Rudolf Kjellén

Rudolf Kjellén was a Swedish political scientist and politician who coined “geopolitics” and developed an influential theory of the state as an organism.

Geopolitics: The study of how geographical conditions shape political power and international relations. Kjellén coined the term and made geographical position one dimension of state power.
Sweden: A Nordic country in northern Europe with a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. Kjellén’s academic and political career unfolded in Sweden.
Karl Haushofer: A German geographer and general who became a prominent figure in twentieth-century geopolitics. Haushofer helped popularize geopolitical ideas in Germany after Kjellén introduced the term.
Legal positivism: A jurisprudential approach that treats law as rules established by recognized authorities, distinct from morality. Kjellén’s organismic state was broader than the state as a legal order of rules and institutions.
Organic theory of the state: A theory that treats the state as a living organism with needs, growth, and internal structures. Kjellén’s distinctive account cast states as organisms rather than mere legal arrangements.
Friedrich Ratzel: A German geographer whose work linked political power, territory, and state development. Ratzel’s political geography helped shape the intellectual setting for Kjellén’s geopolitics.
Lebensraum: A German term meaning “living space,” later used to justify territorial expansion. Organic accounts of state growth became associated with this expansionist political vocabulary.
Liberalism: A political tradition emphasizing individual rights, constitutional government, and limits on state power. His holistic account of the state contrasts with liberal emphasis on individuals and restraints on government.
Political geography: The study of how political processes and institutions relate to geographic space. This field supplies the spatial perspective that Kjellén recast as geopolitics.
The State as a Form of Life: A 1916 book by Kjellén that presents the state as a living, spatially grounded organism. This work gives the fullest expression of his organic theory of the state.

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