft.
• This is how the world is
• This is what we must do
 Critical geopolitics
• How “geopolitics” and the
“geopolitical tradition” have been
textualized with certain meanings
at various times and in various
contexts.

14. ROLE OF MAN
IN
GEOPOLITICAL
KNOWLEDGE :
MAPPING THE
WORLD
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15. GEAROID O TUATHIL ON
MAPPING OF THE
WORLD
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 The influence of geography on foreign
policy because geography has
multiplicity of different meanings
 Geography is a historical and social
form of knowledge about the earth.
 To consult geography historically
• To view raw physical landscape,
• To read a book

16. GEAROID O TUATHIL ON
MAPPING OF THE
WORLD
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 Geography is social and political geo-
graphing
• Earth writing
• Cultural and political writing of
meanings about the world
 Geopolitics writing of geographical
meanings and politics of states

17. HUMAN FACTOR IN
MAPPING THE WORLD
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 Mapping developed alongside with
emergence of traditional geopolitics
 One of the ways to divide the world
into “us” and “them”
 Several methods of drawing maps of
the world
 Each method could not be
distinguished from the person that
used it

18. CRITICIZING OTHER
“HUMAN FACTORS” IN
GEOPOLITICS
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 Geopolitics – a bourgeois ideology
 Geographical materialism is
reduced to an intellectual weapon of
the bourgeois revolution and
worldwide imperialism
 Geopolitics – a spatial exclusion
 The ideological dimension in how
this is justified and explained and
understood by the population; the
”other” is seen as different if not an
enemy

19. CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS
AND HOW TO USE IT
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20. CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS
AND HOW TO USE IT
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21. THANK YOU
Ronn Joseph J. del Rio​, LPT
20-58212
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