Professional geopolitics as an ideal: Roles of geopolitics in Russia

Abstract

Geopolitics is a topic that again has taken the frontline in discussions of how to interpret Russia's foreign policy or Russia's relations with the West. Geopolitical thinking in Russia has often been identified with different schools of neo-Eurasianism, extreme versions of which contain expansionist, nationalist ideas. However, these schools do not characterize university teaching of geopolitics in Russia as a whole. Instead, teachers of geopolitics focus mainly on introducing various theoretical models and criticizing representatives of neo-Eurasianism. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate with survey data that there are differences in what we might call the published discipline and the taught discipline of geopolitics in Russia.