introductiongeopolitics is a word that conjures up images. in one sense, the word provokes ideas of war, empire, and diplomacy: geopolitics is the practice of states controlling and competing for territory. geopolitics had a history before the term itself came in to use in 1899 by swede rudolf kjellen. it is apparent that many of great figures in the history of political thought, from the ancie...

The Kosovo war of 1999 brought the checkered legacies of Russian and Western geopolitics back to the forefront of international relations. Central to the discussions of the Balkans is its century-old legacy as a Shatterbelt or Crush Zone. Though not identified by Saul Cohen as a Shatterbelt during the Cold War, the region is now located where the maritime (Western) and land power (Russian) geos...

The intersections and conversations between feminist geography and political geography have been surprisingly few. Feminist geographers’ forays into geopolitics and international relations within political geography have been relatively rare compared to their presence and influence in social, cultural, and economic geography. Likewise, only a few political geographers concerned with IR and geop...

Geopolitics is about how the world is understood politically at the planetary scale. It is simultaneously a term that refers to great power rivalries and the knowledge and representational practices that legitimate that mode of rule. Now in the face of climate change the premises for thinking about human politics have been dramatically changed, even if many political elites and scholars have ye...

This paper will focus on the geopolitical interpretation of religion in international relations. This dimension has historically related religion to politics and politics among nations. More specifically we will analyze the use of religion as a legitimating instrument of political violence, with special focus on the violence emanating from Islamic extremism and terrorism. History of humanity is...

Despite its usage in the media, and occasionally within academic writings, the term, “geopolitics,” normally is denigrated for its past associations with disreputable and discredited theories and ideologies. In only the rarest of instances has the term been raised to respectability and utility, although recently, geopolitics has gained some ground toward a modest legitimacy. The ambition of thi...