Geopolitics and geoeconomics

Geopolitics, geoeconomics, and geoculture have been the main research areas since the beginnings of the Political Geography study programme. In an ever-changing multi-polar world, political conflict in the information age between powers is shifting to a seemingly non-confrontational level (commerce, media) where the role of soft factors (e.g., soft power, disinformation, propaganda) is represented, as opposed to the direct confrontational level of hard power instruments (hard power ‒ military and economic power). Therefore, we are currently focusing on these soft factors, including religious soft power, formation of national identities, and critical geopolitics and geopolitical imaginaries. On a regional level, we focus on particular on the Eurasian and Indo-Pacific area.

Our research focuses on the sub-areas below:

  • Geopolitics and projections in international relations, territorial disputes, imperialism
  • Critical geopolitics as an analysis of discourses shaping geopolitical imaginaries
  • Stakeholders in geopolitical discourses, the role of identity
  • Geoeconomics as geopolitics in economics
  • Geoculture as a factor of geopolitical confrontation
  • Soft power, hard power, smart power, geopolitics of religious soft power, hybrid aspects of foreign policy
  • Political and economic transition and development

Major grant projects

Selected publications

  • BAAR, V., SOLIK, M., BAAROVÁ, B., GRAF, J. (2022): Theopolitics of the Orthodox World – Autocephaly of the Orthodox Churches as a Political, Not Theological Problem. Religions, 13(2):1-19.
  • SOLIK, M., GRAF, J., BAAR, V. (2022): Hybrid Threats in the Western Balkans: A Case Study of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Romanian Journal of European Affairs, 22(1): 5-23.
  • BAAR, V., SOLIK, M., BAAROVÁ, B., GRAF, J. (2022): Theopolitics of the Orthodox World—Autocephaly of the Orthodox Churches as a Political, Not Theological Problem. Religions,13(2: 116), 1-19.
  • WELLISCH, S., LAŠ, L. (2022): Media discourses of territorial disputes in Japan. Asian Geographer, 39:1, 1-19.
  • KOČÍ, A., BAAR, V. (2021): Greenland and the Faroe Islands: Denmark’s autonomous territories from postcolonial perspectives. Norwegian Journal of Geography, 75(4):189-202.
  • SOLIK, M. (2020): Social-conservative russian soft power: a traditional agenda and illiberal values as a source of attraction or coertion? A case study of Slovakia. Revista UNISCI, (54).
  • SOLIK, M., BAAR, V. (2020): Religious Component In a State’s Foreign Policy. A Case Study of The Russian Orthodox Church. Politické vedy, 23(2).
  • SOLIK, M. BAAR, V. (2019): The Russian Orthodox Church: An Effective Religious Instrument of Russia's 'Soft' Power Abroad. The Case Study of Moldova. Acta Politologica, 11(3), 13‒41.

Updated: 31. 05. 2023