Geopolitical Perspective - Environment Relationship

From the perspective of man-environment relationship, based on the geographical fundamental debate between environmental determin-ism and possibilism, within the framework of geographical ideas and by efforts to focus on different geopolitical attitudes toward man - envi-ronment relationship, hence different political orientation, this thesis aims to define the nature and methodology of geopolitics.Part one traces the tracks of environmental determinism and points out its political orientation. Determinism holds strong belief in the decisive influnce of environment, so it extremely emphasizes the im-portance of the environmental factors such as territory, resources, posi-tion , and distance which are taken as vital origins of motive and power in international politics. And thus values are positioned.Part two examines the ideas of possibilism and its political inclination. Possibilists forsake determinist fatalism by being very aware of man's activity and free choice before environmental possibilities.Part three analyses the media between man and environment which are absoutely not independent of each other. And understanding can only be true through focusing on the dynamic evolution of the me-dia among which culture, social institution and technology are inter-twined and interacted. Geopolitics developes within the frame of these media.Part four tries to go into the methodology of geopolitics starting from the causality of man-environment relationship and preliminarily answers the nature and definition of geopolitics which is being defined as a science to describe and explain spatial differences in international politics while attaching same importance to both space and time process of the events.The last part sums up the above parts and gives conclusion.