The Nature Of Geopolitics: A Multidimensional Perspective

As a hybrid of geography, politics and international studies, geopolitics is theapplication of geography and geographical method to international relations. Geopoliticshas become an in-word as well as a basket of associated ideas. It is heterogeneous inmeaning and concept and is often subject to unscrupulous abuses. This dissertation tries toexplore the nature of geopolitics by exposing and restoring the order and consecutionintrinsic in the vast literature of geopolitical ideas through a multi-dimensional lens. The geopolitical ideas are rooted in two major traditions. One is the paradi,t,m ofman-environment interaction, a paradigm which is long established in geography; the otheris the paradigm of seeing state and international relations as geographical and spatial. Thecoining of the term 'geopolitics' was the application of, and to be more accurate, paved theway for the dominant methodology of the latter paradigm. For long the key method of thisparadigm is to study the spatially viewed state in the relationship between state and thewhole international system, i.e., the rest of the earth. This lays the foundation of the modemgeopolitical methodology, epistemology and ontology. Each of the two major paradigms isconsisted of various theoretical patterns. And most of geopolitical ideas are resulted fromgroupings and intersections of these theories. In order to understand the nature of geopolitics, this dissertation initiates fiveperspectives that are believed to mean the most frequent signifying of the term 'geopolitics'.The first perspective is about man-environment relationship that is explored throughman-environment interactions on the presupposition of logic distinguishing of physical andhuman geography. The second is the grand strategy. Grand strategy is the devising andpracticing of how national interest could be best fulfilled by exerting the comprehensivenational strength. The grand strategy perspective represents the engage manner of geopolitics, thus geopolitics is a basic instrument of national foreign policy. The grand-strategy-oriented geopolitics is firmly rooted "in its state-centric belief under which the state is viewed as the fundamental geographical unit and state has to compete and struggle in the international arena with its own domestic power and resources. The third is the realpolitik perspective. In this sense, geopolitics is the equivalent of the method of realism in international politics and this method is usually beyond ideology, moral and emotional dimensions of international political analysis and decision-making. The fourth is the structural perspective. The structural geopolitics refers to the study of the international relations structure in which world pattern and world order are the key words. When referring to geopolitics, people actually referring to world politics and the internationalenvironment in which ideas and decisions have to be both grounded and tested. Thusgeopolitics becomes a geographical coordinate of situations in which international politicalactors study and practice. In this sense, geopolitics is merely an overall method ofgeographical analysis of concrete soeio-political situations. The fifth is the critical post-modem perspective. Geopolitics is for sure an idealistic and discursive event and hasto be socially constructed. This simply opens the door for the post-modem critiques. Thisperspective uncovers the contextuality and the power/knowledge structure inherent ingeopolitical representations. What is involved throughout in this dissertation is the restoration of historicity,sociality and humanity in the exploration of construction of geopolitical ideas. So in thissense this dissertation as a whole can be seen as a critical analysis of the nature ofgeopolitics. The critically viewed geopolitics is a multi-level, multi-dimensional, andmulti-scalar plurality. This plu...