Abstract

Geopolitics is a term traditionally used to refer to great power rivalries and the geographical dimensions of global political power. Sometimes used as a synonym for political geography it supposedly captures the importance of context and scale in considerations of politics, but links this to an awareness of the weighty matters of international politics (Dodds 2007). Indeed the utility of geopolitical reasoning in the speeches and pronouncements of politicians and pundits is often precisely in its apparent simultaneous invocation of intellectual gravitas and political acumen. Geopolitics is a matter of serious consideration in the halls of power, in the institutes for studying foreign policy as well as in political speeches that invoke geographical languages to specify the world in particular ways that have political effect.