Political Geography


 

Political Geography as a sub discipline in geographical sciences, studies political dimension and aspect of the geographical spaces. In other words, there are some phenomena in different geographical scales that have geographic/spatial nature which are combined with politics. So political geography has a combined and synthetic nature that has two main components, geography and politics. Territorializing by the people and states, the sense and interest of place, geopolitical issues, patriotism, citizenship, the states, borders, capitals, central places, city and local states, national states, regional states, global states, spatial patterns of elections, political organization of the space, political management of the space, national strategy, peace and security arrangements, environmental issues, geopolitical crises, international migrations, regional and global systems and so on, are representations of the combination of space and politics that should be studied by the political geographers. So geographic/spatial phenomena which have political nature, political value and political function, are studied by political geography. In addition to, that part of political geography which are tied and linked with power, are subject matter of geopolitics as a branch of political geography. In reality geopolitics studies the spatial phenomena and subjects which are resulted from the combination of geography, politics and power.
The development of such studies can make political geography and geopolitics as a practical and applied science in state management (optimal political management of the space) and foreign policies as well.
Political Geography considered and propounded by ?Anne Robert Jacques Turgot? French philosopher, geographer and policy maker, in 1751 at Sorbonne University under the title of a book in this subject. Also Emmanuel Kant, German philosopher and geographer, used and conceptualized the term of political geography in Konigsberg University, in 1757. Later on, this discipline was developed by the works of different scholars like Friedrich Ratzel in 1897.
Political Geography in Iran has more been developed after the Islamic Revolution at 1979. Tarbiat Modares University established the course of Ph.D. in Political Geography at 1986 by the professors, Dr. H. Shakooi, Dr. D. Mirheidar, and Dr. E. Ezzatti. Mohammad-Reza Hafeznia and Yadollah Karimipour were the first PhD students. Mohammad-Reza Hafeznia is graduated in political geography at 1990 as the first. Therefore, Tarbiat Modares University is the first in Iran for start of the M. A. and Ph.D. courses in Political Geography.