The current world population of Muslims is in the range of 1.2 to 1.6 billion (20% of the world¡¦s population), and their numbers are spread out over various geographical areas and religious groups. After the Cold War, America has experienced several international conflicts with the Islamic world at large. Huntington, an American scholar, wrote a thesis ¡§The Clash of Civilizations¡¨ to explain the cause of conflict. While there are significant culture differences, it is difficult to conclude that it is a simple case of conflict in culture. Upon closer inspection of the conflict situation, we find that the American dispute with the Islamic world has largely been focused on the Middle-Eastern group of countries. It would be dangerous to take a stand point that the basis of conflict is in terms of culture, because it over-simplifies the situation and leaves an undesirable stereotype on the Islamic civilization. Using a historical sociology perspective, the author found that there have been several different changes at different times in the international relationship between the American and Middle-Eastern Islamic countries after the Cold War. In fact, before the Cold War, Afghanistan was a crucial ally in the Anti-Soviet movement. It is therefore worth pondering why Afghanistan became the first Middle-Eastern country target in the war against terrorism. This thesis serves to use a geo-political perspective to further examine and explain the intricate transitions and changes in the American-Islamic relationship, in order to demonstrate that the conflict is a struggle for power, rather than a mere ¡§Clash of Civilizations¡¨ as in Huntington¡¦s paper.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century Germany geopolitics can be characterized by its grand strategy as a civilian power. Germany has come to depend on a civilianized international system based on multilateralism, international institutions and the rule of law, supranational integration, free trade, and the restriction of the use of force as a means for international politics. Such a system requires the players in it to be peaceful and civilian, developed and cooperative, legitimate and law-abiding. Many African countries do not fulfill those conditions. Extremely high prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS in Africa severely undermine social structure, economic development and political stability and thus contribute to state failure. State failure is in fundamental conflict with Germany's prime geopolitical interest in promoting a civilianized international system, because a failing state is incapable of creating civilianized structures. After analyzing Germany's foreign and development policies since World War II, I came to the conclusion that all German foreign policies aim at promoting a civilianized international system. I am arguing that development policies are part of broader foreign policies and thus pursue this goal with respect to developing countries. However, for the system itself it is much more important that the big players in the world are included and committed to it. Therefore, German foreign policy focuses on the major powers in the world and, just as developing countries play a minor role in international politics, development policies play a minor role in Germany's grand strategy as a civilian power. German grand strategy, however, plays a major role in the design and the conduct of German development policies, policies used as tools to pursue Germany's broader geopolitical interest in promoting a civilianized international system.

What happens when bodies are the territory through which geopolitical strategies play out? In the Leh district of India's contested Jammu and Kashmir State, religious identity has become politicized and Buddhist/Muslim conflict is being articulated at the site of the body. This dissertation contributes to political geography by exploring intimacy and fertility as geopolitical practice. In Leh, political conflict between Buddhists and Muslims is being enacted through women's bodies. Activist members of the Buddhist majority are encouraging Buddhist women to maximize fertility and avoid marrying Muslim men in order to maintain Buddhist electoral control. When women's bodies are instrumentalized and geopolitical strategy seeks to control desire, how do women cope with or resist these pressures? Can the body be an effective site of resistance against the politicization of religion and intimacy? My dissertation research consists of over 200 interviews and surveys of Buddhist and Muslim women in Leh district, as well as a participatory oral history project that engaged students in Leh with these difficult questions. The research explores how the politicization of marriage and fertility is affecting decision-making, how women negotiate religious and political pressures to participate in pro-natal territorial struggles, and how emergent geopolitical religious identities shape visions of the future.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 146-160). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 317-334).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Central Florida, 2008. / Adviser: Allyn MacLean Stearman. Includes bibliographical references (p. 98-103).

In 2010, the Arab Spring started in Tunisia and expanded to other countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East. In Syria, it led to one of the most severe conflicts nowadays which turned into an international struggle with several external actors involved. Whereas most of the European countries, the United States and the Gulf countries oppose the Syrian government, Russia has supported the Assad-regime since the outbreak of the conflict. This present master thesis investigates Russia's role and motivation in the Syrian crisis and the country's support of the current Assad-regime. Due to the current relevance of classical geopolitics in Russia, the author took this approach for the investigation, complemented by some concepts from a current geopolitician. There seems to be evidence that Russian foreign politics is influenced by classical geopolitics and the approach explains, at least in part, the drivers for Russia's Syria policy. The qualitative analysis used primary and secondary sources, such as Foreign Policy Concepts, Security Reports, reports from key conferences, political speeches, letters and statements. The analysis revealed evidence, that Russia's engagement is driven by security issues, channelled by its own domestic terrorist fears. Additionally, the country seems to be aiming for...

Democratization has been dominating international relations since the end of the Cold War. Moreover, democratization assistance became embedded in states' foreign institutions, as it is seen in the examples of the United States and the European Union. As states perceive international relations from a neo-realist perspective, it raises a concern about their reasoning behind democracy promotion. This thesis attempts to find a correlation between states' geopolitical objectives and democratization. Its goal is to prove that democratized countries tend to incline towards the assisting power, and this benefits the assisting power's geopolitical objectives. By studying EU and US geopolitical goals and applying them on the democratization of Ukraine, this thesis attempts to find how democracy promotion in Ukraine benefited the USA and the EU. To support the claim that ideology can be used to pursue geopolitical goals, it draws a parallel with the Communist coup d'état in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and analyzes how the USSR benefited from supporting the Czechoslovak Communist Party. Keywords Democratization, soft power, smart power, Cold War, communism, United States, European Union, USSR, geopolitics, democracy assistance

Concerned with the ongoing coloniality within the form and interactions of international relations, this project examines the legacy of colonial mapping practices on contemporary geopolitics. Specifically, I investigate Sri Lankan tourist maps as subversive examples of the politics of vision implicated within the historical formation of island-space under colonial mapping practices (i.e. Portuguese, Dutch, and British), and the contemporary political implications of the island geography as the state, including exclusionary identity politics during the the civil war (1983-2009). Using a mix-analysis approach, including interviews, participatory mapping, and autoethnography, as well as feminist, postcolonial, and critical theoretical lenses, I argue that Sri Lankan tourist maps serve as examples of the historically developed and continued right to space, mobility, representation, and resources between the Global North and South in what I term "cosmopolitan geopolitics." As geopolitics can be identified as the relationship between territories and resources, cosmopolitan geopolitics is concerned with the power relations when such elements as culture, authenticity, history, and religion are marked in places, people, and experiences as valued resources within the international tourist economy, particularly in this project which connects the colonial histories of mapping, travel, and international relations. In order to address the imperial, masculine politics of vision this project is separated into two parts: the first is concerned with the ontology and colonial legacy the map (Chapters 1-3), the second with the politics of the map, including exclusionary politics of the nation state (Chapters 4-6). Chapter 1 investigates the politics of island space as represented on the tourist map, where the state serves as both a "treasure box" and "caged problem." Chapter 2 argues that the cartoon images and icons serve as a resource map for contemporary geopolitics, and Chapter 3 indicates that this map simultaneously acts an invitation to the cosmopolitan, with assumed access and hospitality. Examining the various ways that the exclusionary politics of the Sinhala-Buddhist state are implicated in the representations on the tourist map, Chapters 4-6 look at cultural tourist sites, natural or wildlife sites, and former war zones, respectively. Overall, this is an interdisciplinary examination between postcolonial studies, critical tourism studies, critical geography, and Sri Lankan studies that examines the continued politics of vision and access to space with both international and domestic political-economic implications. / Doctor of Philosophy / This project takes a critical examination of tourist maps, as a cultural artifact in what has been called “coloniality,” or the ongoing colonial relations in contemporary relationships between nation states. I suggest that my taking into account the colonial history and development of mapping practices, tourism, and international relations that tourist maps serve as material intersection to examine such relations. The island state of Sri Lanka is an ideal case study for this project, as not only does it intersect colonial relations between the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, but because after ending nearly 30-year ethnic-religious civil war the country is looking to expand its tourism industry. Therefore, I argue that an understanding of what I term “cosmopolitan geopolitics” helps us to account for the ways in which culture and religious experiences become resources in contemporary geopolitics within the international tourist economy. Using a mix-analysis approach of interviews, participatory mapping, autoethnography, and theoretical perspectives, I organize the project into two main parts. The first questions “what a map is,” and the second questions “who gets to map.” Overall, this interdisciplinary investigation pulls from postcolonial studies, critical tourism studies, critical geography, and Sri Lankan studies in order to question the continued narratives and representations within cultural commodification and travel.

Politicians justify border walls by arguing that it would protect the nation from outside threats, such as immigration or terrorism. The literature on border walls has identified xenophobic nationalism's centrality in framing border walls as a security measure. Yet, alternative geographic visions of nationhood in Hungary, Georgia and Israel define the fenced perimeters in these countries as the lines that divide the nation and its territory. These cases illustrate the contradiction between the geography of security, marked by the border wall, and the geography of nationhood, which extends beyond the fenced boundary. These cases allow us to problematize the link between "security" and "nationalism" and their relationship with borders. Therefore, this dissertation is a study of the politics of reconciling distinct geopolitical visions of security and nationhood in the making of border walls. Justification of border walls requires the reframing of the national territory in line with the geography articulated by border security and away from the spatially expanded vision of nationhood. A successful reframing of the nation's geography is a matter of politicians' skills to craft a convincing geopolitical storyline in favor of the border wall that would combine security and nationalist arguments (Hungary). However, even the most skillful rhetoricians will find it hard to create such a discursive story if the hegemonic geography of nationhood has firmly fixed the meaning of the fenced line not as a border but as a dividing line across the nation's geo-body (Georgia). Where such hegemonic geography of nationhood is absent and the society disagrees over the meaning, shape and location of borders and territory, a security discourse in favor of the border wall would sway the public opinion towards that type of territorial conception of nationhood, which overlaps with the promise of protection (Israel). / Doctor of Philosophy / Politicians justify border walls by arguing that it would protect the nation from outside threats, such as immigration or terrorism. This study shows that the new border walls do not necessarily mean the rise of nationalism. Instead, the nationalism associated with border walls has sidelined and replaced other forms of nationalism that aim to keep the border open and expand the state's reach beyond the sovereign boundaries. In Hungary, Georgia and Israel, new border walls serve the purpose of security. Simultaneously, they separate the country from the areas beyond the fenced line but are considered part of the national territory. This study accounts for the political process that aims to reconcile these territorial contradictions between the quest for border security and the nationalist desire to maintain power beyond the border wall. The study has found that such a dual functioning of the borders has been possible in Hungary and Israel. In contrast, in Georgia, the fence remains a deeply negative symbol of the nation's territorial division.