Geopolitics, The State, and Political Science

Contextualizing Rudolf Kjellen, Founder of Geopolitics
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-78863-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Geopolitics Series

Geopolitics, the State, and Political Science offers the first comprehensive intellectual history of Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922), the founder of geopolitics who formulated a systematic organic theory of the state. Kjellén played a decisive role in shaping both the institutional emergence of political science and the conceptual evolution of international relations and political theory.

Through extensive archival research and employing the contextualist methodology of the Cambridge school, this book discovers and rethinks the contexts in which Kjellén’s work developed. It situates his theories within early twentieth-century academic debates over political science and its emancipation from law, history, and philosophy. The work demonstrates how the foundations of political science were forged through concrete academic disputes, methodological controversies, and institutional struggles, while reaffirming the enduring value of historical contextualization for understanding both the origins and contested legacies of the modern state.

Much more than a biography, this study is an important contribution to the intellectual history of political theory, international relations, and the social sciences. It is of interest to historians, political scientists, geographers, political philosophers, and international lawyers.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Davidsen, Peter

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction, 2. Historiography, 3. The Johan Skytte professorial competition in 1901: The foundations of Kjellén’s theories of political science, the state, and geopolitics, 4. Natural contra human sciences: The conflict between nomothetic and idiographic sciences, 5. Creating an independent political science: Fierce controversy amid professorial competitions, 6. Kjellén’s theories of political science, the state, and geopolitics

Über Autor(innen)

Dr. Peter Davidsen is a Danish-Norwegian scholar of geopolitics, political thought, and the history of sciences. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Helsinki and a master’s degree in political thought and intellectual history from University College London (UCL) & Queen Mary College, University of London.

Davidsen’s interdisciplinary research focuses on the theory and intellectual history of geopolitics, the development of political science, and the foundations of the human and social sciences. His work has been published in leading journals such as History of European Ideas and Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift (the Swedish Journal of Political Science). His interests also include the methodology of intellectual history and the history of universities.

ORCID.org/0000-0001-6534-8284