SUİ433

School of Economics and Administrative Sciences \ Political Science and International Relations

3

6

Elective

English

-

SUI students can take as Elective course, students from other departments can take as Faculty or University Elective course.

The course can be analyzed in three main sections: In the first part, after briefly defining the concept of geopolitics, the perception of geopolitics in the last period of the age of empires in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries will be examined. This will be followed by an analysis of the German understanding of geopolitics developed in continental Europe, especially by German geographers, which laid the foundations for Nazi expansionism, and how the perception of geopolitics transformed during the two different periods of the Cold War following the Second World War. This historical background will be followed by a theoretical analysis of post-Cold War geopolitical perceptions, new geopolitical theories that criticize classical geopolitical perceptions, and geopolitical concepts such as power, space, and borders. The course will conclude with a discussion on the evolution of post-Cold War geopolitical thought in Turkey.

1. Klaus Dodds, Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
2. Klaus Dodds and David Atkinson (ed.), Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought, (London & New York: Routledge, 2000).
3. Colin Flint, Introduction to Geopolitics, (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).
4. John Agnew, Katharyne Mitchell, Gerard Toal (ed.), A Companion to Political Geography, (Malden & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003)

The aim of this course is to examine the discipline of geopolitics, which combines the disciplines of international relations and geography and investigates how states, the main actors of international relations, are positioned in the international system. In this framework, the birth of the concept of geopolitics and its evolution in a historical perspective, how different geopolitical theories perceive the world differently will be discussed and the meaning of geopolitical concepts such as power, space and borders will be emphasized.

1. At the end of this course, students will be able to trace the evolution of the concept of geopolitics over time through the works of different geopoliticians.
2. At the end of this course, students will be able to interpret the interaction between geography and politics.
3. At the end of this course, students will be able to analytically evaluate geopolitical transformations in global international relations.
4. At the end of this course, students will be able to evaluate basic concepts such as power, space and borders from a geopolitical perspective.

Week 1: Course Introduction and Introduction
Week 2: Geopolitics in Historical Perspective (I): Imperial (Civilizationalist) Geopolitics and Counter Reactions: Antecedents of British, American and Russian Geopolitical Thought
Week 3: Geopolitics in Historical Perspective (II): Naturalized Geopolitics: German and Japanese Geopolitics before and during the Second World War
Week 4: Geopolitics in Historical Perspective (III): Cold War Geopolitics before the Detente.
Week 5: Geopolitics in Historical Perspective (IV): Cold War Geopolitics during and after the Detant Period
Week 6: Geopolitics in Historical Perspective (V): Post-Cold War Geopolitics and Globalization Debates
Week 7: Critical Geopolitics
Week 8: New Theoretical Approaches to Geopolitics (Radical Geopolitics, Feminist Geopolitics, Post-Colonial Geopolitics, Post-Modern Geopolitics, Green Geopolitics)
Week 9: Basic Concepts in Geopolitics (Power, Space and Boundary)
Week 10: Geopolitical Perception in Turkey and Turkey's Geopolitics
Week 11: Critique of Critical Geopolitics
Week 12: Course Evaluation and Conclusion

• Midterm 40 %
• Final 40 %
• Participation 20 %