Module
Applied Political Geography

Type
Core GBM module (30 hours)

ECTS
5

UoW credits
10

Coordinator
Krzysztof Gluc, Ph.D.

Overall Aims and Purpose
This course emphasizes the spatial structure of political behaviour including the effects of the economic globalization process, the eruption of separatist movements among national minorities, rise of terrorism, crisis of the nation-state model and the importance of geopolitics to the formation of new political and economic orders. Students are exposed to the key elements in the political behaviour of actors, ranging in scale from the individual to the group on to the nation state and international organizations. This course presents an overview of the field of political geography and explores the centripetal and centrifugal dimensions of personal space, territoriality, regionalism, population growth and resource distribution, environmental degradation, boundary disputes, the rise and fall of nation states and civilization conflicts.

Course Content

1. Placing Ourselves in a Changing World
Course introduction. Traditional and non-traditional perception
of geography. Personal and professional understanding of changes. The field of Political Geography. Personal Space and Territoriality.
2. Classical Geopolitics
Power Analysis. Historical Concepts in Geopolitics. Contemporary Geopolitics. The Geography of War and Peace.
3. The Power and Politics of Maps
Geographic determinants of power. World Systems Theory/ Hegemonic Cycle. History and geography.
4. Territorial States and Boundaries
State, Nation, and Nation-State. The Emergence of States. Frontiers and Boundries. Core Areas and Capitals. Unitary, Federal, and Regional States. Anomalous Political Units. Nations, Nationalism and Identity – Nationalism in Changing Geopolitical Contexts
5. Geopolitics and International Relations
International Law. International Trade. Economic Integration. Global Intergovernmental Organizations. Regional and Subregional Organizations.
6. Cold War Geopolitics / Post Cold War Geopolitics
Historical implications. Bipolar World. End of History or Clash of Civilizations?
7. New Political Geographies of People and Resources
The Politics of Religion, Language, and Ethnic Diversity. The Politics of Transportation and Communications. The Politics of Population, Migration, and Food. The Politics of Ecology, Energy, and Land Use.

Reading list

Essential
Glassner, M. & Faner, C. 2004. Political Geography. Third Edition, John Wiley& Sons, Inc.
Huntington, S. P. 1996. The Clashh of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. New York.

Suggested
Agnew, J. 2002. Making Political Geography. Arnold Publishers, New York.
Kennedy, P. 1989. The Rise anf Fall of the Great Powers. First Vintage Books. New York.
Wood, W. & Demko. G. 1999. Reordering the World: Geopolitical Perspectives on the Twenty-First Century. Second Edition, Westview Press: Boulder.