Geopolitics and Political Geography in Russia: Global Context and National Characteristics

Abstract

Against the backdrop of global trends, the main directions, methodological approaches, and the most striking research results in the field of geopolitics and political geography in 2011–2021 are considered. Political geography is being widely integrated with neighboring scientific fields. Russian political geography and, to a much lesser extent, geopolitics are based on a wide range of concepts known in world literature. Researchers in these areas are promptly responding to current foreign policy and other challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. Particular attention is paid to geopolitical publications about the pivot of Russian foreign policy to the East and the Greater Eurasia concept. Since the 2010s, the theory of critical geopolitics has become more widespread in Russia, operating not with speculative reasoning, but with large amounts of information analyzed by modern quantitative methods. The flow of studies of state borders and frontiers is growing. In such publications, a large place belongs to the works devoted to the growing gaps in the pace and directions of economic development between former USSR countries. Shifts in the topics of border studies are associated with a deeper study of security issues. Many works reflect the desire to preserve the positive experience of cross-border cooperation between Russian and European partners in a deteriorating environment. Most of Russian publications on regionalization at different spatial levels involve the Baltic Basin. The body of research on territorial conflicts and separatism is growing. Russian geographers and other scholars have made a significant contribution to studying the problems of uncontrolled territories and unrecognized (partially recognized) post-Soviet states. Conflicts around them are considered in relation to their internal differences, complex composition, intricacies of formation and identity of the population, influence on neighboring regions and in historical retrospect.