Urban Geopolitics:A new Approach in Geopolitical Analysis of Iran

جغرافیاوتوسعه ناحیه ای

Article 7, Volume 9, Issue 1 - Serial Number 16, September 2011   

Document Type: scientific-research article

DOI: 10.22067/geography.v9i16.11033

Authors

Ghadir Siyami^* ; Hassan Khalilabadi

Abstract

Urban Geopolitics is a new discipline and a novel approach, developed from newly-emerging critical geopolitics, and employs a different scale and critical approach to power, competition, and the political relations between actors within urban spaces, trying to depict their positive and negative results for urban relations and interrelations. Exploring the theoretical foundations of Urban Geopolitics as a new and interdisciplinary approach to urban-political studies of the world, as a discipline for the first time introduced in the academic literature of Iran, this study tries to show that the investigation of representations of power and competition in and between cities, illustration of formal and informal violence (war and terrorism) against cities in modern age, and localization of Urban Geopolitics’ applications in Iran require the study of relations between power, competition, and politics. This study uses a descriptive-analytical method and having introduced the new approach, tries to analyze the background and the necessity of its application in Iran’s urban-political research system. Considering the key role of strategic regions and cities in Iran, such areas could efficiently be explored in the framework of a new science called urban geopolitics. It could also be employed to explore the constructive and destructive representations of power relations, competition and politics (violence and active participation, for instance) so that it broadens our horizons for efficient and new methods and procedures in analysis, theorizing, and development of new urban sociology, urban geography, urban planning and contemporary geopolitics in Iran.

Key Words: Geopolitics; Urban Geopolitics; Power; Competition; War and violence against cities.