MA/MS in Geopolitics & Connectivity

This Groningen track introduces a framework, developed by researchers at the university, for understanding geopolitics as an effect of connectivity: how efforts to impose order globally relate to the way things are linked together or kept apart. It examines how belief systems, environmental and health concerns, inequalities, ideologies, economic systems, and questions of nationalism and identity are all used to connect or disconnect people, ideas, and places, producing new geopolitical realities in the process. Students learn how spaces are, and have historically been, shaped by these acts of connection, whether strategic or not, drawing on historical and contemporary case studies to build distinct analytical skills for approaching geopolitical questions. Illustrative cases include how major powers attempt to reset the terms of their global connections, such as through large-scale infrastructure and trade initiatives, or how regional blocs try to build a shared geopolitical position through policy areas like environmental strategy.