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Francesco Ravanelli (graduated in IR at Estonian School of Diplomacy and now working as new media consultant) informs us below about his experiences during the 2009 edition of the ICGS Summer School. He elaborates on what the course has taught him and why he can wholeheartedly recommend the course to those interested in geopolitics.
The International Centre for Geopolitical Studies (ICGS) organises this annual Summer University "Geopolitical Analysis of International Relations" in Geneva.
For more information about the next edition of the Summer University:
ICGS Summer University 2012 - Overview (174 kB)
ICGS Summer University 2012 - Registration form (31 kB, Word document)
In July 2009, I had the pleasure of attending an ICGS course in geopolitics, organised by dr. Gyula Csurgai in Geneva. I found this course really helpful, because after a few lessons we were already provided an analytical tool which helps in identifying interests of State and non-State actors in a given region/matter, possible future scenarios and course of actions.
While it has been said many times during the course that "future telling" is not the goal of geopolitics, by removing ideoligical lens and walking in the shoes of the actors we are analyzing, we can identify their interests and find common ground for solutions. So, instead of future telling promised by other modelling tools, geopolitics offer a realistic way of building the future.
It has also been said that, in order to better understand the actors we are analyzing, we need to travel and live in countries other than the native one, networking with people and seeing the world events through their eyes; the students attending the course, with their variety of professional and personal backgrounds, offer an additional opportunity to go towards this direction, by learning and discussing with peers.
The most important advantage of attending this course is that, in less than two weeks, attendants can go back to their own activities with tools that can be applied for risk management, IR analysis, diplomacy, etc. People who already have a background in IR, can expand their knowledge, while students who are new to the field get an important foundation for future studies in a few days.
All the lecturers gave interesting perspectives on the subjects, especially Dr. Csurgai and Dr. David Criekemans. Dr. Anselm Zurfluh, who is also the head of the Museum of Swiss Abroad (located next to the class-room in Domaine de Penthes) provided great insight about Swiss geopolitics and has been available for almost the whole course to address questions:
Also, the United Nations library is at a stone-throw from the school, offering a great facility for online and offline research; the staff there is happy to assist researchers, and thanks to the school assistance, it takes less than ten minutes to get a UN pass which allows free unlimited access to the library. The United Nations library proved to be a very valuable resource, while working on my presentation on "Geopolitics of Cyberwarfare and its main actors".
I have searched for other courses on the topic, and they are hard to find as a stand-alone module. Usually, geopolitics is briefly mentioned as part of other IR courses syllabus. It is a wish, shared by other fellow students, that hopefully ICGS will organise additional courses and seminars, like the great one provided this Summer. Geopolitics, geoeconomics and competitive intelligence are going to play a larger role in tomorrow's world, and ICGS students are offered the tools to make this work for their careers and better understanding of IR.
