Structure of geopolitics

The purpose of this article is to analyze the structure of modern geopolitics, the description of the views of the classics, the founders of geopolitics and modern geopoliticians on the structure of this science. The structure of classical geopolitics is represented by the concepts of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, the Swedish state scholar Rudolf Chellen and the German geopolitician Erich Obst. Classics of geopolitics do not formulate the structure of their science in a complete form, but the idea of it can be derived by analyzing their works. In particular, Ratzel concluded that to study and understand society, it is necessary to take into account not only its "soil" but also its "blood", to involve data not only from geography, but also from history, anthropology, ethnography, and cultural studies. These scientific disciplines constitute, according to Ratzel, the structure of political geography created by him, or geopolitics. In addition, Ratzel science, as he himself admitted, can be structured according to the spheres of nature, that is, is divided into: the geosphere (land area); hydrosphere (aquatic environment); atmosphere (air). Rudolf Chellen continued Ratzel's geopolitical approach and applied it to the study of states. The Chellenge model of the state involves five different aspects of it: the territory, the economy, the people, society and government, and five scientific disciplines exploring these aspects: geopolitics (the science of the state as a geographical area); economy policy (science of economics, where the state acts as a national economy); demopolitics (the science of the country's population); sociopolitics (the science of a society governed by the state); powerpolitics (the science of power, in which the state acts as a system of domination and control). Chellen defines the structure of geopolitics more strictly than Ratzel. It consists of topopolitics, morphopolitics and physiopolitics. Erich Obst structured the world on the borders of the land surface occupied by the colonial powers and on the population living in this area. As a result, he has a picture that characterizes the distribution of the surface and population of the globe between the great powers. The structure of geopolitics as a science, according to Obst, can be represented as its differentiation into two components: the geopolitics of the territories of states and, in general, the earth's surface; geopolitics of the population of the state and, in general, the population of the Earth. Modern geopolitics continues the traditions established by the classics. It continues the Ratzel-Chellen line of differentiation of scientific directions of geopolitics, it adheres to Obst's line on the differentiation of the world according to zones of influence of the leading powers. The modern world is now divided between the great powers not only by spheres (political, military, economic, cultural), but also by sub-spheres. In the political sphere, the sub-spheres of domestic and foreign policy are clearly distinguished, in the economic sphere, the sub-spheres of finance, production, trade, energy, transport, tourism, etc., in the cultural sphere, the sub-spheres of art, sports, fashion, etc. Modern geopolitics includes, in addition to classical environments (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere), the underwater environment, space and virtual environments of the Internet, radio, TV, printed materials. In the process of complicating international life, the emergence of other spheres and subsubspheres is possible. This manifests itself in the structure of the real world, as well as in the structure of geopolitics, as a scientific discipline. Thus, on the basis of the ideas of the classics in modern geopolitics, an environment-sphere structure has developed. Since its inception, modern geopolitics has significantly expanded the subject of its research, and today its structure includes such scientific subdisciplines as geohistory, geoeconomics, geoculturology, geoethnopolicy, geoconfessiology, geoconflictology, global studies, geofuturology, and others.

Keywords

Authors

References