Abstract
Decision-making is one of the fundamental functions of governance, and due to its strategic nature, geopolitics is intrinsically connected to decision-making and policymaking processes. Despite this relationship, decision-making education in this field in Iran appears to be insufficiently aligned with the requirements of governance, policymaking, and national strategic decision-making. This study examines the status of decision-making education in Political Geography and Geopolitics and conceptualizes Geopolitical Decision-Making through a qualitative exploratory study based on directed content analysis of the course Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making. As an applied-developmental study, data were collected through review of the literature on geopolitics, decision-making, governance, and public policy, together with an analysis of the course syllabus. The findings indicate that the course content is predominantly influenced by the managerial paradigm, quantitative methods, and data analysis techniques, while the core components of geopolitical decision-making—including power analysis, national interests, the strategic environment, actor analysis, futures studies, scenario planning, and geopolitical policymaking—are inadequately represented. The dominance of an instrument-oriented approach has limited decision-making education to teaching decision-support techniques rather than fostering strategic decision-making and the design of policy alternatives. These findings reveal a gap between the course content and the requirements of geopolitical decision-making in governance and policymaking. Based on the findings, Geopolitical Decision-Making is proposed as a strategic competency and an emerging field of study. By integrating geopolitical analysis with decision-making and policymaking, this concept can facilitate a transition from instrument-oriented to strategy-oriented education and strengthen the contribution of geopolitical education to governance.

Introduction
Decision-making constitutes one of the most fundamental functions of governance, and the discipline of geopolitics, by virtue of its strategic nature, possesses an intrinsic and constitutive relationship with decision-making and policy-making processes. Throughout history, the power of states has depended more than anything else on the quality of decisions taken by their leaders. In the domain of governance, decisions determine the trajectories of development, the management of security crises, the orientation of foreign policy, the exploitation of geopolitical opportunities, and the manner of confronting environmental threats and opportunities. It is for this reason that decision-making can be regarded as one of the most foundational functions of governance; some theorists of public administration have identified decision-making as the "essence of governance."
Despite this intrinsic relationship, decision-making education in the field of political geography and geopolitics in Iran appears to be organized without adequate attention to the requirements of governance, policy-making, and national strategic decision-making. The present study aims to examine the status of decision-making education in the discipline of political geography and geopolitics and to conceptualize "geopolitical decision-making" through a qualitative exploratory study based on directed content analysis of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" in the Master's program in Political Geography.
The importance of decision-making has increased more than ever in the contemporary world, owing to the spread of pervasive uncertainty, the emergence of combined threats, intensified geopolitical competition, increasing complexity in international relations, environmental crises, and the disruptive effects of technology and artificial intelligence. Under such conditions, decision-making is no longer a linear process of selecting the best option among a set of predetermined alternatives, but a complex, multidimensional, and dynamic process in which the decision-maker must operate under conditions of ambiguity, information deficiency, time pressure, and uncertainty about the future. New research on decision-making emphasizes that decision-makers must focus on risk analysis, strategic thinking, and governance mechanisms rather than relying solely on comprehensive rationality.
Geopolitics occupies a special position in decision-making and policy-making processes. Geopolitics is not merely a descriptive science of relations between geography and politics, but a strategic knowledge that seeks to clarify the role of geographical space in shaping policies and decisions—political, security, and strategic—of states in the national and international environment. From the classical perspective of Mackinder, Spykman, and Cohen, geopolitics has possessed a close relationship with spatial competition. From this perspective, geopolitics cannot remain a purely descriptive theoretical field; rather, it must be a science that understands the decision-making environment and guides strategic decisions. New studies show that geopolitics affects not only foreign policy and national security but also the structures, processes, and patterns of governance, the formation of governance priorities, the allocation of resources, and even the decision-making mechanisms of public policy. Thus, the relationship between geopolitics and governance is a two-way relationship; geopolitics is a necessary condition for decision-making in the governance system.
Although numerous studies in the field of political geography and geopolitics have addressed concepts such as power, security, national interests, futures studies, and geoeconomics, less attention has been paid to the systematic connection between these concepts and decision-making and policy-making processes in the form of a coherent educational framework. The central problem, therefore, is not the transfer of specialized content from other courses to the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making," but the creation of a link between the existing knowledge capacities in the discipline and the methods of employing them in the geopolitical decision-making process. The present study, by analyzing the content of this course, examines the extent of its conformity with the conceptual framework of geopolitical decision-making and the requirements arising from it for supporting decision-making and policy-making.

Research Methodology
The present research is applied-developmental in terms of purpose and, in terms of nature and method, constitutes a qualitative exploratory study based on directed content analysis. The selection of this approach is justified because the subject of "geopolitical decision-making" in the scientific literature and the existing educational discipline has not yet been formulated as an independent and coherent framework.
The research data were collected from two categories of sources. The first category comprises documentary and library sources related to the theoretical foundations of decision-making, geopolitics, strategic studies, governance, and public policy, which were used to extract the fundamental components of geopolitical decision-making. The second category comprises educational documents and the curriculum of the Master's program in Political Geography and Geopolitics, including objectives, syllabi, and introduced sources. The course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" was selected as the unit of analysis because it is the most relevant course to decision-making education in this discipline. The selection of this course is not intended to generalize the results to the entire educational program, but rather to serve as an exploratory case study for examining the extent of conformity of the existing educational content with the conceptual framework of geopolitical decision-making.
The method of data analysis was directed content analysis. In this method, the analytical categories were determined in advance based on the theoretical framework of the research. Then, the educational content of the course was evaluated with respect to these categories. This approach made it possible to examine the extent of conformity or non-conformity of the educational content of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" with the extracted theoretical framework, and ultimately, by comparing the existing educational content with the extracted theoretical framework, to identify the capabilities and shortcomings of the educational content of this course.

Findings and Discussion
The Dominance of the Managerial Paradigm
One of the findings of this research is that the content of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" is predominantly influenced by the literature on management and organizational behavior. In this research, the "managerial paradigm" refers to an approach in which decision-making is essentially a process for selecting the optimal option within a framework of predetermined objectives, and based on techniques for evaluating, comparing, and prioritizing options at the level of organizations and institutions.
The examination of the objectives and syllabi of the approved course shows that the main content of the course consists of topics such as "Philosophy of Decision-Making," "Non-compensatory Decision-Making Techniques," "Decision-Making Techniques Based on the Decision Matrix," "Combined Methods," "Hierarchical Decision-Making Methods," "Fuzzy Logic," and "Fuzzy Set Theory." These topics are largely derived from the literature on operations research, management, and organizational behavior. In this approach, decision-making is defined as a process for selecting the best option among alternatives; training focuses on techniques for selection, evaluation, and prioritization, and decision-making in organizational environments, with a look at the economic and administrative structures and functions specific to the organization.
The decision-making in geopolitics has a fundamental difference from organizational decision-making. A manager of an organization usually operates in a relatively controllable environment and with a set of limited variables; whereas the geopolitical decision-maker must operate in an environment full of uncertainty, power competition, security threats, spatial transformations, and rapid changes in the international environment. From this perspective, what is important in geopolitics is not merely the selection of an option but the ability to understand the strategic environment and design strategic options.
Although among the approved syllabi, the course title "Decision-Making in Political Geography" is one of the courses, the findings of the content analysis of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" show that the specialized components of geopolitical decision-making—including power analysis, national interests, strategic environment, actor analysis, futures studies, and scenario-writing—have limited reflection in the objectives, syllabi, and sources and have a weak connection with the main content of the course. The pattern of content distribution indicates that the focus of the course is more on cultivating the ability to analyze and decision-support tools than on geopolitical decision-making. From this perspective, this situation is an indication of the dominance of the tool-oriented approach in the education of this course. The current educational content of this course focuses more on training the techniques of decision-making and less on cultivating strategic decision-making ability.
The Dominance of Instrumentalism and Reduction of Decision-Making to Tools and Software
The analysis of the objectives, syllabi, and sources of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" indicates that a significant portion of the educational content of this course is devoted to teaching decision-making models and techniques—especially multi-criteria decision-making models and techniques such as TOPSIS, AHP, ELECTRE, and fuzzy logic. Although the teaching of these techniques is necessary for decision support, the findings show that in many cases, the tools have replaced strategic thinking.
The review of the approved curriculum also confirms this situation. The main syllabi of this course are devoted to teaching multi-criteria decision-making models, ranking techniques, AHP, TOPSIS, ELECTRE, and fuzzy logic. Although these tools are important in supporting the decision-making process and evaluating and selecting options, the syllabi focus on evaluating and selecting options. In contrast, thematic topics such as power analysis, national interests, strategic environment, actor analysis, futures studies, scenario-writing, and geopolitical policy-making do not have an independent place as syllabi.
Therefore, the existing educational structure is focused more on cultivating the ability to analyze and decision-support tools than on teaching tools and techniques for selecting options. In fact, the difference between "decision support tools" and "decision thinking" is fundamental. Software tools and quantitative models can process data, but they are not capable of defining national interests, identifying geopolitical threats, or explaining the strategic consequences of a decision. These tasks require a kind of geopolitical thinking that is based on the analysis of power, space, security, and the future.
The Absence of Power as the Core of Geopolitical Decision-Making
The examination of the objectives, syllabi, and sources of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" based on the index of "power" shows that this concept, despite its foundational place in the literature on geopolitics, has limited reflection in the educational content of this course. Although in some of the approved syllabi, "Decision-Making in Political Geography" has provided a suitable capacity to address the role of power and its role in strategic decision-making, in the educational objectives of this course, a clear emphasis on analyzing power as the basis of geopolitical decision-making is not observed.
This research, in addition to the components of relative power, national power, territorial power, sea power, economic power, soft power, and technological power, has also considered the components of power as sub-components. Based on the findings, these concepts have a limited or indirect presence in the objectives and syllabi of the course. This issue is important because power is the most fundamental concept in geopolitical studies. Almost all theories of geopolitics, from classical approaches to critical and geoeconomic approaches, are focused on the distribution and competition for power in space.
The findings of this research show that in the content of the course under study, the concept of power as one of the fundamental components of geopolitical decision-making has not been sufficiently reflected.
The Absence of an Approach Based on National Interests and Strategic Interests
The examination of the objectives, syllabi, and sources of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" based on the index of "national interests and strategic interests" shows that this component, despite its central place in geopolitical decision-making, has a limited reflection in the educational content of this course. Although some syllabi, especially "Decision-Making in Political Geography," have the capacity to address some dimensions of strategic decision-making, in the educational objectives of this course, a specific emphasis on evaluating options based on national interests and strategic interests is not observed. Also, the review of the sources introduced for this course shows that the main focus is on general topics of decision-making, methods and techniques of option selection, and a framework for analyzing decisions based on national interests and strategic interests is not provided. Therefore, the analysis carried out shows that, despite the importance of national interests and long-term strategic interests in the geopolitical decision-making process, the educational content of the course under study is organized in a way that does not establish a systematic connection between the decision-making process and national interests and strategic interests. This situation can lead to decision-making that, while technically sound, is not aligned with national interests and long-term strategic interests.
Weakness in Futures Studies Education, Scenario-Writing, and Uncertainty Management
The examination of the objectives, syllabi, and sources of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" based on the index of "futures studies, scenario-writing, and uncertainty management" shows that this component has a limited reflection in the educational content of this course. Although some of the syllabi of this course, including "Decision-Making in Political Geography," have the capacity to analyze future transformations and their strategic consequences, the educational objectives and sources of the course do not pay attention to topics such as futures studies, scenario-writing, trend analysis, identification of drivers of change, and uncertainty management as independent educational axes. Also, the sources introduced for this course include books on multi-criteria decision-making, applied decision-making, and multi-criteria decision-making techniques in geography, which show that the main focus of these sources is on teaching models and techniques of decision-making, especially multi-criteria decision-making methods and their application in the analysis of spatial and geographical issues.
The examination of the content of these sources shows that topics such as futures studies, scenario-writing, trend analysis, identification of drivers of change, and uncertainty management do not have an independent place as components of geopolitical decision-making. Therefore, the findings of this research show that in the educational content of the course under study, futures studies and scenario-writing, as one of the most important tools of geopolitical decision-making, do not have an independent place.
The Gap Between Geopolitical Education and Governance Requirements
The most important finding of this research is that there is a meaningful gap between decision-making education and the actual needs of the governance system. It is expected that graduates of geopolitics will be able to play a role in areas such as foreign policy, national security, border management, energy geopolitics, geoeconomics, international interactions, territorial planning, and spatial policy-making. The realization of this goal requires the ability to analyze the strategic environment, evaluate strategic options, and design policy options appropriate to geopolitical issues.
However, the findings show that the educational content of this course is organized in a way that does not establish a coherent educational framework for connecting geopolitical knowledge with the process of strategic decision-making. The current structure of decision-making education is more focused on the transfer of general skills and is less focused on training strategic decision-makers and future-makers. Therefore, the task of the university is to train effective forces for the governance system, not merely to transfer knowledge and general skills.
Proposed Model of Geopolitical Decision-Making
The findings of the research showed that the most important deficiency of decision-making education in the field of political geography and geopolitics is the lack of a theoretical and practical framework for connecting geopolitical knowledge with the actual processes of governance and policy-making. Accordingly, the proposed model of this research is presented not as a substitute for existing theories but as a combined framework that seeks to link the analytical capacities of geopolitics with the requirements of decision-making and governance in a coherent educational and analytical process. In this model, the geopolitical decision-making process is organized in four levels, such that the decision-maker, by analyzing power, national interests, actors, trends, and probable futures, designs and evaluates policy and strategic options for the realization of national goals.
The first level is environmental cognition: the decision-maker must answer the fundamental question "In what environment are we located?" through knowing the geopolitical position and territorial features, geopolitical capacities, power resources, environmental threats and opportunities, regional and global trends, and actors and power networks. The second level is strategic analysis: after environmental cognition, the analysis process begins, and the data are transformed into strategic knowledge. The main components of this level include the analysis of power and power balances, the analysis of national interests, the analysis of risks and vulnerabilities, the analysis of actors' behavior, the analysis of the security environment, the analysis of geoeconomic opportunities, and the analysis of spatial consequences of decisions. The third level is futures studies and scenario-writing: since geopolitical decisions usually have long-term consequences, the decision-maker must be capable of imagining different futures. At this stage, key uncertainties are identified, probable scenarios are formulated, and the consequences of each scenario are examined. The fourth level is policy design and decision-making: the output of the three previous stages is transformed into policy and strategy. The most important actions of this stage include designing policy options, evaluating options based on national interests, determining priorities, selecting strategy, and formulating an action plan. This stage answers the question "What should be done?"
Based on the analysis of the literature, the conceptual framework of the research, and the findings obtained from the evaluation of the educational content, geopolitical decision-making in this research is defined as "a multi-level, strategic, and future-oriented process in which the decision-maker, by combining the analysis of space, power, national interests, actors, environmental trends, and probable futures, designs, evaluates, and selects policy and strategic options in order to enhance governance capacity and achieve national goals through them."

Conclusion
The present research was conducted with the aim of examining the status of decision-making education in the field of political geography and geopolitics and investigating its relationship with the needs of governance and policy-making. The results showed that, despite the strategic nature of geopolitics, the existing educational content in the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" is predominantly influenced by management literature, quantitative methods, and data analysis tools. As a result, decision-making education in many cases has distanced itself from its geopolitical identity and has paid less attention to components such as power, national interests, strategic environment, futures studies, and policy-making.
The findings of the research showed that the problem is not merely limited to the lack of a few syllabi or weakness in the selection of educational sources; rather, the examination of the educational content of the course under study in the light of the conceptual framework of the research indicates the absence of a coherent framework for connecting geopolitical education, strategic decision-making, and governance. This gap shows that in the course under study, the connection between geopolitical education and some of the requirements of decision-making and governance has not been fully established. While the governance system needs specialists who can analyze complex power environments, geopolitical competitions, spatial transformations, and uncertain futures and design policy options based on them, the findings of this research show that the educational content of the course under study is more focused on the transfer of knowledge and general decision-making tools.
The concept of "geopolitical decision-making," based on the findings of this research, can be proposed as a framework for strengthening the connection between geopolitical education, decision-making, and governance. This concept can, as an emerging conceptual framework, link the analytical capacities of geopolitics with the needs of national policy-making and decision-making. In such a framework, the goal of education can go beyond the transfer of knowledge and the teaching of techniques, and be directed toward strengthening students' ability to analyze the strategic environment, identify national interests, assess risks, and design policy options appropriate to the country's conditions. Therefore, the results of this research show that strengthening geopolitical decision-making education, along with the teaching of analytical methods and tools, can contribute to enhancing the effectiveness of geopolitical education in responding to the needs of governance.
The educational implications of the research and the redesign of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making": Based on the findings of the research, revising the content of the course "Methods and Techniques of Decision-Making" can be one of the practical steps for strengthening the connection between geopolitical education, decision-making, and governance. In the event of revision, the goal of this course is expected to move from the mere teaching of decision-making techniques toward strengthening the capabilities of geopolitical decision-making, strategic analysis, and spatial policy-making. It is therefore suggested that, in the event of curriculum revision, the possibility of changing the course title to "Geopolitical Decision-Making and Strategic Policy-Making" also be examined. Suggested syllabi include: 1. Theoretical foundations of geopolitical decision-making; 2. Philosophy and nature of decision-making in geopolitics; 3. Power and power balance in the decision-making process; 4. National interests and strategic prioritization; 5. Strategic environment analysis; 6. Actor analysis and power networks; 7. Geopolitics of crisis and decision-making under uncertainty; 8. Geopolitical risks and risk management; 9. Geopolitical futures studies and scenario-writing; 10. Geopolitics of corridors and spatial decision-making; 11. Energy geopolitics and strategic decision-making; 12. Geoeconomics and economic policy-making; 13. Spatial governance and territorial policy-making; 14. Workshop on designing policy options; 15. Case analysis of Iranian and global geopolitical decisions.
It is also suggested that, in future revisions of the curriculum of the discipline of political geography and geopolitics, the subject of "geopolitical decision-making" be considered not in the form of a specialized course, but as an interdisciplinary axis alongside fields such as energy geopolitics, geoeconomics, and other geopolitics in the design of the educational program; because the findings of this research show that strengthening the connection between education, decision-making, and governance goes beyond the revision of the content of a single course, and it is necessary to pay attention to it in the design and revision of the educational program of the discipline as well.