Geopolitics and Political Geography: Why a Geographic Perspective is Essential in Defining the Field of Geopolitics

Since the creation of the modern academic discipline of geography in Western universities in the late nineteenth century a problematic relationship has existed between the fields of geopolitics and political geography. A concentration upon geopolitics by scholars such as Sir Halford Mackinder and Friedrich Ratzel gave prominence to the geographic approach in general and political geography in particular. However, the association of geopolitics with geographer Karl Haushofer and his exaggerated connections with the Nazi regime tainted the academic consideration of geopolitics, and political geography in general. Nonetheless, as academic consideration of geopolitics faltered after World War Two it was still practiced by governments and given attention by scholars with close ties to governments. In the 1980’s geographers returned to the topic of geopolitics through the approaches of critical geopolitics, feminist geopolitics, and geoeconomics. The reassertion of a geographic perspective into the understanding of geopolitics has been essential into transforming geopolitics from a tool of state elites to a means of understanding global political geographies. This paper explores the different assumptions, processes, and goals of a geopolitics considered through the lens of academic political geography compared to the approach of scholars wanting to inform the policy of a particular state. The benefits of the political geography approach are illustrated. These benefits include the identification of a multi-scalar, multi-process, contextualized and contingent geopolitics. The implications of a political geography approach to geopolitics are a field of inquiry focused on non-state as well as state actors; understanding the importance of connection rather than division; identifying contingency rather than historical determinism, and identifying the geopolitics of peace as much as the geopolitics of conflict.