Yves Lacoste

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Yves Lacoste (1972)

Yves Lacoste (born September 7, 1929 in Fès , French Morocco ) is a French geographer and critical theorist of geopolitics .

Life

Lacoste was a professor at the University of Algiers from 1952 to 1955 , campaigned for Algerian independence and in 1956 became a member of the Parti communiste français . Since 1969 he taught as a professor at the University of Paris VIII and endeavored to establish a critical study of geopolitics in France. In 1976 he founded the geopolitics magazine Hérodote , of which he has been the editorial director ever since.

Lacoste's understanding of geopolitics

Lacoste ascribes the foundation of geopolitics to young patriotic German geography teachers who, in 1919, considered university political geography unsuitable for “proving that the borders of Germany established by the Versailles Treaty were not only unjust and absurd, but dangerous for the future of Europe . ” Geopolitics offered them an answer and was thus seen as an opposition to political geography of the academic type. Contrary to other claims, geopolitics is still not a science, it cannot be separated from strategy and propaganda.

Geopolitics take power rivalries into account to the extent that these are territorially determined. That is very often the case. This does not only mean rivalries between states. Lacoste distinguishes between external geopolitics and internal geopolitics .

In external geopolitics it is about

  • the territorial expansion of states and of different peoples, which often does not coincide
  • the definition of boundaries according to linguistic criteria or certain characteristics of the ground relief; in fact, borders ran across different cultural areas, such as in Alsace or the Basque Country
  • the territorial claims of states to sea areas outside their jurisdiction
  • the geographical expansion of political and religious ideologies
  • striving for national independence from peoples living within a large state association
  • the amalgamation of different states to form higher-level political groups, for example NATO.

In internal geopolitics go there to

  • Autonomy and regionalist movements
  • local and regional contrasts in electoral geography
  • Problems of spatial planning that could arise from special interests of politicians.

Fonts (selection)

  • La geographie, ça sert, d'abord, à faire la guerre . F. Maspero, Paris 1982, ISBN 2-7071-0815-4 .
  • Geography and political action. Perspectives of a new geopolitics . Wagenbach, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-8031-5126-0
  • Dictionnaire géopolitique des États . Flammarion, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-08-035104-4 .
  • Vive la Nation. Destin d'une idée géopolitique . Fayard, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-213-59613-1 .
  • Géopolitique. La longue histoire d'aujourd'hui . Larousse, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-03-505421-4 .
  • Géopolitique de la Méditerranée . A. Colin, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-200-26840-8 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical information based on Yves Lacoste . In: BiblioMonde ; Retrieved November 7, 2015, and Yves Lacoste. In: Encyclopédie Larousse ; accessed on November 7, 2015.
  2. ↑ Hérodote. Revue de géopolitique et de de geographie , accessed on November 7, 2015.
  3. ^ Yves Lacoste: Geography and Political Action. Perspectives of a new geopolitics . Wagenbach, Berlin 1990, p. 24 f.
  4. ^ Yves Lacoste: Geography and Political Action. Perspectives of a new geopolitics . Wagenbach, Berlin 1990, p. 31.
  5. ^ Yves Lacoste: Geography and Political Action. Perspectives of a new geopolitics . Wagenbach, Berlin 1990, p. 29 f.
personal data
SURNAME Lacoste, Yves
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French geographer and theorist of geopolitics
DATE OF BIRTH September 7, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Fez