Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the centre, the study of

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

(or

geopolitics Geopolitics () is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of State (polity), states: ''de fac ...

) above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.

History

The origins of political geography lie in the origins of

human geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography which studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which include urban sprawl and urban ...

itself, and the early practitioners were concerned mainly with the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. Militaries are typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with their members identifiable by a d ...

and political consequences of the relationships between physical geography, state territories, and state power. In particular there was a close association with both regional geography, with its focus on the unique characteristics of regions, and environmental determinism, with its emphasis on the influence of the physical environment on human activities. This association found expression in the work of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who in 1897 in his book ''Politische Geographie'', developed the concept of

Lebensraum (, ) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch movement, ''Völkisch'' nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s. First popularized around 1901, '' lso in:' beca ...

(living space) which explicitly linked the cultural growth of a nation with territorial expansion, and which was later used to provide academic legitimisation for the imperialist expansion of the German

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

in the 1930s. The British geographer Halford Mackinder was also heavily influenced by environmental determinism and in developing his concept of the 'geographical pivot of history' or the Heartland Theory (in 1904) he argued that the era of sea power was coming to an end and that land based powers were in the ascendant, and, in particular, that whoever controlled the heartland of 'Euro-Asia' would control the world. This theory involved concepts diametrically opposed to the ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of ''sea power'' in world conflict. The heartland theory hypothesized the possibility of a huge empire being created which didn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military–industrial complex, and that this empire could not be defeated by the rest of the world allied against it. This perspective proved influential throughout the period of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, underpinning military thinking about the creation of buffer states between East and West in central Europe. The heartland theory depicted a world divided into a ''Heartland'' (Eastern Europe/Western Russia); ''World Island'' (Eurasia and Africa); ''Peripheral Islands'' (British Isles, Japan, Indonesia and Australia) and ''New World'' (The Americas). Mackinder argued that whoever controlled the Heartland would have control of the world. He used these ideas to politically influence events such as the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...

, where buffer states were created between the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, to prevent either of them controlling the Heartland. At the same time, Ratzel was creating a theory of states based around the concepts of Lebensraum and Social Darwinism. He argued that states were analogous to 'organisms' that needed sufficient room in which to live. Both of these writers created the idea of a political and geographical science, with an objective view of the world. Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

political geography was concerned largely with these issues of global power struggles and influencing state policy, and the above theories were taken on board by German geopoliticians (see Geopolitik) such as Karl Haushofer who - perhaps inadvertently - greatly influenced

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

political theory, which was a form of politics seen to be legitimated by such 'scientific' theories. The close association with environmental determinism and the freezing of political boundaries during the Cold War led to a significant decline in the perceived importance of political geography, which was described by Brian Berry in 1968 as a 'moribund backwater'. Although at this time in most other areas of human geography new approaches, including quantitative spatial science, behavioural studies, and structural Marxism, were invigorating academic research these were largely ignored by political geographers whose main point of reference remained the regional approach. As a result, most of the political geography texts produced during this period were descriptive, and it was not until 1976 that Richard Muir could argue that political geography was no longer a dead duck, but could in fact be a phoenix.

Areas of study

From the late-1970s onwards, political geography has undergone a renaissance, and could fairly be described as one of the most dynamic of the sub-disciplines today. The revival was underpinned by the launch of the journal '' Political Geography Quarterly'' (and its expansion to bi-monthly production as ''Political Geography''). In part this growth has been associated with the adoption by political geographers of the approaches taken up earlier in other areas of human geography, for example, Ron J. Johnston's (1979) work on

electoral geography Electoral geography is the analysis of the methods, the behavior, and the results of elections in the context of geography, geographic space and using geographical techniques. Specifically, it is an examination of the dual interaction in whic ...

relied heavily on the adoption of quantitative spatial science, Robert Sack's (1986) work on territoriality was based on the behavioural approach, Henry Bakis (1987) showed the impact of information and telecommunications networks on political geography, and Peter Taylor's (e.g. 2007) work on World Systems Theory owed much to developments within structural Marxism. However, the recent growth in vitality and importance of this sub-discipline is also related to the changes in the world as a result of the end of the

. With the emergence of a new world order (which as yet, is only poorly defined) and the development of new research agendas, such as the more recent focus on social movements and political struggles, going beyond the study of

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

with its explicit territorial basis. There has also been increasing interest in the geography of green politics (see, for example, David Pepper's (1996) work), including the geopolitics of environmental protest, and in the capacity of our existing state apparatus and wider political institutions, to address any contemporary and future environmental problems competently. Political geography has extended the scope of traditional political science approaches by acknowledging that the exercise of power is not restricted to states and bureaucracies, but is part of everyday life. This has resulted in the concerns of political geography increasingly overlapping with those of other human geography sub-disciplines such as economic geography, and, particularly, with those of social and cultural geography in relation to the study of the politics of place (see, for example, the books by David Harvey (1996) and Joe Painter (1995)). Although contemporary political geography maintains many of its traditional concerns (see below) the multi-disciplinary expansion into related areas is part of a general process within human geography which involves the blurring of boundaries between formerly discrete areas of study, and through which the discipline as a whole is enriched. In particular, contemporary political geography often considers: * How and why states are organized into regional groupings, both formally (e.g. the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

) and informally (e.g. the

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

) * The relationship between states and former colonies, and how these are propagated over time, for example through

neo-colonialism Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony) through indirect means. The term ''neocolonialism'' was first used after World War II to refer to ...

* The relationship between a

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

and its people * The relationships between states including international trades and treaties * The functions, demarcations and policing of boundaries * How imagined geographies have political implications * The influence of political power on geographical space * The political implications of modern media (e.g. radio, TV, ICT, Internet, social networks) * The study of election results (electoral geography)

Critical political geography

Critical political geography is mainly concerned with the criticism of traditional political geographies vis-a-vis modern trends. As with much of the move towards 'Critical geographies', the arguments have drawn largely from postmodern, post structural and

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

theories. Examples include: * Feminist geography, which argues for recognition of the power relations as patriarchal and attempts to theorise alternative conceptions of identity and

identity politics Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, Race (human categorization), race, nationality, religion, Religious denomination, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, Socioeconomic status, social background ...

. Alongside related concerns such as

Queer theory Queer theory is a field of post-structuralist critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (formerly often known as gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term "queer theory" is broadly associated with the study a ...

and Youth studies *

Postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

theories which recognise the Imperialistic, universalising nature of much political geography, especially in Development geography

Notable political geographers

* John A. Agnew * Simon Dalby * Klaus Dodds * Derek Gregory * Richard Hartshorne * Karl Haushofer * Ron J. Johnston * Reece Jones * Cindi Katz *

Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later s ...

* Yves Lacoste * Halford Mackinder * Doreen Massey * Joe Painter * Friedrich Ratzel * Rachel Pain * Gillian Rose * Linda McDowell * Cindi Katz * Ellen Churchill Semple * Peter J. Taylor

References

* Bakis H (1987) ''Géopolitique de l'information'' Presses Universitaires de France, Paris * Harvey D (1996) ''Justice, nature and the geography of difference'' Oxford: Blackwell * Johnston RJ (1979) ''Political, electoral and spatial systems'' Oxford: Clarendon Press * Painter J (1995) ''Politics, geography and 'political geography': a critical perspective'' London: Arnold * Pepper D (1996) ''Modern environmentalism'' London: Routledge * Ratzel F (1897) ''Politische Geographie'', Munich, Oldenbourg * Sack RD (1986) ''Human territoriality: its theory and history'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

External links

* {{Authority control Human geography