Alexandros Stogiannos | Ionian University (original) (raw)

Papers by Alexandros Stogiannos

Research paper thumbnail of Die moderne interpratation von Friedrich Ratzel und der geodeterministiche mythos: Der fall der orientalischen frage

Except of the research on the two initial questions, that is to say the influence of Friedrich Ra... more Except of the research on the two initial questions, that is to say the influence of Friedrich Ratzel's ideas in later geopolitical analytic systems and the erroneously attributed to him geodeterministic analytic optic, this research approached other on part questions, as: • the definition of Ratzel's Political Geography and the demand of its scientific character [§ 2.3.] • issues of methodological approach of his labyrinthine and extended over many scientific field work [§ 2.4.] • the redefinition of his geopolitical period [§2.5.] • his state perception and the evaluation of socially/cultural phenomena as factors of force [§3, §4, §5] • the biogeographical content of significance of Vital Space and his delimitation concerning Political Geography [§4] • the attitude towards the racist and Darwinian theories [§5, §6] • his worldview and confrontation with the cosmopolitism rising at a period of national conflicts [§5, §6] • his contribution in an interdisciplinary, positivis...

Research paper thumbnail of Adamantios Theodor Skordos: Griechenland im Kontext des östlichen Europa. Geschichtsregionale, kulturelle und völkerrechtliche Dimensionen (= Transnationalisierung und Regionalisierung vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Bd. 9), Leipzig:: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2016, 346 S

Research paper thumbnail of Η σύγχρονη ανάγνωση του Friedrich Ratzel και ο περί γεωγραφικού ντετερμινισμού μύθος

Research paper thumbnail of Die Boden – Staat Relation In Friedrich Ratzels Politisch-Geographischer Lehre

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der Versuch unternommen, die Boden – Staat Relation als elementar... more In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der Versuch unternommen, die Boden – Staat Relation als elementaren Bestandteil der politisch-geographischen Analytik von Friedrich Ratzel zu durchleuchten.Ziel ist es, einer oft behaupteten, zugleich aber auch fragwurdigen Interpretation nachzugehen, die Ratzels Weltanschauung im Bann eines naturalistisch bedingten analytischen Rahmens stellt und daher auch seine Politische Geographie als die Lehre von der absoluten Bodenbedingtheit der Staaten vorlegt. So wird im ersten Teil die Frage nach dem begrifflichen Inhalt des politischen Raumes in Hinsicht auf den kulturellen Zustand des jeweiligen Betrachters erforscht, wahrend im zweiten Teil die Bedeutung des politischen Raumes in Ratzels machtanalytischer Systematik veranschaulicht wird. Abschliesend werden Ratzels Ansichten uber die Mitwirkung physikalischer und anthropogener Faktoren in der der politischen Analyse und im politischen Entscheidungsprozess dargelegt.

Research paper thumbnail of Religion and politics: a complex geopolitical Greek-Russian relationship

Civitas Gentium, Dec 10, 2020

The paper highlights the complexity, that historically rules the Greek-Russian relation on both, ... more The paper highlights the complexity, that historically rules the Greek-Russian relation on both, state and Church level, resulting from a multi-lev-eled interaction among actors, whose institutional authority is not clearly de-fi ned, whereas spiritual and cultural purposes are interweaving with political aspirations and personal intentions. From an epistemological perspective two distinguishable patterns are demonstrated: a. a pattern showing how religious-cultural and political components interweave in the implemented policy and how cultural particularities are instrumentalized in order to gain direct political results, and b. a pattern of an primarily cultural procedure, developing irrespective of political or diplomatic tensions and discontinuities, while it establishing economic and cultural links of special gravity, generating in a long term a sig-nifi cant geopolitical effect.

Research paper thumbnail of A study of comparative clustering of EU countries using the DBSCAN and k-means techniques within the theoretical framework of systemic geopolitical analysis

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Clustering EU's Countries According to I. Th. Mazi's Systemic Geopolitical Theory Using K-Means and MPI

2015 IEEE 24th International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, 2015

As a geographical method of analyzing power redistribution, Systemic Geopolitical Analysis (accor... more As a geographical method of analyzing power redistribution, Systemic Geopolitical Analysis (according to Ioannis Th. Mazis theoretical basis) proposes a multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary research pattern, which embraces economic, cultural, political and defensive facts. The amount of data produced combining these attributes is extremely large and complex. One of the solutions to explore and analyze this data is clustering it and one of the most popular and useful techniques in order to group data within appropriate sets is k-means algorithm which clusters data according to its characteristics. The main disadvantage is its computational complexity which makes the technique very difficult to apply on big and dynamic data sets. In this study, a parallel version of k-means is used in order to cluster the European Union countries according to their attributes and the results obtained prove the importance of this research.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel and the Eastern Question: Flag Follows Trade

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

The Eastern Question, a term which was established in the vocabulary of national diplomacy since ... more The Eastern Question, a term which was established in the vocabulary of national diplomacy since the period of the Verona conference, is met in bibliography with two notions: on the one hand, through the wide historico-philosophical prism, as a struggle between eastern brutality and western culture, which was transformed into a struggle between Christianity and Islamism, and on the other hand, in a narrower sense, as a conflict between western countries and the Ottoman Empire, with the expectation of the latter’s collapse and with main object for each of the opposing European powers the control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, against rivals’ interests.

Research paper thumbnail of Final Conclusions

Historical Geography and Geosciences

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel’s Worldview and the “Positivist Circle of Leipzig”. The Meaning of Fr. Ratzel’s Law

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

As already mentioned in Sect. 1.4, Steinmetzler’s work is key to the analysis of Ratzel’s philoso... more As already mentioned in Sect. 1.4, Steinmetzler’s work is key to the analysis of Ratzel’s philosophical and worldview ideas. Steinmetzler distinguishes three periods, the second of which is characterized by Ratzel’s detachment from Darwin and Haeckel.

Research paper thumbnail of Social/Cultural Aspects as Factors of Power Contributors in Fr. Ratzel’s State Analysis and the Issue of Racism

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

The perception of the state as a phenomenon of new social life, and of Political Geography as a t... more The perception of the state as a phenomenon of new social life, and of Political Geography as a tool for the analysis of power, along with the distinction between nature-orientated [Naturvolker] and culture-orientated [Κulturvolker] people inevitably lead to the task of identifying the social and cultural phenomena as factors that determine a people’s power

Research paper thumbnail of Lebensraum: Bio-geographical Signifier with Political-Geographical Signified?

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

In the previous chapter, especially the presentation of the essay The state as an organism, a fir... more In the previous chapter, especially the presentation of the essay The state as an organism, a first approach of Ratzel’s Biogeography was carried out, with the note by Ratzel that that dependence of man [on water and air] demonstrates the closer relationship expressed by Biogeography, which places man among the creatures living on land, where together with mammals, reptiles, beetles, and snails, he exhibits very particular conditions of expansion, namely similar volumetric analysis and an identical way of dependence on land, except, of course, that man is to some extent able to intervene and transform nature.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel’s State as a “Social Organism”

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

Having roughly identified in Chap. 1 the pillars of geopolitical influence, which—according to Ra... more Having roughly identified in Chap. 1 the pillars of geopolitical influence, which—according to Ratzel—contribute to a state’s power, the aim of the second chapter is to explain the meaning of the ratzelian concept of state.

Research paper thumbnail of Die Förderung Der Idee Eines Interdisziplinären Beitrags Zur Geographischen - Analytischen Methode Der Geopolitik Vom Geographen Friedrich Ratzel

Friedrich Ratzel’s interdisziplinare politisch-geographische Analyse widerspiegelt sich in den na... more Friedrich Ratzel’s interdisziplinare politisch-geographische Analyse widerspiegelt sich in den nachfolgenden Systemen von R. Kjellen, N. Spykman und I. Mazis. An diese Tradition knupfend erforscht die griechische Systematische Geopolitische Analyse die Ausarbeitung einer haltbaren theoretischen Grundlage, welche die Kooperation aller sich mit den internationalen Entwicklungen beschaftigender wissenschaftlicher Felder ermoglicht und zur Entwicklung wissenschaftlicher Interdisziplinarer Analytischer Modelle (Interdisciplinary Analysis Models) fuhren kann.

Research paper thumbnail of Der Staat Als Erscheinung Des Neuartigen Sozialen Lebens In Friedrich Ratzels Politisch-Geographischer Analytik

Dieser Artikel zielt darauf, Friedrich Ratzels politisch-geographische Wahrnehmung des Staates hi... more Dieser Artikel zielt darauf, Friedrich Ratzels politisch-geographische Wahrnehmung des Staates hinzuweisen. Zunachst wird gezeigt, dass Ratzels Sichtpunkt frei von organistischen oder metaphysischen Elementen ist. Endlich wird es untersucht werden, wie Ratzel den Staat als Ausdruck des neuen gesellschaftlichen Lebens (new social life) wahrnimmt.

Research paper thumbnail of Final Conclusions

Research paper thumbnail of Friedrich Ratzel And The Eastern Question: Flag Follows Trade

The considered as certain collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century brought the G... more The considered as certain collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century brought the Great Powers into competition having as aim to increase their influence on the wider geographical area between Asia Minor and India. In the newly established at that time German Empire appeared the vision of exercising international policy, which was fulfilled with the creation – inter alia – of the Hamburg–Persian Gulf commercial axis, factor of penetration to the East. In contrast to the ultranationalist views proposing war solutions, Friedrich Ratzel chose the version of economic and cultural penetration.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel, Central Europe and “European Union”

The architecture of wider Central Europe, which aimed at a unified economic, political, cultural ... more The architecture of wider Central Europe, which aimed at a unified economic, political, cultural and transportational space (based on the priorities of each political subject), brought to life the concept of Central Europe.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel and Geopolitics

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

Although Friedrich Ratzel is inextricably linked to Geopolitics, modern day scientific discussion... more Although Friedrich Ratzel is inextricably linked to Geopolitics, modern day scientific discussions often reflect on two debatable points; the current relevance of the ratzelian thought and the contribution of the German geographer to the creation of a modern geopolitical analytical method. Although the vast majority of researchers accept Ratzel as the founder of modern Political Geography, opinions are wildly conflicting when the discussion comes to the relationship between Ratzel and modern Geopolitics.

Research paper thumbnail of Data-Mining Anwendungen In Der Systemischen Geopolitik: Eu-Staaten Clusteranalyse Ohne Das Vereinigte Königreich

Im theoretischen Rahmen der Systemischen Geopolitik wird der Versuch unternommen, Data-Mining Tec... more Im theoretischen Rahmen der Systemischen Geopolitik wird der Versuch unternommen, Data-Mining Techniken – vorerst Clusteranalyse – im Bereich der internationalen Beziehungen anzuwenden. Schon die fruhe Entwicklungsphase eines bestandigen Analysemodells fuhrτ nicht nur zu verfahrenstechnischen (z.B. Vergleich von Algorithmen) Schlussfolgerungen, sondern auch zur Andeutung geopolitischer Strukturmerkmale, deren Ausbau, Verfeinerung und Verifizierung noch bevorsteht. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde versucht, moglichen Strukturanderungen nach dem bevorstehenden Austritt des Vereinigten Konigreichs nachzugehen, indem Indikatoren der kunftigen EU-Konstellation einer Clusteranalyse unterzogen und der entsprechenden 28 EU-Staaten Zusammensetzung gegenubergestellt wurden. Ein besonderer Anstos war Frankreichs Erscheinung am Rand einer haufig auftretenden Deutschland- England–Frankreich Gruppierung und die Frage nach der zukommenden Ordnung an der EU-Spitze. Die neuen Ergebnisse deuten auf F...

Research paper thumbnail of Die moderne interpratation von Friedrich Ratzel und der geodeterministiche mythos: Der fall der orientalischen frage

Except of the research on the two initial questions, that is to say the influence of Friedrich Ra... more Except of the research on the two initial questions, that is to say the influence of Friedrich Ratzel's ideas in later geopolitical analytic systems and the erroneously attributed to him geodeterministic analytic optic, this research approached other on part questions, as: • the definition of Ratzel's Political Geography and the demand of its scientific character [§ 2.3.] • issues of methodological approach of his labyrinthine and extended over many scientific field work [§ 2.4.] • the redefinition of his geopolitical period [§2.5.] • his state perception and the evaluation of socially/cultural phenomena as factors of force [§3, §4, §5] • the biogeographical content of significance of Vital Space and his delimitation concerning Political Geography [§4] • the attitude towards the racist and Darwinian theories [§5, §6] • his worldview and confrontation with the cosmopolitism rising at a period of national conflicts [§5, §6] • his contribution in an interdisciplinary, positivis...

Research paper thumbnail of Adamantios Theodor Skordos: Griechenland im Kontext des östlichen Europa. Geschichtsregionale, kulturelle und völkerrechtliche Dimensionen (= Transnationalisierung und Regionalisierung vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Bd. 9), Leipzig:: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2016, 346 S

Research paper thumbnail of Η σύγχρονη ανάγνωση του Friedrich Ratzel και ο περί γεωγραφικού ντετερμινισμού μύθος

Research paper thumbnail of Die Boden – Staat Relation In Friedrich Ratzels Politisch-Geographischer Lehre

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der Versuch unternommen, die Boden – Staat Relation als elementar... more In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird der Versuch unternommen, die Boden – Staat Relation als elementaren Bestandteil der politisch-geographischen Analytik von Friedrich Ratzel zu durchleuchten.Ziel ist es, einer oft behaupteten, zugleich aber auch fragwurdigen Interpretation nachzugehen, die Ratzels Weltanschauung im Bann eines naturalistisch bedingten analytischen Rahmens stellt und daher auch seine Politische Geographie als die Lehre von der absoluten Bodenbedingtheit der Staaten vorlegt. So wird im ersten Teil die Frage nach dem begrifflichen Inhalt des politischen Raumes in Hinsicht auf den kulturellen Zustand des jeweiligen Betrachters erforscht, wahrend im zweiten Teil die Bedeutung des politischen Raumes in Ratzels machtanalytischer Systematik veranschaulicht wird. Abschliesend werden Ratzels Ansichten uber die Mitwirkung physikalischer und anthropogener Faktoren in der der politischen Analyse und im politischen Entscheidungsprozess dargelegt.

Research paper thumbnail of Religion and politics: a complex geopolitical Greek-Russian relationship

Civitas Gentium, Dec 10, 2020

The paper highlights the complexity, that historically rules the Greek-Russian relation on both, ... more The paper highlights the complexity, that historically rules the Greek-Russian relation on both, state and Church level, resulting from a multi-lev-eled interaction among actors, whose institutional authority is not clearly de-fi ned, whereas spiritual and cultural purposes are interweaving with political aspirations and personal intentions. From an epistemological perspective two distinguishable patterns are demonstrated: a. a pattern showing how religious-cultural and political components interweave in the implemented policy and how cultural particularities are instrumentalized in order to gain direct political results, and b. a pattern of an primarily cultural procedure, developing irrespective of political or diplomatic tensions and discontinuities, while it establishing economic and cultural links of special gravity, generating in a long term a sig-nifi cant geopolitical effect.

Research paper thumbnail of A study of comparative clustering of EU countries using the DBSCAN and k-means techniques within the theoretical framework of systemic geopolitical analysis

International Journal of Grid and Utility Computing, 2017

Research paper thumbnail of Clustering EU's Countries According to I. Th. Mazi's Systemic Geopolitical Theory Using K-Means and MPI

2015 IEEE 24th International Conference on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, 2015

As a geographical method of analyzing power redistribution, Systemic Geopolitical Analysis (accor... more As a geographical method of analyzing power redistribution, Systemic Geopolitical Analysis (according to Ioannis Th. Mazis theoretical basis) proposes a multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary research pattern, which embraces economic, cultural, political and defensive facts. The amount of data produced combining these attributes is extremely large and complex. One of the solutions to explore and analyze this data is clustering it and one of the most popular and useful techniques in order to group data within appropriate sets is k-means algorithm which clusters data according to its characteristics. The main disadvantage is its computational complexity which makes the technique very difficult to apply on big and dynamic data sets. In this study, a parallel version of k-means is used in order to cluster the European Union countries according to their attributes and the results obtained prove the importance of this research.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel and the Eastern Question: Flag Follows Trade

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

The Eastern Question, a term which was established in the vocabulary of national diplomacy since ... more The Eastern Question, a term which was established in the vocabulary of national diplomacy since the period of the Verona conference, is met in bibliography with two notions: on the one hand, through the wide historico-philosophical prism, as a struggle between eastern brutality and western culture, which was transformed into a struggle between Christianity and Islamism, and on the other hand, in a narrower sense, as a conflict between western countries and the Ottoman Empire, with the expectation of the latter’s collapse and with main object for each of the opposing European powers the control of the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, against rivals’ interests.

Research paper thumbnail of Final Conclusions

Historical Geography and Geosciences

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel’s Worldview and the “Positivist Circle of Leipzig”. The Meaning of Fr. Ratzel’s Law

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

As already mentioned in Sect. 1.4, Steinmetzler’s work is key to the analysis of Ratzel’s philoso... more As already mentioned in Sect. 1.4, Steinmetzler’s work is key to the analysis of Ratzel’s philosophical and worldview ideas. Steinmetzler distinguishes three periods, the second of which is characterized by Ratzel’s detachment from Darwin and Haeckel.

Research paper thumbnail of Social/Cultural Aspects as Factors of Power Contributors in Fr. Ratzel’s State Analysis and the Issue of Racism

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

The perception of the state as a phenomenon of new social life, and of Political Geography as a t... more The perception of the state as a phenomenon of new social life, and of Political Geography as a tool for the analysis of power, along with the distinction between nature-orientated [Naturvolker] and culture-orientated [Κulturvolker] people inevitably lead to the task of identifying the social and cultural phenomena as factors that determine a people’s power

Research paper thumbnail of Lebensraum: Bio-geographical Signifier with Political-Geographical Signified?

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

In the previous chapter, especially the presentation of the essay The state as an organism, a fir... more In the previous chapter, especially the presentation of the essay The state as an organism, a first approach of Ratzel’s Biogeography was carried out, with the note by Ratzel that that dependence of man [on water and air] demonstrates the closer relationship expressed by Biogeography, which places man among the creatures living on land, where together with mammals, reptiles, beetles, and snails, he exhibits very particular conditions of expansion, namely similar volumetric analysis and an identical way of dependence on land, except, of course, that man is to some extent able to intervene and transform nature.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel’s State as a “Social Organism”

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

Having roughly identified in Chap. 1 the pillars of geopolitical influence, which—according to Ra... more Having roughly identified in Chap. 1 the pillars of geopolitical influence, which—according to Ratzel—contribute to a state’s power, the aim of the second chapter is to explain the meaning of the ratzelian concept of state.

Research paper thumbnail of Die Förderung Der Idee Eines Interdisziplinären Beitrags Zur Geographischen - Analytischen Methode Der Geopolitik Vom Geographen Friedrich Ratzel

Friedrich Ratzel’s interdisziplinare politisch-geographische Analyse widerspiegelt sich in den na... more Friedrich Ratzel’s interdisziplinare politisch-geographische Analyse widerspiegelt sich in den nachfolgenden Systemen von R. Kjellen, N. Spykman und I. Mazis. An diese Tradition knupfend erforscht die griechische Systematische Geopolitische Analyse die Ausarbeitung einer haltbaren theoretischen Grundlage, welche die Kooperation aller sich mit den internationalen Entwicklungen beschaftigender wissenschaftlicher Felder ermoglicht und zur Entwicklung wissenschaftlicher Interdisziplinarer Analytischer Modelle (Interdisciplinary Analysis Models) fuhren kann.

Research paper thumbnail of Der Staat Als Erscheinung Des Neuartigen Sozialen Lebens In Friedrich Ratzels Politisch-Geographischer Analytik

Dieser Artikel zielt darauf, Friedrich Ratzels politisch-geographische Wahrnehmung des Staates hi... more Dieser Artikel zielt darauf, Friedrich Ratzels politisch-geographische Wahrnehmung des Staates hinzuweisen. Zunachst wird gezeigt, dass Ratzels Sichtpunkt frei von organistischen oder metaphysischen Elementen ist. Endlich wird es untersucht werden, wie Ratzel den Staat als Ausdruck des neuen gesellschaftlichen Lebens (new social life) wahrnimmt.

Research paper thumbnail of Final Conclusions

Research paper thumbnail of Friedrich Ratzel And The Eastern Question: Flag Follows Trade

The considered as certain collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century brought the G... more The considered as certain collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of 19th century brought the Great Powers into competition having as aim to increase their influence on the wider geographical area between Asia Minor and India. In the newly established at that time German Empire appeared the vision of exercising international policy, which was fulfilled with the creation – inter alia – of the Hamburg–Persian Gulf commercial axis, factor of penetration to the East. In contrast to the ultranationalist views proposing war solutions, Friedrich Ratzel chose the version of economic and cultural penetration.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel, Central Europe and “European Union”

The architecture of wider Central Europe, which aimed at a unified economic, political, cultural ... more The architecture of wider Central Europe, which aimed at a unified economic, political, cultural and transportational space (based on the priorities of each political subject), brought to life the concept of Central Europe.

Research paper thumbnail of Fr. Ratzel and Geopolitics

Historical Geography and Geosciences, 2018

Although Friedrich Ratzel is inextricably linked to Geopolitics, modern day scientific discussion... more Although Friedrich Ratzel is inextricably linked to Geopolitics, modern day scientific discussions often reflect on two debatable points; the current relevance of the ratzelian thought and the contribution of the German geographer to the creation of a modern geopolitical analytical method. Although the vast majority of researchers accept Ratzel as the founder of modern Political Geography, opinions are wildly conflicting when the discussion comes to the relationship between Ratzel and modern Geopolitics.

Research paper thumbnail of Data-Mining Anwendungen In Der Systemischen Geopolitik: Eu-Staaten Clusteranalyse Ohne Das Vereinigte Königreich

Im theoretischen Rahmen der Systemischen Geopolitik wird der Versuch unternommen, Data-Mining Tec... more Im theoretischen Rahmen der Systemischen Geopolitik wird der Versuch unternommen, Data-Mining Techniken – vorerst Clusteranalyse – im Bereich der internationalen Beziehungen anzuwenden. Schon die fruhe Entwicklungsphase eines bestandigen Analysemodells fuhrτ nicht nur zu verfahrenstechnischen (z.B. Vergleich von Algorithmen) Schlussfolgerungen, sondern auch zur Andeutung geopolitischer Strukturmerkmale, deren Ausbau, Verfeinerung und Verifizierung noch bevorsteht. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde versucht, moglichen Strukturanderungen nach dem bevorstehenden Austritt des Vereinigten Konigreichs nachzugehen, indem Indikatoren der kunftigen EU-Konstellation einer Clusteranalyse unterzogen und der entsprechenden 28 EU-Staaten Zusammensetzung gegenubergestellt wurden. Ein besonderer Anstos war Frankreichs Erscheinung am Rand einer haufig auftretenden Deutschland- England–Frankreich Gruppierung und die Frage nach der zukommenden Ordnung an der EU-Spitze. Die neuen Ergebnisse deuten auf F...

Research paper thumbnail of The Genesis of Geopolitics and Friedrich Ratzel. Dismissing the Myth of the Ratzelian Geodeterminism

The Genesis of Geopolitics and Friedrich Ratzel. Dismissing the Myth of the Ratzelian Geodeterminism, 2018

This book discusses the influence of Friedrich Ratzel's ideas in more contemporary geopolitical a... more This book discusses the influence of Friedrich Ratzel's ideas in more contemporary geopolitical analytical systems and the geodeterminism commonly attributed to him. The author thoroughly analyzes the structural components of Ratzel's thought.
The research is inspired by the numerous contradictory approaches in the secondary literature, presenting Ratzel as both humanist and racist, geo-determinist and multidimensional analyst, organicist and social scientist, precursor of Geopolitics and opponent to the same idea. In this work, more particular issues are approached: the establishment of a scientific Political Geography; the methodological approach of his multidisciplinary work; the redefinition of his geopolitical period; his notion of state and the evaluation of sociological and cultural parameters as factors of state power; the biogeographical content of the notion of Lebensraum; his attitude towards the racist theories as well as towards the Darwinian theories; his overall worldview and the confrontation with cosmopolitism; his contribution to an interdisciplinary, positivist and scientific approach in analyzing social and international affairs; his thoughts on the architecture of Europe.

Research paper thumbnail of Tourism politics or tourism geopolitics? Demarcating two similarsounding research fields

The exceptional growth of tourism has converted it to a significant economic sector, reflecting c... more The exceptional growth of tourism has converted it to a significant economic sector, reflecting characteristics of antagonisms on various levels, such as economic dependence and power projection. The present paper is a first attempt to approach the research differences between two research fields, which are not distinct enough yet. Moreover, the authors attempt a contribution to the delimitation of the research subject Geopolitics of Tourism, in the light of the classical geopolitical view. Firstly (Section 1), the role of the state in tourism policy will be briefly reviewed, before presenting (Section. 2 & 3), comparatively the two research fields under discussion and (Section 4) the authors' approach. Finally (Section 5) it will be shown how the methodological framework of Systemic Geopolitical Analysis can contribute to approach tourism as a geopolitical factor of power redistribution.