Geopolitics and Foreign

Policy Analysis (FPA)

Dr. Anderson V. Villa
Professor (POS116: PFR)
Department of Political Science
Learning Objectives
1. Explain what states want in foreign policy, and how states take decisions
on foreign policy issues, and how the process itself matters.
2. Analyze what states do in different areas of foreign policy (security,
diplomacy, economic).

3. Assess whether we are currently witnessing a transformation in the very

nature of foreign policy analysis by incorporating geopolitical discourse
into the field.
What is Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA)?

• Foreign policy analysis (FPA) is an

important sub-discipline of the
broader field of International
Relations (IR).
• Although IR encompasses the
foreign policy actions of individual
states, the range of phenomena
studied within IR is much broader.
• FPA has a narrower focus on
explaining the determinants of the
foreign policies of a single state.
Realism
Concept of “realpolitik” (Practical Politics)
• A system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral
or ideological considerations.
• A political system that's not based on beliefs, doctrines, ethics, or
morals, but rather on realistic, practical ideas.
• Politics based on practical objectives rather than on ideals
• The word does not mean “real” in the English sense but rather
connotes “things”—hence a politics of adaptation to things as they
are. Realpolitik thus suggests a pragmatic, no-nonsense view and a
disregard for ethical considerations.
Geopolitik (Geopolitics – politics of geography)
• Geopolitics as “the theory of the state
as a geographical organism or
phenomenon in space” (Rudolf Kjellen)
• “Geopolitics is the new national science
of the state…a doctrine on the spatial
determinism of all political processes,
based on the broad foundations of
geography, especially of political
geography” (Karl Haushofer)
• Geopolitics is “the study of international
relations from a spatial or geographical
perspective (Geoffrey Parker)
Contrasting Views
• Edmund Walsh espoused an American geopolitics based upon
international justice and that was “a combined study of human
geography and applied political science . . . dating back to Aristotle,
Montesquieu and Kant.”
• Robert Kaplan “geopolitics and the competition for space is eternal”
• Geopolitics as a mode of analysis, relating diversity in content and
scale of geographical settings to exercise of political power and
identifying spatial frameworks through which power flows (not as a
school thought).
Saul Bernard Cohen “Geopolitical Analysis”
• Geopolitical analysis does not predict the timing of events, crises, and
flash points that force radical changes in the geopolitical map. What
such analysis can do is focus the attention of policy makers on
conditions that are likely to bring about geopolitical change.
• “Geopolitics” is defined as the analysis of the interaction between, on
the one hand, geographical settings and perspectives and, on the
other, political processes.
• *Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ gê "earth, land" and πολιτική politikḗ
"politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human
and physical) on politics and international relations.
Four Pillars of Power
1) Overwhelming military strength and the willingness to use it
2) Surplus economic energy to enable it to provide aid and invest in
other states
3) Ideological leadership that serves as a model for other nations; and
4) A cohesive system of governance.

*Five (5) Hierarchical Order of Power (Polycentric/Polyarchic

International Geopolitical System)
Impact of Geography
• Geopolitical Map of the Future
• Geopolitics and Geographical Change
• Developmental Stages
• Globalization

Stages of Modern Geopolitics:

1) the race for imperial hegemony; 2) German geopolitik; 3) American
geopolitics; 4) the Cold War–state centered versus universalistic
geographical; and 5) the post–Cold War period.