The return of Geopolitics and the current relevance of Ratzel: notes on a Brazilian debate

Authors

  • Marcos Antônio Fávaro Martins UNIP – Universidade Paulista. Instituto de Ciências Sociais e Comunicação, Curso de Relações Internacionais. São Paulo – SP – Brasil.
  • André Roberto Martin USP – Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH), Departamento de Geografia. São Paulo – SP – Brasil.

Keywords:

Geopolitics, International politics, Development, Geopolitical conception, North/South relations,

Abstract

The present paper has a double objective. First, to evaluate the importance of geopolitical concepts for the understanding of Brazil’s current political conjuncture, and secondly to identify the influence of Friederich Ratzel’s thinking (1844-1904) on two contemporary conceptions that seek to renew Brazilian geopolitics. In the development of the text, it is pointed out that the Ratzelian concepts of “Space” and “Position” are present both in the conceptions of André Roberto Martin and of Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães, thus connecting them to geopolitical realism. In addition, it was possible to verify that another pivotal idea of Ratzel, also present among Brazilian thinkers, is the understanding that the technical domain of the environment is a crucial element in the separation between the “subject states” and the “object states” in the history of the international arena.

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Published

01/10/2019

Issue

Vol. 51 (2018)

Section

Artigos