Kjellen
Kjellen, Johann Rudolf
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Coined ‘Geopolitics’
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 13 June 1864, on Thorsö, Lake Vanern, Sweden
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 14 November 1922, in Uppsala, Sweden. Aged 58
DISCIPLINE: Political scientist
FIELD: Political science
LANGUAGE: Swedish
PARENTS: ?
SIBLINGS: ?
SPOUSE: ?
CHILDREN: ?
EDUCATION: Skara High School, to 1876-80; University of Uppsala, 1880-91
MAJOR WORK: 'The State as Organism' (1916)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Kjellen received his Ph.D. at Uppsala in 1891, and was appointed lecturer in political science at Sweden's newest university at Gothenberg. During the 1890s he became
interested in and taught geography, in particular the political geography of the German geographer and ethnographer Ratzel*, who would later originate the concept of Lebensraum, or "living space" (1901), in which the state was portrayed as an organism which needed to expand territorially in order to fulfil its destiny, and which related human groups to the spatial units where they develop, and to the tendency of a state to expand or contract its boundaries according to rational capabilities.
In 1900, Kjellen published a series of his Gothenburg University geography lectures in 'An Introduction to Swedish Geography', which again showed the influence of Ratzel. In 1902, Kjellen was appointed professor of political science and statistics at the University of Gothenburg, and two years later he accompanied the Uppsala Choir on a tour of the United States.
On his return, in 1905, he published his first important work, 'The Great Powers' and the same year was elected to the Swedish Parliament where he fought unsuccessfully against the dissolution of Swedish union with Norway.
During the early years of the 20th century, Kjellen had become interested in Japan and the Far East, and in 1909 he travelled for four months through Japan and China, a trip which would have a significant influence on his geopolitical research.
In 1914, with the onset of World War I, he then gained a higher profile in Sweden when he said that Germany was Sweden's natural ally, stating that "Germany . . . has a full right wanting a better place in the sun.”
During the second year of the war he then published 'The Political Problems of the World War' through which he became involved in a public ideological debate. He claimed that the ideas of 1914 (which he defined as order, righteousness and national solidarity) were the counterpoint of the ideas of the French Revolution, and that what was needed was the triumph of greater organization based on affinity, self-correction and discipline over a freedom that had, in his view, degenerated into self-indulgence.
He also attacked the notion of equality, which he believed was unattainable between human beings, and instead put justice next to order as the greatest good, through which each human individual has its place within a system based on nationalism, patriotism and the greater good of the state. For Kjellen, Germany represented the ideas of 1914 and was destined to win the war, while Great Britain and France, representing those of the French revolution, were bound to lose.
These controversial ideas made Kjellen famous in Sweden, and in 1916 he was
appointed Professor at the University of Uppsala. The same year he published another major work which made his name known internationally, 'Staten som Lifsform' ('The State as Organism'), in which he coined the term 'Geopolitik' for the analysis of geographic influences on power relationships in international politics.
In this work, Kjellen discussed at length his notion of the state as similar to a living organism, based on the interaction between nation, people, and state power, drawing on both Spengler's* view of human cultures as living beings and Ratzel's ideas.
Kjellen then analyzed the state using both proper geopolitics - the study of the "geographical individual" limited by both "natural borders" (such as mountains, forests, rivers, deserts etc.) and by "natural territory" (delineated by such necessities of civilization as production, cultivation, communications and fortifications), and special geopolitics - the study of space (problems of large space, expansion, the problems of great powers versus small states), figure (the shape of the territory: ideally a circle, like France and Iceland), and position (the most important geopolitical category for Kjellen, meaning not only the foreign policy position of a state - its "neighbourhood" - but also its
"cultural position" in relation to world communications and to history).
Already popular for his ideas in Germany, later the same year Kjellen was invited to visit both Berlin University and the German Parliament, where he had meetings with many statesmen and scholars. In April 1917, 'The State as Organism' was published in Germany, to great acclaim.
Kjellen's geopolitics had a wide following in Germany, but he had few supporters in Sweden and the rest of Europe, where some notable geographers were highlighting the dangers of his argument for an increasingly powerful central European state.
Mackinder* had already advanced his well-known theory of a 'Heartland' in world politics covering "EuroAsia" which, according to Mackinder, it was vital that the democratic nations control, an idea Kjellen had been using as a rationale to justify German expansionism.
Nevertheless, there were important differences between 'Geopolitik' and National Socialism (the Nazi party), most notably the fact that where 'Geopolitik' was influenced by the significance of natural laws in its understanding of social and political life, National Socialism saw societies as determined by biological inheritance.
ASSESSMENT: Based on Kjellen's foundations, 'Geopolitik' was implemented in Nazi Germany to devastating effect, but Kjellen's geographic-historical research on the structure of individual states was also very influential in the development of political
geography. Since Kjellen, geopolitical theorists have emphasized the importance to the determination of national policy of such considerations as the acquisition of natural boundaries, access to important sea routes, and the control of strategically important land areas.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work influenced that of Haushofer* and Hitler*
ONELINER: JR Kjellen, who coined the term ‘geopolitics’
BIBLIOGRAPHY: EB
Haggman, Bertil, ‘Rudolf Kjellen and Modern Swedish Geopolitics’, in Geopolitics, 3.2 (Autumn 1998), 99-112