Conducting the Study of Geopolitics: Three Approaches
| Author | Tomasz Klin |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929915611906 |
| Published date | 01 May 2018 |
| Date | 01 May 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929915611906
Political Studies Review
2018, Vol. 16(2) 92 –101
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929915611906
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Conducting the Study of
Geopolitics: Three Approaches
Tomasz Klin
Abstract
In the past several decades, the study of geopolitics has experienced a true renaissance, which
is reflected in the three works reviewed in this article. All of the reviewed books embrace the
geopolitical domain in completely different ways, and each varies in its purpose, method, and
structure of reasoning. The paper critically evaluates the methodologies and merits of these works
and proposes ways to creatively use some of the concepts for further geopolitical analysis. The
books serve as a preface to an in-depth discussion on the state of contemporary geopolitics and
the reception of classical geopolitics.
Guzzini S (ed.) (2013) The Return of Geopolitics in Europe? Social Mechanisms and Foreign Policy Identity
Crises. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sicker M (2010) Geography and Politics among Nations: An Introduction to Geopolitics. New York;
Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.
Starr H (2013) On Geopolitics: Space, Place, and International Relations. Boulder, CO; London:
Paradigm Publishers.
Keywords
geopolitics, interpretivism, neoclassical geopolitics, behaviouralism and geopolitics, geographic
determinism
Accepted: 10 August 2015
In the past several decades, the study of geopolitics has experienced a true renaissance.
Since the 1970s, the interest of the Western academic world in spatial aspects of power
has increased. However, intellectual considerations under the label of geopolitics are still
developing via two different paths: one resting on state-centred ideologies, giving recipes
for policy-makers, and the second placing itself within allegedly scientific or critical
approaches (Dalby, 2008: 414–418). The former is reflected in the numerous works of
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Dugin or Robert Kaplan, which serve as prescriptions
for foreign policy. Speaking of these expanding neoclassical ideological approaches,
Mark Bassin stated that geographers had ‘no choice but to begin to confront them’
Institute of Political Science, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland
Corresponding author:
Tomasz Klin, Institute of Political Science, University of Wroclaw, Koszarowa 3, 51-149 Wrocław, Poland.
Email: tomasz.klin@uwr.edu.pl
611906PSW0010.1177/1478929915611906Political Studies ReviewKlin
research-article2016
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