Please check: Education
More information on publisher's homepage
Dr Gyula Csurgai (1962) was born in Budapest and holds the Hungarian and Canadian nationality. He graduated from University of Concordia (Canada) and Toulouse (France) with a degree in Political Science, before obtaining his doctorate from University of Geneva.
Mr. Csurgai is geopolitics courses director of International Centre for Geopolitical Studies, lecturer in geopolitics in academic and professional circles and author of several studies and publications.
The "Geopolitical Passport" series aims to humanise geopolitics by offering geopolitical specialists an opportunity to give their views on this discipline. The interviews address issues such as the rational behind their decision to conduct geopolitical research, their favourite books and their expectations regarding the geopolitical future.
The International Centre for Geopolitical Studies (I.C.G.S.) aims at studying and analysing the geopolitical problems of the world system in order to better understand the evolution of contemporary international relations.
I discovered geopolitics when I was 26 years old. I studied political science and could not use theories learned in this discipline to analyse the complexity of International Relations. I took a course in geopolitics in 1988 in Canada and since then I re-oriented my research and teaching towards geopolitics.
As I was born in Central Europe, I was very much interested in how identity factors are related to territoriality and representations. I did my doctorate thesis on the geopolitical analysis of the national question in Central Europe. It was published in book format by Peter Lang (Bern, 2002) with the title "La nation et ses territories en Europe Centrale: une approche Géopolitique ".
I would consider that by establishing International Centre for Geopolitical Studies (ICGS, www.geopolitics.ch) in 2002 in Geneva, was one of my most important contributions to the dissemination of geopolitical approach. We organised 4 international symposiums, 3 summer university courses in geopolitics and 15 seminars. About 600 participants attended these geopolitical events.
Geopolitics is a multi-dimensional method of analysing power rivalries of state and non-state actors seeking the control of a given geographic zone. I would insist on the multi-dimensional aspect: it means that geopolitical approach takes into consideration a great number of variables and constant factors in a given geopolitical configuration.
Aymeric Chauprade and François Thual are my two favourite geopolitical experts. They contributed a lot to the development of the geopolitical analysis method and their writing is clear and well structured.
Chauprade’s major contribution, « Géopolitique , Constantes et Changements dans l’Histoire ». It is an excellent book that integrates a great number of geopolitical situations in their identity and historical contexts.
I like to following websites: www.geopolitiek.nl (predecessor of ExploringGeopolitics), www.infoguerre.fr and http://www.diploweb.com. These websites are informative and accessible for the public as well for students.
One of the major importance is to develop the geopolitical method. I can foresee the emergences of several branches of geopolitics related to contemporary problems such as terrorism, identity conflicts etc.
Religion and geopolitics, Urban violence and geopolitics.
Energy, Migrations, Environment, Identity Conflicts.