1. How do Geopolitics and Critical Geopolitics Help us Understand the World?

2. Geopolitics
Geopolitics – the interplay among geography, power, politics, and international relations.

3. Classical Geopolitics
German School
Ex: Ratzel’s organic state theory—the state resembles a biological organism with a life cycle, from birth to death. It requires nourishment, and its essential life- giving force is territory---ex. Nazi Germany
British / American School
Ex: Mackinder’s Heartland Theory

4. Mackinder’s Heartland Theory: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island Who rules the World Island commands the world”

5. Nicholas Spykman’s Rimland Theory:
Spykman thought that the Rimland, the strip of coastal land that encircles Eurasia, is more important than the central Asian zone (the so-called Heartland) for the control of the Eurasian continent.

6. Critical Geopolitics
Geopoliticians focus on explaining the underlying spatial assumptions and territorial perspectives of politicians.
Politicians are “intellectuals of statecraft”
They construct ideas about places, these ideas influence and reinforce their political behaviors and policy choices, and these ideas affect how the people process their own notions of places and politics. (pg. 246)
Gearoid O’Tuathail concludes that American presidents shape Americans’ (and international) perceptions of politics and spatial organization.

7. Gearoid O’Tuathail---American “intellectuals of statecraft” have spatialized politics into a world of “us vs. them”.
During the Cold War, President Reagan coined the term “Evil Empire” for the Soviet Union

8. Us versus Them
Terrorists “come from diverse places but share a hatred for democracy, a fanatical glorification of violence, and a horrible distortion of their religion, to justify the murder of innocents. They have made the United States their adversary precisely because of what we stand for and what we stand against.”
“They [the terrorists] stand against us because we stand in their way.”

9. Us versus Them
Terrorists “come from diverse places but share a hatred for democracy, a fanatical glorification of violence, and a horrible distortion of their religion, to justify the murder of innocents. They have made the United States their adversary precisely because of what we stand for and what we stand against.”
“They [the terrorists] stand against us because we stand in their way.”
President George W. Bush
“I’ve said in the past that nations are either with us or against us in the war on terror”
President William J. Clinton

10. Geopolitical World Order
Temporary periods of stability in how politics are conducted at the global scale.
bi-polar—two world powers-U.S. and Russia during Cold War
multi-polar—multiple states, or clusters of states, with power
Unilateralism- one state as a superpower (U.S.)
Will individual states remain the dominant actors in a future geopolitical world order?

11. What are Supranational Organizations, and What is the Future of the State?

12. Supranational Organizations
A separate entity composed of three or more states that forge an association and form an administrative structure for mutual benefit in pursuit of shared goals. * Examples: The United Nations and European Union - The League of Nations was the first attempt at modern Supranationalism… which failed.

13. The United Nations
Organization created to replace the League of Nations after WWII.
Needed the support of European Nations at the end of WWII.
Peacekeeping efforts around the world
Example: Somalia in the 1990s. The country was going through social, political, and economic problems which prompted for UN assistance.

14. Global Scale – The United Nations

15. Regional Scale – The European Union

16. EU Explained
Russian bases
How the EU works

17. How does Supranationalism affect the State?
identities
economics

18. NAFTA
North American
Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA Video
NAFTA Article

19. Shapes of states

20. Shapes of States
Microstate= a state or territory that is small in both population and area.

21. Shapes of States
Microstate= a state or territory that is small in both population and area.
Fragmented state= a state that is not a contiguous whole but rather separated parts.

22. Shapes of States
Microstate= a state or territory that is small in both population and area.
Fragmented state= a state that is not a contiguous whole but rather separated parts.
Elongated state= a state whose territory is long and narrow in shape.

23. Shapes of States
Microstate= a state or territory that is small in both population and area.
Fragmented state= a state that is not a contiguous whole but rather separated parts.
Elongated state= a state whose territory is long and narrow in shape.
rectangular state= a state whose territory is rectangular in shape.

24. Shapes of States
Compact state= a state that possesses a roughly circular, oval or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center is relatively equal in all directions.

25. Shapes of States
Compact state= a state that possesses a roughly circular, oval or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center is relatively equal in all directions.
Perforated states= a state whose territory completely surrounds that of another state.

26. Shapes of States
Compact state= a state that possesses a roughly circular, oval or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center is relatively equal in all directions.
Perforated states= a state whose territory completely surrounds that of another state.
Landlocked states= a state that is completely surrounded by the land of other states

27. Shapes of States
Prorupted state= a state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory.

28. Shapes of States
Prorupted state= a state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory.
Exclave= A bounded territory that is part of a particular state but is separated from it by the territory of a different state.

29. Shapes of States
Prorupted state= a state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory.
Exclave= A bounded territory that is part of a particular state but is separated from it by the territory of a different state.
Enclave= Country surrounded by another country.

31. Elongated

33. Compact

35. Exclave

36. Indonesia

37. Indonesia: Fragmented

39. Landlocked

41. Microstate

43. Rectangular

44. Lesotho

45. Lesotho: Enclave

46. South Africa

47. South Africa: Perforated

48. Videos Complex Borders Complex Borders 2 Bizarre Borders