Geopolitics is the branch of International Relations which seeks to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior by using geographical variables. Typical geographical variables are the location, size, climate, demography and natural resources The course examines the history of geopolitical thought from the German geographers of the 19th century and Halford Mackinder’s ‘heartland theory’ to French geopolitical thought that attempted to ‘de-nationalize’ geopolitics, and contemporary critical geopolitics that emphasize geographical discourses and study geographical imagination. Much attention is paid to the influence of geopolitical ideas on policy-making.