In my opinion, in Politische Geographie Ratzel attempted to act as a neutral and detached geographer cum scientist. He observed a time and space in history and tried to see if environmental laws and conditions existed that encouraged certain forms of political behavior among groups of humans. He believed that this was the case.

Only seven years after Ratzel wrote his work, Mackinder made his now famous speech at the Royal Geographical Society in which he asserted that location in the heartland or rimland is influential in the politics of a power. In 1916 Kjellen published his meaningfully titled The State as a Living Organism, which represented a precursor to the concept of vital space. In the thirties, Haushofer published the papers that earned him the title of the Father of Geopolitik and notoriety as the “justifier” of the Nazi Lebensrau, (but it wasn’t so). Also in the thirties, Spykman in the United States also supported the idea of the “necessary” influence of geography on politics.

Although not everyone accepts the placing of these authors in this sequence, it appears to me that there is a modern “defense” of Ratzel in that he cannot be held responsible for things written by others after him, and that today his geographical analyses appear geographically coherent, well researched, of scientific merit, and perfectly in tune with the politico–idealist milieu of the late nineteenth century.

While it is perfectly true that no one can be held responsible for what is written after them, it would seem undeniable that Ratzel’s organistic vision (as stated in Ratzel, 1988) and declared conviction that geographical laws exist that direct the constitution of states cannot be denied as a source of geopolitical thought from Mackinder, Haushofer, and Spykman through today and our current conception of the geostrategies and geopolitics of states and powers, and the idea of “national interests” resulting from geographical location.

RATZEL’S “PHILOSOPHY”

Each of us is the product of our time. As an advocate of European civilization’s authority and superiority over others, Ratzel was definitely no exception to the rule. What I mean to highlight here is that his political views molded his geographical thought and, therefore, all supporters of the politics of power or a Eurocentric vision of civilization and progress found it convenient to refer to his approach and method.

Although flimsily concealed by a sense of superiority over the “rough” Germans, it is obvious that late-19th-century France’s liberté–egalité–fraternité triad was strongly contradicted by that country’s colonialist policy. Likewise, since they believed in France’s mission to “civilize”, the French ruling classes did not think very differently from Ratzel. The presence of numerous geographical societies with approximately 19 thousand members who by and large supported colonization, and the nature of the political debate that emerged from the Dreyfus case both clearly demonstrate how society and the ruling classes of the Belle Epoque were in tune with Ratzel’s authoritarian–organistic view.

As a member of an elite group convinced of the superiority of Europe and the white race, Ratzel was a founding member of the Kolonialverein (colonial committee) whose aim it was to support the German colonial empire. Also, for a while he was president of the Pan-Germanist League (founded 1891). From these perspectives he observed nature and the territory, believing he could deduce rules and laws from them. In his work dedicated to Germany (1898), he scientifically analyzed his homeland to identify the objective laws of its geography and politics.

In the brief paragraph from Politische Geographie that deals with war, the symbols used indicate Ratzel’s views of the male and female roles: “from the social viewpoint, war brings society’s virile instincts and the will to dominate to their paroxysm, while peace in the opposite way encourages family life and a closed and peaceful sphere of relationships in which man is chained to his woman and children—in short, where the female conservative principle and sex life prevail,” (italics mine).

The spatial factor determines “trends towards extension which constantly fuel population movements. The fixation with, or the nature of, the link to the land represents another factor on which the growth of the state depends and, in particular, the duration of its effects. The error of all philosophical theories—and particularly of the self-styled theories of progress, be they linear, spiral, or whatever—is to not recognize these immediate conditions of the development of the state,” (bolded text by author, Ratzel, 1988). Note the passing reference to the self-styled philosophical theories of progress.

There is nothing exceptional or amazing in Ratzel’s views. What is more, they were widely held throughout society and not just by the ruling classes. It cannot be forgotten, however, that while his vision was in tune with his age, during this same period there were other political and scientific views that were likewise widespread and in step with the day. While Ratzel cannot be blamed for making certain choices, it is hardly a factor that can be overlooked.

Since I am claiming here that individual choice dictates scientific vision—in particular in the socio-political sciences—the need to discuss Ratzel’s views is obvious.

POLITISCHE GEOGRAPHIE

In what is perhaps his best-known work, Ratzel sets out to present himself as a scientist, that is, an “outside” observer searching for rules and laws that explain the relationship between politics and space—these rules and laws being useful for formulating effective political actions. In my opinion, however, his definition of political action is vague. It appears to be taken for granted or seen as the result of determined spatial conditions, and the question of will is not given sufficient emphasis.

In general, an overemphasis of the space factor in the work invariably leads to an underestimation of the will of humans. This underestimation is also found in connection with the cultural values of a population and/or individual. These values are recognized and noted several times, but their impact is only seen to extend to the internal cohesion of a state or as a binding emotional element within a particular territory.

The extensive historic, cultural, and spatial examples used are generally coherent with the views Ratzel wishes to express. It would appear, however, that his absolute conviction in the truth of what he is saying blinds him to certain contradictions and sees him interpret the sense of certain historic events a posteriori. Quite simply, in many cases it is possible to find opposite examples to Ratzel’s or interpret the ones he provides in different ways.

Some interesting points, which could be seen as prophetic, occasionally appear, such as the prospect of unifying Europe into a collective political organism, or the importance given to free circulation (of goods and communication in particular) in the interests of cohesion and expansion—an idea that would seem to anticipate the process of globalization. However, while I do not believe it is reasonably to exaggerate certain points—such as outdated statements (Germany and Italy naturally allied in battle against France), idealistic statements (France’s ‘innate’ sense of political organization), and so on—it would be equally unreasonable to exaggerate the portentous nature of certain remarks.

Ratzel holds the state in high regard: “man is inconceivable without the soil of his land or his greatest work: the State,” (Ratzel, 1988). However, throughout the work the word state is used to denote all kinds of human political organizations. It is thus used to indicate both European and African states, and both modern and ancient organisms. It appears to be used more as a definition than a Hegelian idealization.

Since I am unable to present an in-depth analysis of Politische Geographie here, I will indicate the main conceptual elements of the work that are most often referred to:

1. A close relationship exists between land and state on which is based organic unity and, therefore, the biological need for growth and expansion of the (political) organism.

2. Progressive growth, from small to large, corresponds to a growth in the quality of civilization. Small states are “primordial forms”, while large states are more evolved—“large territorial entities are born from small ones,” (Ratzel, 1988).

3. Population is the decisive biological element of the state–organism. It forms organic cohesion while demographic growth fuels migratory pressure that leads to the expansion of the state and territory (or the formation of new states).

4. A natural environment with well-defined natural limits and characteristics is a strong impulse to the “geographical autonomy” of a state and therefore its stability and permanency.

5. The quest for balance between the characteristics of the various territories within the state is one of the politician’s primary aims (thanks to political geography). Unbalanced situations provoke the loss of the elements of disequilibrium. Healthy states have an organic necessity to expand while decadent societies become divided.

6. The state represents the vital collective interests of the population and it therefore must have certain objectives: a balanced and natural relationship with the land within its natural limits, the expansion of the territory to satisfy the needs of a growing population, and the maintenance of internal organic cohesion as a source of stability and permanency.

Ratzel’s political geography is politics for the control of the territory based on the elements of the territory itself. The population as a whole interacts with a particular space (the land) thereby creating the state (any political organization) which becomes the subject of collective aims. The job of political geography is to clearly delineate the “laws of population growth and the state” (Ratzel, 1988).

Ratzel consider that human development is primarily determined by the natural environment: “a population must live upon the land it has been its lot to receive. There one must die and be subject to its laws.”

“The state is an organism, not only because it organizes the lives of its population on the immobility of the land, but also because this link is reciprocally reinforced, so much so that they become one and the same, and the one cannot be thought of without the other.”

“The state is prone to the same influences as any human being .[...]. It is in the nature of states that they should develop in competition with neighboring states, with the stakes most often represented by territory.” (Ratzel, 1988)

The works by Mackinder, Kjellen, Lautensach, Haushofer, and Spykman develop the Ratzel’s thought, but they are more “political” in their reasoning than Ratzel; the continuity, conceptual in nature, stems from a common reference to the geographical dimension (location in space and the characteristics of the territory) as a factor with an inescapable influence on the politics of a state–power. A further common concept is the acceptance as natural of the expansionist policies of those states that are more “internally coherent”, more dynamic, and more organically balanced.

AN ALTERNATIVE: ANOTHER PRODUCT OF HIS TIME

Elisée Reclus, then 40, and Friedrich Ratzel, then 26, were both present during the events in Paris of early 1871. Reclus was with the Communard—his brother, Elie Reclus, was chief librarian of the Bibliothèque Nationale—while Ratzel was a young officer in the besieging Prussian army. Reclus was already known as a geographer, and it was for this reason that his life was spared after the defeat of the Commune. Ratzel was not yet a geographer. He was to become one, obtaining a chair in 1876, after a trip to the United States.

From the titles of their works it would appear that Ratzel concerned himself more with human beings and politics, while Reclus was more of a generalist, oriented more towards physical geography. This is perhaps the reason why Claval dubbed Ratzel—extremely questionably—the “founder of human geography” (Claval, 1979), when in fact the opposite is true.

Reclus concerned himself with geopolitics, but in the sense of a personal political activism that was a part of an anarchical approach, and interpreted the relationship between space and human beings as a fertile dynamism in which humans play the more conscious and willful role. Reclus favored the observation of the actions of humans and attempted to understand if and to what degree the characteristics of the territory influenced, hindered, and helped these actions.

Rather than “laws”, Reclus looked for constants and dynamics. He paid particular attention to the varieties of self-organization of human groups in different environments. “Man is that part of nature that gains self-knowledge.” “La Géographie doit rendre comte de l’organisation sociale, économique et politique du monde.” “Geography is viewed as a consciousness of space.”(Reclus, 1991).

Reclus’s political activism, his work with “subversive” newspapers, his talks, and his political and popular publications can be seen to do nothing else but relegate him to the sidelines of geography’s official academia. This is the case despite the fact that he wrote successful books on geography and even won an award from the Royal Geographical Society—an award he failed to collect since he refused to accept it from a monarch. Towards the end of his life, he contributed to the founding of Brussels’s Nouvelle Université where he taught, although not without conflict. He was nevertheless basically excluded from academia of the day.

It is significant that Piotr Kropotkin is more famous and more “accepted” (even today) as a geographer, even though he is more known for his anarchical political writings than his contributions to geography. Kropotkin’s geography is more naturalistic, and is therefore seen as neutral. His geographical–socio-politico writings are, however, seen as being mainly “political” and therefore “separable” from geography.

Nevertheless, Reclus was more important in the fields of human and social geography. His work springs from the centrality of humans as a political and scientific reference point. Geography is a key for interpreting the world and to help understand humans in their totality—humans, that is, with a changing relationship with the environment and that can cause both progress and harm.

Another of his concepts that should be mentioned is that of genre de vie, this comprising “land, climate, organization of labor, varieties of food, race, family, and types of social groupings” (Reclus, 1991) which, together with histoire and langage, serve to identify “natural” regions. His geography cannot be separated from the ideal that natural regions—freely confederated through the intervention of individuals and groups—will one day make up the all humanity. With these reference principles, all humanity will be organized on the basis of mutual support and not on the conquest of hypothetical (and geostrategic) vital spaces.

Despite the quality of Reclus’s geographical arguments, Claval was not thinking of him when he said that “one gets the impression that since the beginning of the century there has been no human geography without social foundations,” (Claval, 1980). He continues, referring to the ambiguous position taken by Vidal de la Blache who, although leaning towards the social sciences (“it teaches us to probe history, it describes the varieties of life”), finally came to maintain that “geography is the science of places and not of people.” Within the framework of regional monographs derived from Vidal’s impulse, “the researcher is sheltered from any adventure” (Claval, 1980).

When Vidal de la Blache spoke of genre de vie, one could believe that in some way he took the concept from Reclus and that only through him was it recognized by geography officialdom. His genre de vie is, however, reduced to a kind of micro-geography, particularly useful for analyzing “closed” regions, unlike the varied and dynamic spaces pondered by Reclus. Claval believes Vidal’s concept of genre de vie is valid only for explaining the habits of people living in an archaic fashion and not in an urban situation. This is true of Vidal’s simplified version, but not of Reclus’s. The same “possibilism” that Febvre (1922) attributed to Vidal de la Blanche’s geography can be seen as a continuation of Reclus’s dynamic and flexible influence.

Reclus was also original and important in the fields of human and political geography: in the maps in Nouvelle Geographie Universelle state borders were reduced to almost the bare minimum and they are nearly inexistent in L’Homme et la Terre. The three conceptual underpinnings of the conflicts that Reclus identifies and outlines in the preface to his last work—i.e. class struggle, the search for equilibrium, and the role of the individual—are instruments of knowledge useful for understanding the events of today. They withstand comparison with any Ratzelian geopolitical interpretation based on the state and national interests.

KEY CONCEPTS THAT CAN BE DERIVED FROM RECLUS

– The identification of natural regions determined by history, language, and lifestyle (genre de vie)—these involving: land, climate, organization of labor, food types, race, family, and methods of social grouping (Reclus, 1991)

– “‘Class struggle’, the search for equilibrium, and the will of the individual—these are the three facts that the study of social geography reveals to us and which, within a maelstrom of events, appear to be sufficiently constant to assume the name of ‘laws’” (Preface to L’Homme et la Terre, 1905).

Thus:

1) the socio-economic hierarchy created by unequal development between individuals and societies provokes conflict during periods of crisis, inequalities being the source of conflict

2) inequalities tend to balance out through a series of actions and counteractions

3) “it is from human beings that the creative will to construct and reconstruct the world is born” (Preface to L’Homme et la Terre, 1905)—The psychological, cultural and “political” stimuli of individuals and groups are an important factor behind Movement (in Jean Gottman’s sense of the word).

From the viewpoint of “anarchical scientific communities” (Johnston, Claval, 1984), Reclus would agree that single analytical instruments are not constant through time and therefore need to be continually reassessed on theoretical and empirical grounds. The same applies to conceptual instruments.

WHICH POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY AND WHICH GEOPOLITICS FOR TODAY?

Describing the development of geographical thought since World War II, Johnston and Claval speak of “varieties of geographies” and hold these in high regard. Johnston describes the progressive formation of original geographical schools of thought and concepts as the result of the actions of “anarchical scientific communities”, meaning by this, the existence of a flexibly dynamic mechanism at work among different schools of thought that contributes to the evolution of geography (Johnston, Claval, 1984).

If this is the case, should Reclus be receiving more attention today? While the existence of anarchical scientific communities should produce positive results, it is difficult to answer this question. The fact is that, at least apparently and ignoring any cases that may have attracted attention in the past, scientific geographical communities occasionally study power and its influence on the territory, but they do not deal with the problem of their own relationship with power and its conceptual logic.

We are also the products of our time. So, in the fields of political geography and geopolitics, which conceptual instruments have the widest application? Which should we use? Which should we abandon? Ratzel continues to receive attention because his ideas were in tune with a view of world politics based on the imperial model of a strongest power (the USA, for example) or supranational organizations (e.g. NATO or the UN) that legitimately possess the exclusive right to use force against other different (subordinate) entities. Such force derives from the presence of more powerful states that play a privileged role. These assume the shape of “pluralist” communities, the majority of whose members are united by peaceful and voluntary acceptance of their subordination. An obvious example is the current confrontation regarding the reform of the UN Security Council and of the UN in general.

On the purely conceptual plane, all the conflicts that have taken place in the world space during the 20th century have been based on the presumed scientific worth of the “organistic” principles exemplified by Ratzel and his successors —centrality of the state and population, and the geographical necessity of the politics of power. As Defarges said in reference to Haushofer, “the dream that raises the territory to be the ideal support for a people” (Moreau Defarges, 1996).

In spite of Ratzel’s views there are no geographical “laws” that determine the behavior of the most stable, well-balanced states. Rather, the determining factor is the political will of dominating over increasingly large territories—human will, therefore, and not any bioorganic necessity.

An approach to geopolitics that views the state as its first and foremost player—“Geopolitical awareness, or more in general an awareness of space as an arena for exercising power, primarily takes form in the spheres of power” (Moreau Defarges, 1996)—sees geopolitics as a science of strategy within a space as exercised by certain powers to reach certain ends known as national interests. The existence of states–powers (and centers of power in general) does not automatically legitimize this view, nor should it be regarded as a necessary or “scientific” mental reference.

“Today [1979] attention seems to be turned to a previously neglected issue, that is, the genesis of decisions .[...]. Geography thus becomes more realistic and more social. Some of the decisions that come to light are the result of the importance of the group and they demonstrate the inequality of the players. The effects of power are seen everywhere, while classic economic theory undervalued them” (Claval, 1980). One hundred years ago Reclus was saying very much the same thing.

An approach to geopolitics that does not see it as a science, but as a group of instruments (tools) for analyzing the political actions of humans on the territory, cannot do otherwise than concern itself conceptually with the nature of these actions. It is the political action that must be analyzed, while geography provides the conceptual and methodological instruments for analyzing the effects. Humans must be seen in all their complexity as the agents behind every change, but also as a factor behind continuity through time when equilibrium with the space that surrounds them is found. “In the social field, the only observable reality is the human race. Research must therefore be directed at this level and reasoning must begin from here .[...]. This means that one must not indiscriminately suppose the existence of collective operators” (Claval, 1980).

To be useful, the geography of today needs conceptual reference points that can truly match the challenge of the multiplicity of spaces, individuals, relationships, and dynamics that exists. Paradoxically, it is precisely the geographical and anthropological selector suggested by overstated views such as Reclus’s that can be more useful—and therefore more “objective”—than Ratzel’s conceptual tools which interpret political orientation as a geographic, and therefore a scientific, law. From this point of view, a belief in the usefulness of Ratzel’s geographical–scientific approach is legitimate, but it is more political than scientific or geographical.

If, however, we want geopolitics to take a truly critical conceptual stance—that is, flexible in application and open to different contributions (a useful thing, including as regards geography as a whole)—the time has come to bury Ratzel once and for all as misleading and obsolete, if not politically dangerous. The thing that political geography must no longer allow itself to do is kill off any geographical thought on the basis of discriminatory politics. Rather, different views should be accepted or rejected on the basis of free and open discussion.

Reclus’s means of interpreting geography are a Past that lets us read the near Future more clearly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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