Employing both an historic and contemporary thematic investigation and illustrated through a wide selection of local and regional case studies, this module considers how global geopolitics is imagined and practised. Using perspectives from human and political geography, this is explored through discussions focused on the history and evolution of geopolitics as a set of connected ideas, the issues and challenges associated with these ideas, and specific concepts that have emerged within geopolitical scholarship. We examine the origins and 20th Century dominance of classical geopolitics, and the emergence of critical geopolitics and its core concepts and contested ideas via the main body of work of leading theorists. We will engage with the social construction of political/spatial entities such as modern nation states and their connection to global political geographies and local events while at the same time thinking about the interactions between political spaces (nations, regions, cities), and international relations.
Lecture 16, Seminar 16
Group report worth 20%.
Group Presentation worth 20%.
Written Essay worth 60%.
Reassessment Method: Single instrument. 100% written assessment (2000 words)
On successfully completing the module, students will be able to:
Describe and explain in detail the main concepts of the emerging field of geopolitics within the broader context of modern political geography.
Reflect critically on geopolitical power and its many diverse expressions across a range of spatial scales
Use perspectives from human/political geography to evaluate classical and critical geopolitics as schools of thought
Apply the main conceptual insights from geopolitics to analyse contemporary global events as applied to different regions and nation states.
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