Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

Students must have taken GEO2047 Political Geography in stage 2, as this module builds on topics explored there.

Co Requisite Comment

None

Aims

Building on themes introduced in GEO247 Political Geography, this course aims to give students an advanced understanding of geopolitical scholarship, concepts, and contemporary practices. In doing so, students will be equipped with the skills to critically analyse the creation, communication, and reproduction of geopolitical ideas. It introduces students to the ideas of key geopolitical thinkers as well as a number of contemporary geopolitical practices and case studies, drawn from the lecturers’ own research expertise.

Outline Of Syllabus

GEO3102 Geopolitics runs as a semester-long module, allowing a deep-dive into geopolitical issues and concepts through weekly sessions. The structure can be divided into three sections:

Section 1 – Geopolitical foundations
In this section of the module, students will engage with geopolitical thinkers and concepts. This will be taught through lectures focused on the history and evolution of geopolitics as a set of connected ideas, the issues and challenges associated with these ideas, and specific concepts that have emerged within geopolitical scholarship over the last 20 years.

Section 2 – Geopolitical sites
In this section of the module, students will engage with a series of research-led lectures that focus on different sites of geopolitics, and where they are visible in the world today, for example aerial or maritime spaces.

Section 3 - Geopolitical issues
In this final section, students will engage with questions of what we consider topics of geopolitics, for example climate, resources, identities, or conflicts.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

By the end of the module students will:

1. Be able to understand the tenets and background of geopolitics and be able to critically evaluate the position of the sub-discipline in relation to broader geographical and political enquiry.
2. Be able to critically evaluate the relationship between geopolitical ideas and the practice of international politics.
3. Be able to apply geopolitical ideas to understand a broad range of geopolitical case studies.
4. Be able to critically evaluate the production of geopolitical knowledge, including the various means by which this knowledge is communicated and reproduced.
5. Be able to critically evaluate the interrelations between formal, practical and popular geopolitical ideas and practices.

Intended Skill Outcomes

By the end of the module students will have developed:

1. The ability to summarise, assess, explain, and critically evaluate different geopolitical theories and arguments.
2. The ability to interpret, evaluate, and critically reflect on geopolitical events in the news by applying relevant theories and approaches.
3. The ability to formulate, present, defend, and revise reasoned arguments, assessed through written work and presentations.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The module will include two sessions a week - one 2hr session, and one shorter 1hr session. The longer of the two in particular will be flexible, including interactive elements, and assessment guidance and support.

This module is split into three sections. The first section aims to provide an advanced engagement with key geopolitical concepts. This will include analysis of the history of geopolitical scholarship, and introduce cutting-edge contemporary developments in geopolitical thinking.

The second and third sections of the module refocuses to provide a series of lectures from members of the teaching team, in which they will draw on their own geopolitical research to illustrate how geopolitical concepts can be utilised to investigate and analyse the world today. In the second section the focus is broadly on the 'geo' of geopolitics, or sites and places; and in the third the focus is on the 'politics', or issues and topics of geopolitical research today.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This module provides students with two different types of assessment.

First, students will produce a pre-recorded oral presentation, which applies some of the geopolitical theory or key thinkers introduced in the first section of the module to a contemporary issue. The presentation aims to assess students’ ability to make connections between academic literature and contemporary events, by selecting a relevant geopolitical case study from within and/or beyond the module and using geopolitical approaches to analysis to summarise, assess, explain, and critically reflect on the coverage it has received.

Second, students will write an policy brief aimed at expert stakeholders on a geopolitical case study of their choice. This will draw on the approaches and contents introduced in the remainder of the module. The assignment assesses students’ knowledge and understanding of geopolitical concepts and their application to real world examples, and tests their ability to summarise, assess, explain, and evaluate how geopolitical theories and arguments relate to contemporary geopolitical realities.

General Notes

N/A