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Geopolitics

General Information
Lecture and workshop (45 min break)
Teacher: 
dr Tomasz Waśkiel
Room: 
208
ECTS: 
6
Number of Hours: 
60
Wednesday 11:30 - 15:15
Preliminary requirements: 

Therefore, the following courses are necessary to complete to have sufficient preparation to the course: Introduction to Global Studies, History of Globalization, Contemporary International Relations, Religions in contemporary world, International cultural relations, Political and Economic Geography, Global Political Networks.The course is based on all previous courses realized during first 2 years of studies. Its key aim is to allow a student to have holistic understanding of complex interactions taking place in geo-space, where politics is dominating, but not exclusive factor. 

Course Description: 
  1. Introduction to the course: key definitions and relations with other/similar topics (geoeconomy, geo-strategy, political geography)
  2. Historical background of geopolitics 
  3. History of geopolitical thought – until 1989 
  4. Current trends and ideas in geopolitical thinking (e.g. Astropolitics) 
  5. Geopolitical schools of thought (Anglo-Saxon, German, French, Russian, Polish, Italian, Spanish/LatAm, Chinese) 
  6. Critical geopolitics perspective 
  7. Continental vs. sea/naval geopolitics 
  8. Geo-economy and new way of looking at IR 
  9. Introduction to geopolitical analysis 
  10. Sources of data for geopolitical analysis 
  11. The notion of geopolitical risk and its assessment 
  12. Forecasting in geopolitics 
  13. Presenting geopolitical analysis 
Aims of the course: 

Having completed the course student will have possessed the knowledge of a variety of ideas and concepts that have been shaping the political discourse about international relations, with strong (but not exclusive) focus on geopolitics – understood as a concept, theory, doctrine, science and ideology. In addition to that they will understand the following: geo-economics, geo-history, geo-culture. The knowledge on geopolitics will be complemented with the ability to analyze IR from geopolitical perspective, or through “geopolitical lens”, with some predictive capability. Key competencies to gain would be: the ability to understand and explain the current and prospective events of International Relations leveraging knowledge of geopolitics and its analytical skills.   

Teaching methods: 

-       lecture (using multimedia),  

-       group discussion with data and text analysis

-       case study analysis  

-       group work  

- individual work (essay, about 2500 words)  

Evaluation & Completion: 

-             Lectures: oral exam at the end of the course (based on 50 questions to be known at least 1 month before the exam date) – 2 questions per person, grade is based on average of the 2 answers (rated on 0-5 scale).  

-             Seminars: to be allowed to take the exam they will have to receive passing mark from seminar, based on  

(a)        course participation,  

(b) discussion & group work participation (each weighting 25% of the total mark);

(c) individual work (review of a book and an essay) – weighing 50% of the mark.

- to receive passing mark from seminar,  

(a) course participation, & (b) discussion & group work participation (each weighting 25% of the total mark);  

(c) individual work (review of a book and an essay) – weighing 50% of the mark. - oral exam at the end of the course (based on 50 questions to be known at least 1 month before the exam date) – 2 questions per person, grade is based on average of the 2 answers (rated on 0-5 scale). 

Basic Literature: 

Klaus Dodds, Global Geopolitics: A Critical Introduction, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Harlow, England, New York, 2005, 254pp. ISBN: 0-273-68609-7  

G. Ó Tuathail, S. Dalby and P. Routledge, A Geopolitics Reader. Second edition. 

Routledge, 2006 

G. Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (Volume 6 in the Borderlines series) and London: 

Routledge, 1996 

Colin Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, 2006, ISBN-13: 978-0415667739 

Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations, Second Edition, ISBN-13: 978-0742556768 

Tim Cresswell, Geographic Thought. A Critical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Additional Literature: 

S. Dalby and G. Ó Tuathail, eds., Rethinking Geopolitics. Routledge, 1998

J. Agnew, K. Mitchell and G. Toal, eds., A Companion to Political Geography. Blackwell, 2004

Colin Flint, S Kirsch, Reconstructing Conflict: Integrating War and Post-war Geographies, 2011 

Saul Bernard Cohen, Geopolitics of the World System, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003

George Friedmann, The Next 100 Years. Doubleday, 2009, ISBN 0-385-51705-X

Sami Moisio, Geopolitics of the Knowledge-Based Economy. Routledge, 2018

Academic journals (selection): 

Geopolitics, Political Geography, Herodote, Foreign Affairs, Global Politics, International Affairs

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