[{"_id":"project:1747","_type":"project","abstract":{"en":"This project examines the history and current relevance of continentalist ideas and their influence in national and international policymaking. For centuries, the “default” political form of the nation-state has been challenged by the idea of a supra-national, large-scale political entity. Continentalism is one category of big space thinking, based on a geographical teleology of political unification within the borders of a “continent”. In some cases, this teleology underlies a comprehensive geopolitical ideology of continentalism, which historically has drawn on the big space theories of F.Ratzel, C.Schmitt and H.Mackinder. Continentalism is used by political elites in order to consolidate a geopolitical identity and policy, larger than the national one, to influence processes of state formation and international integration. Continentalism can be associated both with hegemonic- authoritarian tendencies as well as democratic projects, and can inspire imperial expansionism as well as anti-colonial liberation movements. The project involves four case studies, which compare ideological iterations of continentalism in Europe, Russia-Eurasia, South America, and Asia. It is designed as a study in the history of political ideas, and draws on critical geopolitics as a methodological framework. This approach helps us to understand discursive fluidity the diversity of expressions that can be found in different forms of constructing ‘continentalist’ geographical visions."},"keywords":{"sv":"Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning","en":"Baltic and East European studies"},"project_id":"39/2017_OSS","identifier_short":"39/2017","local_ids":{"sh":["3144/3.1.1/2017"]},"dates":{"start_date":"2018-01-01","end_date":"2020-12-31"},"organizations":[{"funding":[{"_id":7,"id":"802400-4155","sv":"Östersjöstiftelsen","en":"The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies"}]},{"coordinating":[{"_id":481,"id":"202100-4896","sv":"Södertörns högskola","en":"Södertörn University"}]}],"people":[{"project_leaders":[{"_id":"authority-person:603","orcid":"0000-0001-5692-4171","name":"Bassin, Mark","role":"principal_investigator","affiliation":[{"_id":11807,"sv":"Idéhistoria","en":"History of Ideas","parent":[{"_id":11802,"sv":"Institutionen för historia och samtidsstudier","en":"School of Historical and Contemporary Studies","parent":[{"_id":481,"sv":"Södertörns högskola","en":"Södertörn University"}]}]}]}]},{"other_personnel":[{"orcid":"0000-0002-8270-9077","name":"Suslov, Mikhail","role":"co_investigator","affiliation":[{"_id":978,"id":"202100-2932","sv":"Uppsala universitet","en":"Uppsala University"}]},{"orcid":"0000-0003-2312-2441","name":"Rivarola Puntigliano, Andrés","role":"co_investigator","affiliation":[{"_id":504,"id":"202100-3062","sv":"Stockholms universitet","en":"Stockholm University"}]}]}],"tags":[{"_id":11787,"id":"60305","sv":"Idé- och lärdomshistoria","en":"History of Ideas"}],"titles":{"en":"Continentalism And Geopolitics: The Idea Of ‘Bigspace’ Political Formations In Comparativehistorical Perspective"},"total_funding":"6181800","type_of_awards":{"sv":"Projektbidrag","en":"Project grant"},"publications":[{"id":"diva2:1671626","type":"article-journal","status":"Published","issued":{"date-parts":[[2023]]},"title":"\"Everything Is Revealed in Maps\" : The European Far Right and the Legacy of Classical Geopolitics during the Cold War","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Bassin","given":"Mark","ORCID":"0000-0001-5692-4171","localId":"shmkbn10","affiliation":[{"id":"11807","name":"Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria"},{"id":"496","name":"Södertörns högskola, Centrum för Östersjö- och Östeuropaforskning (CBEES)"}]}],"abstract":"This essay examines the engagement of the European Far Right during the Cold War with the legacy of classical geopolitics, above all the work of Mackinder, Spykman, Haushofer and Schmitt. The concerns of geopolitics with immanent spatial \"realities\" gave it an instrumental utility for the EFR as the latter sought to move beyond the obsessive preoccupation of interwar fascism (in its dominant German version) with factors of genetics and race. Beyond this, classical geopolitics provided conceptual and theoretical support for the EFR as it elaborated new ideological principles and political projects. On the one hand this involved a novel vision of pan-European unity that rested on the principle of continentalist autarky. On the other, with key concepts such as Heartland and Rimland, classical geopolitics offered a sophisticated but strategically flexible meta-geography of Eurasian space that was of immense value, for it could accommodate the EFR's ambivalence regarding the geographical limits of its envisioned pan-Europe and the nature of its relationship to its Eurasian neighbour, the USSR. The essay argues that while the conceptual continuities with the interwar period were vital, the deployment of classical geopolitical theory by the EFR after 1945 was driven by a logic of its own, one that was directly connected to the historical context and political realities of the Cold War. EFR ideologues used classical geopolitics essentially in order to negotiate the particular challenges of their day and to sustain and develop their own political agendas.","DOI":"10.1080/14650045.2022.2078709","ScopusId":"2-s2.0-85131397789","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-49301","issue":"5","volume":"28","page":"1843-1867","container-title":"Geopolitics","ISSN":"1557-3028","publisher":"Routledge","published":[{"raw":"2022-06-17T13:33:00.000+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2022-06-17T13:33:01.455+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-10-07T17:57:22.092+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-49301"},{"id":"diva2:1704438","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2021]]},"title":"Foreword. Why Rudolf Kjellén?","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Bassin","given":"Mark","ORCID":"0000-0001-5692-4171","localId":"shmkbn10","affiliation":[{"id":"11807","name":"Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria"}]}],"ISBN":"978-1-80073-072-4","DOI":"10.1515/9781800730731-002","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50089","page":"viii","container-title":"Territory, State and Nation : The Geopolitics of Rudolf Kjellén","publisher-place":"New York","publisher":"Berghahn Books","note":"[ed] Ragnar Björk, Thomas Lundén","published":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:38:00.000+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:38:33.162+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-10-07T17:44:54.603+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50089"},{"id":"diva2:1679568","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2021]]},"title":"Geopolitics Or Ethnopolitics? : Guillaume Faye, the European Far Right, and the “Russia Problem”","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Bassin","given":"Mark","ORCID":"0000-0001-5692-4171","localId":"shmkbn10","affiliation":[{"name":"Uppsala University, Sweden"},{"id":"11807","name":"Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria"}]}],"abstract":"Despite the sympathy for Vladimir Putin’s Russia expressed by much of the European far right (EFR), the question of Europe and Russia has for decades represented a considerable ideological challenge for it. This essay examines the ways in which this challenge is addressed in the work of the French intellectual Guillaume Faye (1949-2019), one of the EFR’s most influential theoreticians. Faye’s writings reveal the full scope of the far right’s ambivalence toward Russia, identifying it alternatively as a mortal enemy of the pan-European project, a potential strategic ally that despite its non-European character was vital for Europe’s purposes of resisting the American behemoth, or finally as a thoroughly European country and an essential part of the European “bio-culture.” In order to support these various positions, Faye deploys alternative ideological narratives, one based on geopolitics and the other on the precepts of ethnopolitics. This particular ideological juxtaposition has a deep history in the thinking of the EFR, and Faye’s polemics reveal how it has become intertwined with the special complexities of the Russia problem.","ISBN":"9780367611620","DOI":"10.4324/9781003105176-9","ScopusId":"2-s2.0-85131497265","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-49467","page":"103-120","container-title":"Contemporary Far-Right Thinkers and the Future of Liberal Democracy","publisher-place":"London","publisher":"Routledge","note":"[ed] A. James McAdams; Alejandro Castrillon","published":[{"raw":"2022-07-01T11:11:00.000+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2022-07-01T11:11:42.824+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-10-07T17:54:39.039+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-49467"},{"id":"diva2:1704432","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2021]]},"title":"Ratzel in Nordamerika : Ratzel in Nordamerika","language":"ger","author":[{"family":"Klinke","given":"Ian","affiliation":[]},{"family":"Bassin","given":"Mark","ORCID":"0000-0001-5692-4171","localId":"shmkbn10","affiliation":[{"id":"11807","name":"Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria"}]}],"ISBN":"978-3-8487-8045-7","DOI":"10.5771/9783748924340-23","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50087","page":"23-58","container-title":"Denken im Raum : Friedrich Ratzel als Schlüsselfigur geopolitischer Theoriebildung","publisher-place":"Baden-Baden","publisher":"Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft","note":"[ed] Ulrike Jureit ; Patricia Chiantera-Stutte","published":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:25:40.870+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:25:40.956+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-10-07T17:44:55.684+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50087"},{"id":"diva2:1704429","type":"book","issued":{"date-parts":[[2020]]},"title":"Geopolitical Imagination : Ideology and Utopia in Post-Soviet Russia","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Suslov","given":"Mikhail","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Copenhagen, Denmark"}]}],"contributor":[{"family":"Bassin","given":"Mark","ORCID":"0000-0001-5692-4171","localId":"shmkbn10","role":[{"marcCode":"aui","name":"Author of introduction, etc."}],"affiliation":[{"id":"11807","name":"Södertörns högskola, Idéhistoria"}]}],"ISBN":"9783838213613","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50086","number-of-pages":"289","publisher-place":"Stuttgart","publisher":"Ibidem-Verlag","published":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:12:37.405+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2022-10-18T11:12:37.472+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-10-07T17:44:58.390+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-50086"}],"links":[{"type":"pid","link":"https://sh.diva-portal.org/smash/api/project/swecris/project:1747"}]}]