Western Italian Boundaries. The geopolitics of Sabaudian space in Giovanni Botero’s Relazione di Piamonte. – In recent decades, the historiography dedicated to the Duchy of Savoy has reflected at length on the theme of the borders and frontiers of the pre-alpine dominions, investigating in depth the composite nature of those territories between discontinuities (the Monferrato, the marquisate of Saluzzo, imperial and papal fiefs ...) and attempts at assimilation. Reasoning around a text such as Giovanni Botero’s Relazione di Piamonte of 1607, we intend to retrace in a geopolitical key the agglutination of the Savoy territories, taking into account both local and international dynamics of the second half of the 16th century. Amidst tensions with France along the Alpine ridge, internal frictions with the Waldensian valleys, and Mediterranean projections, the complex picture will emerge within which Charles Emmanuel I on the one hand consolidated the achievements of his father Emmanuel Philibert with the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis, and on the other prepared the breakaway from Spain in the wake of the conflicts over the succession of Mantua and Monferrato (1613-1618; 1627-1631).

Geopolitics of Pope Leo XIV. The “American Pastoral” and the Vatican Diplomacy in the new papacy

The Evolution of the State and Economy in the Modern Age as Premises of Contemporary Geopolitics. – The main institutional and economic phenomena that emerged in the Modern Age and that favored the subsequent birth of geopolitics in the 19th and 20th centuries are the following: the transition from the patrimonial dynastic State to the absolute State, the birth of political borders and related cartography, religious wars and their overcoming, the challenge of the Ottoman Empire to Europe, geographical discoveries, the capitalist organization of the world. These phenomena gave rise to a territorialist geopolitical thought in the Age of Imperialism, more sensitive, that is, to the political-military appropriation of the world than to the cultural, commercial and financial control of territories.

Eco-theater, biodiversity and environmental discourse: the perspective of ecocritical geo-politics. – The objective of this article is to analyse, from an ecocritical geopolitical perspective, a particular artistic practice, namely eco-theatre, i.e. theatrical performances that aim to convey an environmental message. To this end, a concise historical account of environmental theatre is provided, commencing with Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (1882), followed by the experimental endeavours of The Diggers (1960s) and of the Reinhabitory The-ater (1970s), culminating in the climate change works of the 2000s and the contemporary proliferation of initiatives. The article then examines the different narrative strategies and suggests what should be analysed in the texts (plot, role of human and non-human characters, relationship with the audience, etc.) in order to grasp the environmental discourse of each text and its potential for creating an affective atmosphere.

Politics, Education, and Geography in the Early Modern Period: Notes for a Histor-ical Analysis. – This article explores the connection between political au-thority, education, and geography in the early modern period, analyzing how the teaching of geography became a fundamental tool for managing and controlling emerging territories. In a context of fragmented educa-tional systems, the article highlights how geography was used to address the new political, economic, and social needs of European powers. Schools, both secular and religious, particularly those run by orders like the Jesuits, played a key role in transmitting this knowledge, contributing to the creation of new skills essential for colonial expansion. Finally, the article underscores how geography, understood as both a scientific disci-pline and a political tool, became a point of convergence between educa-tion and power, legitimizing the imperial ambitions of European.

Lagoon geopolitical culture: Geographical, military and political knowledge at the Accademia Veneziana. – In 1558, the newly founded Accademia Veneziana, established and directed by patrician Federico Badoer upon his return from his embassy to Charles V and Philip II, conceived a monumental encyclopaedic programme of printed publications in all branches of knowledge: the Somma delle opere che in tutte le scienze et arti più nobili et in varie lingue ha da mandare in luce l’Academia Venetiana. Among all these “works in all the most noble sciences and arts”, those dealing with geographical and political topics occupy a unique position, quite new for the time. In this setting, which was eminently Venetian but oriented towards Europe and the world, took shape for the first time the project of a “reason of state”, conceived as a (geo)political science, i.e. inseparably geographical, military and political.

Geopolitics of Early Modern Age. Global Lines, Territorial Power, and Geographical Uncertainty. – This article explores the origins of geopolitics in the early modern period (16th-17th centuries), demonstrating how three key elements – the establishment of global lines, the relationship between state power and territoriality, and geographical uncertainty – shaped both the politics of the era and contemporary geopolitical thought. Through the analysis of cartographic sources (e.g., the Cantino Planisphere, 1502), treaties (Tordesillas, Cateau-Cambrésis), and theoretical works (Schmitt, Bo-tero, Machiavelli), it argues that: global lines codified the division of the world into spheres of influence, foreshadowing bipolar or multipolar logics; political territoriality emerged forcefully, crystallizing in national borders and the principle of sovereignty (Westphalia), despite simultaneous global expansion; geographical uncertainty, stemming from discrepancies between maps and reality, became a defining feature of geopolitics, with echoes in today’s crisis of international orders. The article thus reinterprets the roots of geopolitics, locating them not in the 19th century but in the crucible of early modernity, with implications for understanding contemporary power dynamics.

Towards a new Geopolitics. Reflections on the challenge of theoretical clarity, in the complexity of the new Millennium. – In a historical phase of accelerating change, persistent conflict, falling ideological veils, and recognition of the importance of the spatial element in influencing politics and conflict, contemporary Geopolitics is faced with a formidable historical challenge: that of developing theoretical clarity. This is a difficult task, however, because of some legacies of classical Geopolitics and differences in approaches. Nevertheless, contemporary global political changes make it possible not only to broaden horizons, overcoming the state-centric paradigm and the theoretical rigidities of the past, but also to reorder concepts and theories, maintaining at their basis the stability of the geographic factor, albeit bal-anced by human action. It can also be done by seeking to broaden the investigation into territoriality, geographic space, and the territorial concentration of power. This can be achieved not only by extending the multidisciplinary dialogue, but also by synthesizing the most solid findings generated by different approaches and schools, such as Critical and Neo-classical geopolitics, in the direction of a dynamic Geopolitics, able to approach, even if in small steps, a general theory.

The global south as a transcalar geopolitical construction site: african profiles. – The last two years, with the post-Covid adjustments, the climate transition and two ongoing wars of global impact, have been marked by intense international attention towards the African continent, despite its vastness and diversity. On the one hand, this may please Africans, for the help that can come to the solution of their many problems; on the other hand, it worries them, given the historical precedents. There seems to be a new scramble for Africa underway due to the crumbling of the European and, more broadly, Western presence, against the backdrop of a more general reshuffling of the international order. In this reshuffling, the “Global South” seems to be playing an increasingly important role. Who will lead and how will the world’s economic, cultural and political evolution unfold? The game is complex, but Africa is certainly one of the main arenas of contention. As an immense reserve of raw materials - minerals, energy, agro-forestry - the Continent is emerging as the world’s leading area of demographic development while acquiring growing geopolitical relevance, due to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian crisis, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, but also, due to the conflicting profiles that are emerging in the Indo-Pacific, between China and the United States. In this fermenting context, heterogeneous events have taken place over the past couple of years (2023/24) that have recorded an impressive acceleration: two coups in Francophone Africa, three world summits that evoke a pan-African partnership (Russia-Africa, China-Africa, Piano Mattei), two geopolitical summits in Johannesburg and Nairobi (unified African position on climate change, September 2023). It is worth trying to trace a coherent geopolitical profile of this heterogeneous set of events.

Critical note to the first seminar of the AGeI group on Geopolitics

Digital currency and geopolitics: the challenge between United States and China. – This research focuses on the potentially revolutionary role of the Chinese digital currency, the Electronic Renminbi, in reshaping the Chinese banking system and transnational geopolitical and economic dynamics. The e-RMB, part of the Chinese reform agenda since 2015, aims to redefine international balances by challenging the dominance of the US dollar. The Chinese strategy, exemplified by initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative, seeks to transition from American unipolarity to a multipolar system, ensuring stability for China’s economic growth. The e-RMB presents a seemingly liberal standard with privacy guarantees, but it actually aims to build a parallel system based on authoritarian capitalism and surveillance in the new territories of cyberspace.

The G7 at Borgo Egnazia. Geopolitics and the Imagery of Italy in the World

Comics, rusty stones and resilient hearts. Graphic novels and practices of spatial re-significance in roman peripheries at night. – This paper is the first result of a wider research project dedicated to the depiction of peripherical and marginal areas in comic books and graphic novels. As such, the contribution is consistent with the perspective of critical geopolitics and focused on the analysis of three graphic novels that, beyond their stylistic and narratives differences, are all set in the same “chronotope”: the Roman periphery at night. Thus, the paper draws from night-studies, socio-geographical theo-ries of space-production, and previous literature dedicated to comics geography. The three works are then presented as divergent narratives that stands against the negative depiction of periphery in mainstream media and their demonization of alternative and conflictual social practices, such as rave parties, graffiti, and house squatting.

V. Zelensky, J. Biden and the geography of body politics. – How does the body enter the media fabrication of the event? Does body politics have to do with the emotional characteristics of place? How can transcalarity, as the geographical foundation of geopolitics, be conceived not only in quantitative and dimensional terms, but also in qualitative and symbolic terms? To answer these kinds of questions, the essay analyzes the public profile of the corporality of Presidents V. Zelensky and J. Biden, on background of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis intertwined with the upcoming US presidential elections.

Geopolitics and sport

Reasons and topics of a conference. – The introductory text illustrates the project of the Conference within the framework of the celebrations for the seventh centenary of Dante Alighieri’s death and it underlines its interdisciplinary nature. The debate between Geographers and Italianists, focused on the reinterpretation of Paolo Revelli’s work – L’Italia nella Divina Commedia – has deepened the topic of geographic realism in the poem, the author’s political vision, the current tourist interest for the places of Dante. It is thus led a cross-reading of the essays that compose the Proceedings of the conference.

The geopolitics of Dante. A novel reading of Monarchia. – If Dante has been studied from different angles, and in particular in his political assumptions and also in his geographical references, no studies have been conducted on the geopolitical dimension of his works. Nevertheless, from a novel interpretation mostly of Monarchia, some very interesting and innovative geopolitical readings can emerge, standing on a comparison with some relevant definitions of this branch of geography. In Monarchia, indeed, the global reflection on the world destiny, on the international asset of world politics as well as of the humankind seem to be read also from this point of view, which has to be implemented with other studies.

Geopolitics of Contagion. The Future of Democracies and the New World Order after Covid-19

The use of force in interstate relations: theory and evolutions in geo-political practice. – The use of force in relations between states and other players on the world stage: theory, practice and developments in political geography. Based on the experiences of the twentieth century (world wars, genocides, ideological-totalitarian degenerations, decolonization processes), the geopolitical thought of late modernity, starting from the 1960s, essentially develops in a “critical” sense. Then it assumes, among its favorite themes, the discussion on the essence of power (whether or not it is intrinsically “bad”), of the state and of politics (if they inevitably have to rely on the use of force); then it starts the development of a method targeted to regulation and prevention of conflicts, based on a process of deconstruction of alleged “false” ideas of power, to prevent the effects of escalation that have led the whole of humanity to the risk of destruction and self-destruction. These needs are translated operationally into the search for the so-called “insider” factors, that is, those that, in a certain scenario, beyond an immanent and self-evident “casus belli”, cause effects of permanent and out of control conflict, to the point of making war an element that justifies itself (an end, rather than a means). Effects that confuse any causal chain, which make it difficult to identify links and motivations, and therefore the search for a solution, and with it the pacification of crisis scenarios (which in fact tend to perpetuate themselves in areas of “endemic” conflictuality. All this proceeding on the basis of a neo-Enlightenment (possibly neo-liberal) assumption, which almost deterministically assumes the affirmation of an open society, refractory to violence, and the assimilation of “evil” to the mechanisms of democratization, to open market and capitalist prosperity. All this in a context of multilateral policy development, the establishment of international organizations, and the consolidation of a trans-national geo-economic apparatus, of civil society as an “answer to war”, with the aim of progressively limiting, up to cancel the same occasions of conflict; and this to the point that an idea of war as something obsolete spreads (perhaps in an illusory way). The latest events, however, and recent developments, seem to contradict this trend, re-proposing themes and tensions that ge-ographic-political theory seemed to have abandoned for some time. A fact made even more evident by the current invasion of Ukraine, which leaves you dismayed, like aggression to troglodytic times, when the invasion did not need to have a justification; it seems to cause deliberate violence and destruction on a large scale, so much so as to question the entire “critical” paradigm. Putin 24th February discourse deliberately denies the right of Ukraine to survive as a national human community. Evolutions that make it necessary to rethink the practices of limitation and regulation, of the intervention and prevention devices of war, and of the same method of study of the scenarios; perhaps a return to models that, just until a few months ago, were considered outdated.

Geopolitics and Communication: First Analysis on the Epimedia Space of the Russian-Ukrainian War. – How do we translate the relationship between geo-politic and communication, when the wider analytical fields of the crisis have been solely reduced to the war dimension? This essay focuses on the Ukrainian crisis. Starting from the “epimedia space”, an analytical concept that proves to be of significant heuristic power, the paper explores the ways in which information is bent to the needs of communication. By mobilizing fake news, of course, and political propaganda techniques, to which manipulative paths of various kinds must be added.

The Afghan Wars: Between Economic-Cultural effects and Similarities in the Eura-sian Geopolitical Scenario. – The peculiar geomorphological configuration, characterized by imposing mountain ranges and desert areas, makes Af-ghanistan a difficult-to-access territory. Autochthonous peoples (different ethnic groups united by the war against “the foreigner” that also promoted the Taliban affirmation) widely exploited such a scenario suitable for guerrillas based on sudden attacks, difficulty accessing heavy weapons, and re-sistance to air attacks. The ability to counter invasions has been confirmed in the pushback of great powers, like Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America, which previously financed the mujahideen against Russian occupation. This management problem translates into the unexpectedly long democratization campaign of Afghanistan led by the Americans, which ended on August 15, 2021. The Enduring Freedom program, which envisaged the Western agreement of seventy nations for the implementation of a democratically stable situation and lasting in Afghan territory, proved a failure in the coexistence of the Americans in the cities and the Taliban in the valleys and mountainous areas. The withdrawal of American troops generated a sudden change in the international geopolit-ical scenario and, consequently, the Middle East balance. Through a brief historical overview of the conflicts that gripped Afghanistan, this work aims to provide a picture of the geopolitical, economic and cultural effects that have influenced the precarious balance of the Middle Eastern area of the world system.

"Geopolitics from thought to action. Space and politics in the contemporary age"

Identity and geopolitics of Europe. The "fourth side" of the triangle Russia, United States, China

Climate Changes and International Security. – «Global warming is potentially the most dangerous of all forms of terrorism»: this is the disturbing revelation of a report prepared for the Pentagon by two American futurists, Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. All that might be caused by climate changes as result of accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: the first to be hit would be, the Gulf Stream, which for centuries mitigates the climate of the east coast of the United States and northern Europe with a later «domino devastating effect». The report, which was to be secret, was for 2004 but was later published by various media organizations. Today, these positions are becoming increasingly important. On June 5, 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing that global warming may cause a threat to international security and calling for UN agencies to «intensify efforts» to combat the effect emissions. But there are also dissenting voices.

Geopolitics of pandemic: soft and hard power as reading keys. - The Covid 19
pandemic is one of the hardest challenge of the last century. With its
m edical emergency, Covid 19 has created a lot of changes in the
international relationships and in the geopolitical equilibrium. In this
paper, we are attempting to show and analyze global governments’
behavior against the pandemic through the use of both h ard and soft
power. We’ll see, particularly, Chinese and American government’s use of
hard and soft power. Then we’ll examine how European Union deal with
this global emergency. Each nation has carried on different diplomatic strategies to face the pandemic and to promote is own international image. Hard and soft power, in this sense, will be useful also to implement the social and economic policies and to make them effective in the post pandemic phase.

Global Event and Local Responses: The Case of the Flu Pandemic 1918-1919. – The experience of the flu pandemic in the year 1918 is considered an important event for understanding the First World War. The flu showed the interconnection due to political-military, commercial, information and news that allowed the virus to be physically transported to every continent and from there to find the possibility of spreading in every nation. Beyond the medical- health characteristics and the consequences derived from its seriousness, this episode shows the ability reached since the early years of the twentieth century to think of itself as an interconnected network that was used by the disease to advance rapidly and pro-voke its harmful consequences.

A Political Geography of post-Ebola Guinea. – Alpha Condè has been elected on November 2010, in the second round of the first free elections of the Republic of Guinea and actually on his second term. The President face a structurally complex situation. He took power after dictatorial regimes of Sèkou Tourè and Lansana Contè, lasted half a century. During his first term, the terrible disaster of the outbreak of Ebola prevents him to meet his program. At the present stage, Condè gives a firm geographical orientation to the government action, both internally giving a decisive importance to the reification of the territory (chantiers), and internationally, pushing the opportunities offered by a globalitarian globalisation on the geopolitical plan.

Ernesto Massi and Italian Geopolitics. A “Simbiotic” Report. – In Italy, “geopolitics” was born, grew and fully matured alongside the figure of Ernesto Massi. Their relationship was basically symbiotic and covered a substantial part of the last century. Geopolitical discipline in Italy, as is known, saw its affirmation with Massi and Giorgio Roletto and later developed in other countries (first Germany and France, but then Great Britain and the United States), thus emerging as a fully autonomous school with its own raison d'être.

European Citizenship: A Geopolitical Issue. – The signatory states of the Maastricht Treaty resolved to “establish a citizenship common to nationals of their countries". The issue of European citizenship usually turns around a conception of individuals as citizens of states which are themselves members of the European Union. The term “European citizenship” is perceived as a condition by which people from different nations should have similar rights, but there are still many uncertainties that accompany this process.

From Botero’s times until now every international system has always developed a geographical
knowledge, used in every nation or empire with different aims. Why? Because the geographical morphologies have been used in different ways through the History. This was the Reclus’ thought, taken from the Nouvelle géographie universelle. In that conviction he was keeping in mind both historical and technological evolution of the world. Geopolitics was born from each part of it, substituting the political geography in the last thirty years.