General Geopolitics: Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Geographical Interpretation
Authors: Elatskov Aleksey 
Published: November 2024

This text is dedicated to the development of the general theory of geopolitics as a scientific discipline. The author discusses what geopolitics is, as well as its content and methodology, and investigates the principles of geopolitical zoning and modelling, the content and essence of geopolitical relations, geographical and geopolitical spaces, geopolitical thinking and geopolitical idealised models. Activity-geospatial and geo-adaptation approaches are utilised while considering geopolitical phenomena. The first focuses attention on the geopolitical relations existing between political activity and geographical space. This forms the methodological basis of the concept of the geospatial self-organisation of a society as a new theoretical paradigm regarding political geography and geopolitics. The book consists of the Introduction, four chapters and contains 41 figures, 9 tables and an extensive reference list.
The first chapter deals with the basic theoretical questions of political geography and geopolitics: the concept of geopolitics, the essence of politics and political actors, the concept and structure of geographical space, as well as geopolitical space as a set of geopolitical relations. The author describes several types of geopolitical relations with sensitivity to distance and borders. It has been proven that the “geopolitical relations” category forms the basis for both geopolitics and political geography theories.
The second chapter is dedicated to discussing the study of geopolitical space. The geo-adaptation (geoadaptation) approach is proposed for the study of geopolitics and related problems. Geopolitics is understood as a political type of geo-adaptation of society. The author argues that any geopolitical relations represent a kind of societal geo-adaptational relations. The author also discusses the concept of territory (in the Russian sense) and zoning principles. An extended typology of geographical regions has been proposed, which more accurately reflects specific geopolitical phenomena. Along with nodal (functional) and uniform (formal) regions, the author also proposes relational ones. In addition, the concept of geopolitical field as a field of geopolitical relations is described. The author examines the assessment types of fragmentation and integration of geopolitical spaces or fields, and also discusses the principles of research geopolitical location of a country.
The third chapter examines the essence, genesis, levels, and types of geopolitical thinking from the viewpoint of the proposed approach. The author notes the principles of critical geopolitics and discusses the place of geopolitics in the system of scientific knowledge and its relation to current political geography, as well as the categorical framework of scientific geopolitics, the principles of forecasting and expert assessment, and special education issues.
The fourth chapter discusses the essence of scientific geopolitical laws and principles of modelling. The author argues that the majority of "geopolitics laws" are statements that describe various types of geopolitical strategies. In addition, the author considers numerous idealised geopolitical models of natural-geographic, human-geographic, spatial-activity, functional-activity and chrono-geopolitical types in terms of the geo-adaptation approach. The effect of geographic isomorphisms in geopolitical models is also discussed. The fundamental concepts of physical geography and geomorphology may be used in conceptualising geopolitics.
The book is intended for scientists, researchers, and students in the field of geopolitics and political geography.
The book is available online at the electronic library system Znanium.com.