P ow er, space a n d 'political
ge o g ra p h y '
dy
erêra d 1 Syd n e y, Se p te m b e r 2 0 0 0
>5 and
We
It is the n ight o f M on day 25 Septem ber 2 0 0 0 , in the
closing w eek o f the O ly m p ic G am es in Sydney,
" U m berof
Australia. In fron t o f a record cro w d the Australian
X A ndrew
athlete Cathy Freeman sprints clear to w in g o ld in the
- Progrès
women’s 4 0 0 m etre final. It is Australia's first O ly m p ic
v <at last!
gold medal in athletics since 1 9 8 8 , and the hundredth
rking the: medal w on by an Australian since the start o f the
modern O ly m p ics in 1 8 9 6 . M om entarily exhausted,
cdraw icji
Freeman sits cro ss-leg g ed on th e track, hands over
:hank the her eyes and m ou th . T h e n , c o lle ctin g a flag from
gure 4.1, the trackside, she sets o f f o n a barefoot lap o f honour,
id Henry* draped in her dual-sided flag —on one face the ‘southern
otograph cross’ standard o f Australia, o n the oth er the red, black
opyrigh ^ and g o ld A b origin a l flag.
from any Cathy Freeman*s m o m e n t o f O ly m p ic history is
in future saturated w ith p o litica l g eogra p h y. M ost exp licitly,
there is the dem onstration o f Australian patriotism ,
putting reflecting the way in w hich sports events often provide
project a focal poin t for the articulation o f national identity.
Yet, w ith Freeman, a b la ck A b o rig in a l w om an and
uk/msj/ Aboriginal rights cam p aign er, the event assum ed a
.uk/raj^ - deeper, more com plex, sym bolism . Freeman had been
n e.h tm reprimanded on a previous occasion w hen she had
celebrated with the A borigin al flag. This tim e, however,
there were n o o b je ctio n s as she w aved her dual
Australian and A b origin a l ensign. In d o in g so Freeman
served not just to reaffirm Australian national identity
but contributed to its reinvention, turning the O ly m p ic
stadium into the stage for a sem inal perform ance in the
politics o f race and iden tity in Australia.
Freeman's celebrations refocused a tten tion on
the brutal oppression o f the A b orig in a l p eop le du rin g
the British colon isa tion o f A ustralia' as part o f an
im perial geop olitica l strategy. M oreover, the subjuga­
tion o f the A borigin al people depended on the app li­
cation o f p olitica l geog ra p h ic k n ow led g e a b ou t the
exercise o f pow er through the con trol o f space. Colonial
authorities im posed new adm inistrative territories
w ith ou t regard for any existing geograp h ical under­
standings o f the land, obliterated A b o rig in a l place
names and tribal h om elands, and exiled A b orig in a l
com m u nities to spatially con trolled ‘reservations*.
Freeman was not the first to use the O ly m p ic G am es
to m ake a political statement. T h e tradition includes
the ‘black pow er' salutes given b y A frican-A m erican
athletes at the 1968 gam es in M e x ic o C ity , and the
b oycotts o f the M oscow and Los A n g eles gam es as
part o f geop olitica l posturin g in the 1980s. T od a y the
very process o f b id d in g to host the O ly m p ics is a g e o ­
p olitica l exercise, w ith com petitors lo b b y in g to b u ild
alliances o f v otin g nations w ith negotiations that often
spill over in to issues o f international dip lom a cy.
For the host city the prize is a sy m b olic step towards
recogn ition as a ‘glob a l c ity ’ . T h e price, how ever, is a
rew orkin g o f the city 's ow n internal p o litica l g e o g ­
raphy. A t Sydney, as at all th e gam es, th e stadium ,
athletes' village and the associated infrastructure o f the
event form ed a ‘landscape o f pow er’ w hich sym bolised
the powerfulness o f the coalition o f politicians, business
leaders and sports adm inistrators that had brou ght the
gam es to Sydney, and the powerlessness o f those w ho
fou n d themselves displaced b y the developm ent. The
preparations for the gam es revealed m u ch about the
balance o f p ow er in con tem pora ry urban p olitics as
networks o f key actors w ere assem bled, funds diverted
from health and edu cation program m es, and new
2 P O W E R , S P A C E A N D 'PO LITI CA L G E O G R A P H Y '
public order legislation introduced. At the same time,
the Olympics became a site of resistance by Aboriginal
rights and anti-globalisation protesters who defied new
laws prohibiting demonstrations, claiming space and
transgressing the spatial order o f the ’Olympic city’ as
they did so.
These diverse stories from the Sydney Olympics
illustrate the breadth and diversity o f contemporary
political geography. Some are about nation building,
others about cultural politics, yet others about urban
development or about governance - but they are all
o f interest to political geographers. In this book
we provide an introduction to contemporary political
geography that captures a sense o f the dynamism
and diversity o f the sub-discipline at the start o f the
twenty-first century. As such, this book is by nature
wide-ranging, covering topics from the medieval
state to the regulation o f the capitalist economy, and
from community participation in planning in Berlin
to conflicts over the use o f the Confederate flag in
South Carolina. What unites these seemingly dis­
parate examples is that they all involve the interaction
o f ‘politics’ - defined in its broadest sense - and
‘geography’, represented by place, territory or spatial
variation. It is this intersection of ‘politics’ and
’geography’ that forms the central concern of this book
and that is the basis o f our understanding of ‘political
geography’.
D e fin in g political g e o g ra p h y
Political geographers have taken a number of different
approaches to defining the field of political geography.
To some, political geography has been about the study
o f political territorial units, borders and adminis­
trative subdivisions (Alexander 1963; Goblet 1955).
For others, political geography is the study o f political
processes, differing from political science only in
the emphasis given to geographical influences and
outcomes and in the application of spatial analysis
techniques (Burnett and Taylor 1981; Kasperson and
Minghi 1969). Both these definitions reflected the
influence o f wider theoretical approaches within geog­
raphy as a whole - regional geography and spatial
science respectively — at particular moments in the
historical evolution o f political geography and have
generally been superseded as the discipline has moved
on. Siiil currerr. however, is a third approach which
holds that political geography should be defined in
t' ms o f its key concepts, which the proponents of this
apprc_:h generally identify as territory and the state
(e.g. Cox 2002). This approach shares with the earlier
two approaches the desire to identify the ‘essence’
of political geography such that a definitive classifi­
cation can be made o f what is and what isn’t ‘political
geography' Yet political geography as it is actually-
researched and taught is much messier than these
essentialist definitions suggest. Think, for example,
about the word ‘politics'. Essentialist definitions of
political geography have tended to conceive o f politics
in very formal terms, as being about the state, elections
and international relations. But 'politics’ also occurs
in all kinds of other, less formal, everyday situations,
many of which have a strong geographical dimen­
sion - issues about the use o f public space by young
people for skateboarding, for example, or about the
symbolic significance o f a landscape threatened with
development. While essentialist definitions o f political
geography would exclude most o f these topics, they
have become an increasingly important focus o f
geographical research.
As such, a fourth approach has been taken by writers
who have sought to define political geography in
a much more open and inclusive manner. John Agnew,
for example, defines political geography as simply
'the study o f how politics is informed by geography'
(2002a: 1; see also Agnew et al. 2003), while Joe Painter
(1995) describes political geography as a ‘discourse’, or
a body of knowledge that produces particular under­
standings about the world, characterised by internal
debate, the evolutionary adoption o f new ideas, and
dynamic boundaries. As indicated above, the way in
which political geography is conceived o f in this book
fits broadly within this last approach.
W e define political geography as a cluster o f work
within the social sciences that engages with the
multiple intersections o f 'politics’ and ‘geography ,
where these two terms are imagined as triangular con­
figurations (Figure 1.1). On one side is the triangle
 E
t

P O W E R , S P A C E A N D 'P O M T IC A v G E O G R A P H Y ' 3

in th e s
.1 h ave f' Sp ace T h e interaction o f these three en tities is the concern
m oved t o f p o litica l scien ce. P o iid e a l g e o g r a p h y is a bout
w h ich the interaction o f these entities and a second triangle
ned in o f space, place and territory. In this triangle, space (or
o f this spatial patterns or spatial relations) is the core c o m ­
e state i m o d ity o f g e o g ra p h y . P lace is a pa rticu la r p o in t in
earlier space, w hile territory represents a m ore form al attem pt
ssence’ to define and d elim it a p o rtio n o f space, in scribed w ith
lassifl­ a p a rticu lar id e n tity and ch aracteristics. P olitica l
Policy g eog ra p h y recognises that these six en tities - p ow er,
optical ,
rtualty p o litic s and p o lic y , space, p la ce and territory — are
fig u re 1. / Political geo gra p h y as the interaction of in trin sica lly lin k e d , b u t a p ie ce o f p o litic a l g e o ­
i th ese 'politics' and 'g eo g ra p hy'
gra p h ica l research does n ot need to e x p lic itly address
a m p le, f
o f pow er, p o litic s a n d p o lic y . H e re p o w e r is the th em all. Spatial variations in p o lic y im p lem en ta tion
ions o f
are a con cern o f p o litica l g eog ra p h y , as is th e in flu ence
politics com m odity that sustains th e oth er t w o - a s B o b Jessop
puts it, ‘i f m on ey m akes th e e c o n o m ic w o rld g o rou nd, o f territorial id e n tity o n v o t in g b e h a v iou r, t o p ic k
lections
tw o ran dom exam ples. P olitica l g e o g r a p h y , th erefore,
power is the m e d iu m o f p o lit ic s ' (Jessop 19 9 0a : 3 2 2 )
> occu rs
em braces an in n u m era b le m u ltitu d e o f in tera ction s,
(see Box 1.1). P o litics is th e w h o le set o f processes that
nations,
s om e o f w h ich m ay have a cu ltu ra l d im e n s io n w h ich
are involved in a c h ie v in g , e x e rcis in g and resistin g
dim en -
m akes th em also o f in te rest to cu ltu ra l g e og ra p h ers,
power - from the fu n ctio n s o f th e state to election s to
■you n g
s om e o f w h ich m ay have an e c o n o m ic d im e n s io n also
warfare to office g ossip . P o lic y is the in ten ded o u tco m e ,
Dut th e
o f in terest t o e c o n o m ic g e o g ra p h e rs , s o m e o f w h ich
che things that p o w e r a llow s on e to a ch ieve and that
id w ith
occu rred in the past and are also s tu d ied b y h istorica l
politics is a bout b e in g in a p o s itio n to d o.
olitica l
s, th ey
<us o f

B O X 1.1 POW ER
writers * ■
jh y in :
Put simply, power is the ability to get things done, yet there are many different theories about what precisely
gnew , | i
power is and how it works. In broad terms there are two main approaches to conceptualising power. The first
im p ly > .
defines power as a property that can be possessed, building on an intellectual tradition that stems from Thomas
raphy' 7 -
Hobbes and M ax W eber. Some writers in this tradition suggest that power is relational and involves conscious
Winter f;
decision making, as Robert Dahl describes: 'A has power over 8 to the extent that he can get B to do something
rse’ , o r ' that B would not otherwise do' (Lukes 1974: 11-12). Others have argued that power can be possessed without
inder- * being exercised, or that the exercise of power does not need conscious decision making but that ensuring
zernal : that certain courses of action are never even considered is also an exercise of power. The second approach
, and ■■ contends that power is not something that can be possessed, as Bruno Latour remarks: 'W hen you simply
ay in ; have power - in potentia - nothing happens and you are powerless; when you exert power - in actu - others
book are performing the action and not you. . . . History is full of people who, because they believed social scientists
and deemed power to be something you can possess and capitalise, gave orders no one obeyed!' (Latour
w ork I 1986: 264-5). Instead, power is conceived of as a 'capacity to act' which exists only when it is exercised
th e I and which requires the pooling together of the resources of a number o f different entities.
?^ y’> I Key readings: Clegg (1989) and Lukes (1986).
con - I
n g le |
 VER, SP A C E A N D 'PO LITIC AL G E O G R A P H Y '
geographers. To employ a metaphor that we will
explain in Chapter 2, political geography has frontier
zones, not borders.
In this book we explore these various themes and
topics by drawing on and discussing contemporary
research in political geography. Nearly all the case
studies and examples that we refer to are taken from
books and journal articles published in the last twenty
years, including many published since 2000 which
may be regarded as at the ‘cutting edge’ of political
geography research. However, current and recent
work in political geography o f this kind does not exist
in a historical vacuum. It builds on the foundations
o f earlier research and writing, advancing an argu­
ment through critique and debate and through the
exploration o f new empirical studies that allow new
ideas to be proposed. Knowing something about this
genealogy o f political geography helps us to understand
the nature, approach and key concerns o f contemporary
political geography. To provide this background,
the remainder o f this chapter outlines a brief history
o f political geography, from the emergence o f the
sub-discipline in the nineteenth century to current
debates about its future direction.
A b rief h isto ry o f political
g e o g ra p h y
The history o f political geography as an academic sub­
discipline can be roughly divided into three eras: an
era o f ascendancy from the late nineteenth century
to the Second W orld War; an era o f marginalisation
from the 1940s to the 1970s; and an era o f revival
from the late 1970s onwards. However, the trajectory
o f political geographic writing and thinking can be
traced back long before even the earliest o f these
dates. Aristotle, writing some 2,300 years ago in ancient
Greece, produced a study o f the state in which he
adopted an environmental deterministic approach
to considering the requirements for boundaries, the
capital city, and the ratio between territory size and
population; while the Greco-Roman geographer Strabo
examined how the Roman Empire was able to over­
come the difficulties caused by its great size to function
effectively. Interest in the factors shaping the for
o f political territories was revived in the Europe
‘Age of Enlightenment’ from the sixteenth century t(l
the eighteenth, as writers combined their new enthu
siasm for science and philosophy with the practical
concerns generated by a period of political reform
and instability. Most notable was Sir William Petty
■
j;
an English scientist and economist who in 1672 pub.
lished The Political Anatomy of Ireland in which he
explored the territorial and demographic bases of the
power o f the British state in Ireland. Petty developed
these ideas further in his second book, Essays in Political
Aritbmetick, begun in 1671 and published posthu­
mously, which outlined theories on, among other
things, a state’s sphere o f influence, the role o f capital
cities, and the importance o f distance in limiting
the reach of human activity. In this way Petty fore­
shadowed the concerns o f many later political geog­
raphers, but, like other geographical writing of the time
and the classical texts o f Strabo and Aristotle, his books
were popular works of individual scholarship by poly­
maths which did not stand as part o f a coherent field
o f ‘political geography’ . To find the real beginnings
o f 'political geography’ as an academic discipline we
need to look to nineteenth-century Germany.
The era of ascendancy
The significance o f Germany as the cradle o f political i
geography lies in its relatively recent formation.
Modern Germany had come into being as a unified state I
only in 1871 and under ambitious Prussian leader­
ship sought in the closing decades o f the nineteenth i
century to establish itself as a ‘great power’ on a par ]
with Britain, France, Austria-Hungary and Russia.:
However, Germany was constrained by its largely]
landlocked, Central European location which restricted |
its potential for territorial expansion. In these circum-'
stances, ideas about the relationship between territory 1
and state power became key concerns for Germany’s I
new intellectual class and, in particular, for Friedrich J
Ratzel, sometimes referred to as ‘the father o f political ]
geography’.
M uch o f Ratzel's w ork was driven by a desiR j
to justify intellectually the territorial expansion <

Germany, and in writings such as Pohtische Geographic
he embarked on a ‘scientific’ study o f the state (see
Bassin 1987). Ratzel drew on earlier political geo­
graphical work, notably that o f Carl Ritter, but
his innovation was to borrow concepts from the
evolutionary theories o f Darwin and his followers. In
particular, Ratzel was influenced by a variation on
Social Darwinism known as neo-Lamarckism, which
held that evolution occurred through species being
directly modified by their environments rather than by
chance. Translating these ideas to the political sphere,
Ratzel argued that the state could be conceived o f as a political ends (see Chapter 3).
‘living organism’ and that like every living organism
the state ‘required a specific amount o f territory from
which to draw sustenance. [R atzel) labelled this
territory the respective Lebensraum or living space o f the in Britain by Sir Halford Mackinder. Like Ratzel,
particular organism’ (Bassin 1987: 477).
Extending the m etaphor, Ratzel contended that
states followed the same laws o f developm ent as
biological units and that when a state’s Lebensraum
became insufficient — for example, because o f pop u ­
lation growth —the state needed to annex new territory
to establish new, larger, Lebensraum. As such he posited
seven laws for the spatial grow th o f states, which
held that a state m ust expand by annexing smaller
territories, that in expanding a state strives to gain
politically valuable positions, and that territorial
expansion is con tagiou s, spreading from state to
state and intensifying, such that escalation towards
warfare becomes inevitable. In this way Ratzel not only
provided an ‘intellectual ju stification ’ for German
expansionism, but suggested that it was an entirely
natural and necessary process. Ratzel h im self argued
that the only way G erm any cou ld acquire additional
Lebensraum was through colon ial expansion in Africa
- a policy he actively p rom oted — b u t his theories
were seen by som e m ore m ilita n t nationalists as
justifying the m ore aggressive and m ore dangerous
strategy o f expanding Germ an territory in the crowded
space o f continental Europe itself.
Ratzel's ideas were dev elop ed further by R u d o lf
Kjellea, a Swedish conservative whose ow n political
motives were fired by opp osition to N orw egian inde­
pendence. K jellen’s intellectual project was to develop
a classification o f states based on the Linnaean system.
P O W E R , S P A C E A N D 'P O L IT I C A L G E O G R A P H Y '
By adapting Ratzel's theories, he attempted to identify
the ‘world powers' and predicted a future dominated
by large continental imperialist states. Although he
received some support in Germany, Kjellen’s work
would probably have been long forgotten had he not
in an 1899 article coined the term geopolilisk which
— translated into German as Geopolitik and by 1924
into English as geopolitics —came to describe that part
o f political geography that is essentially concerned
with the external relations, strategy and politics o f the
state, and which seeks to employ such knowledge to
W hile Ratzel and Kjellen were wrestling with the
dynamics o f state power and territoriality, a second
strand o f political geography was being developed
Mackinder is regarded as a founding father o f modern
Geography, having popularised the subject in a series
o f public lectures in the 1880s and 1890s leading to
his appointment as Oxford University's first Professor
o f Geography. Also like Ratzel, M ackinder saw the
benefits o f proving the political usefulness o f his infant
discipline. As O ’Tuathail (1996: 25) has com mented,
to an ambitious intellectual like M ackinder, the
governm entalizing o f geographical discourse so
that it addressed the imperialist dilem m as faced
by Britain in a post-scram ble w orld order was a
splendid way o f demonstrating the relevance o f his
‘new geography' to the ruling elites o f the state.
However, unlike Ratzel, M ackinder was prim arily
concerned with issues o f global strategy and the balance
o f pow er between states - topics that better suited
the interests o f British foreign policy. H e was not the
first to consider such matters. In the U nited States
a retired naval officer, A lfred Mahan, had estab­
lished him self as a newspaper pundit by arguing that
global military power was dependent on sea power, and
expounding on the geographical factors that enabled
the developm ent o f a state as a sea power. Mackinder,
though, disagreed with Mahan’s thesis, suggesting
that, as the age o f exploration came to end, so the
balance o f pow er was shifting. In 1904 M ackinder
published a paper entitled ‘T he geographical pivot o f
6 E*1 S P A C E A N D ' ^ O t n ' C A i . G E O G R A P H Y '
history- in the GeographicalJournal, in which he divided
history into three eras - a pre-Columbian era in which
¡and power had been all-important, a Columbian era
in which sea power had become predominant and
an emergent post-Columbian era. In this new era,
Mackinder argued, the end o f the imperialist scramble
had demoted the importance o f sea power while new
technologies which enabled long distances on land to
be more easily overcome - such as the railways - would
help to swing the balance o f power back to continental
states. Applying this hypothesis, Mackinder ordered
the world map into three political regions - an ‘outer
crescent’ across the Americas, Africa and the oceans;
an ‘inner crescent’ across Europe and southern Asia; and
the 'pivot area’ located at the heart o f the Eurasian land
mass. Whoever controlled the pivot area, Mackinder
argued, would be a major world power.
The First World War put the theories produced by
the new political geography to the test, and Mackinder
clearly felt that his ideas were vindicated. W riting
in his 1919 book Democratic Ideals and Reality, he
dismissed Ratzel’s models as misguided and outdated:
Last century, under the spell o f the Darwinian
theory, men came to think that those forms of
organisation should survive which adapted them­
selves best to their natural environment. To-day
we realise, as we emerge from our fiery trial, that
human victory consists in our rising superior to
such mere fatalism.
(Mackinder 1919: 3)
In Dmocratic Ideals and Reality Mackinder expanded
on his thesis o f the shift from sea power to land power
and recast his map o f the world’s seats o f power to
suit the new post-war order. He renamed the ‘pivot
area’ the ‘heartland’, but left it centred on the Eurasian
land mass, which he labelled the ‘ world island’ .
Significantly, he proposed that control o f Eastern
Europe was crucial to control o f the heartland - and
hence to global dominance (see Chapter 3). T o main­
tain peace, therefore, Mackinder argued, Western
Europe had to form a counterweight to Russia, which
occupied the heartland, and the key priority o f the
W est’s strategy had to be to prevent Germany and
Russia forming an alliance that would dom
Eastern Europe. nate
Mackinder's ideas had a strong influence on t|,
Versailles peace conference in 1919, in which ^
participated as a British delegate. Arguably, his leg^
can be seen in the creation o f ‘buffer states’ in Eastern
Europe, separating Germany and Russia, more or less
on the model that he proposes in D m ocratic Ideals and
Reality. However, his continuing influence extended
further than the map o f Europe, informing US strategy
in the Cold W ar, with the rhetoric and presumptions
o f Mackinder’s heartland thesis surviving into the
1980s (see O ’Tuathail 1992). Y et Mackinder was
also criticised for oversimplifying history, underesti­
mating the potential o f air power and marginalising
the significance o f North America - a mistake which
O ’Tuathail (1992) describes as Mackinder’s ‘greatest
blunder’. From this critique a modified approach was
developed by writers such as Spykman (1942, 1944),
which emphasised the strategic importance o f the
‘rimland’ (or Mackinder’s ‘inner crescent’) and which,
by becoming closely related to US foreign policy,
shifted the academic home o f such theorising away
from mainstream geography to international relations
and strategic studies.
Ironically, Mackinder’s thesis was also consumed
with interest in the country that suffered most from
its practical application at Versailles — Germany. For
German nationalists, enraged by the way in which
Germany had had its territory reduced and its military
dismantled after the First W orld W ar, the geopolitical
ideas o f Ratzel and Mackinder offered a blueprint
for revival (Paterson 1987). M ost prom inent in this
movement was Karl Haushofer, a former military
officer and geographer who became an early member
o f the Nazi party. Haushofer sought to build public
support for a new expansionist policy by popularising
interest in geopolitics. In 1924 he founded the
Zeitschriftfu r Geopolitik (Journal o f Geopolitics) and the
following year was involved in establishing the German
Academy, aimed at ‘nourishing all spiritual expressions
o f Germandom’ , o f which he later became president.
Haushofer’s ‘pseudo-science’ o f Geopolitik took from
Ratzel the concept o f Lebensraum and twisted it, arguing
that densely populated Germany needed to annex addi­

m in a te
tional territory from more sparsely populated countries
like Poland and Czechoslovakia, From M ackinder
it took the idea that control o f Eastern Europe and the
heartland would lead to global dom inance, arguing for
the construction o f a continental b lo c com prisin g
Germany, Russia and Japan w hich w ould control the
heartland and form a cou nterw eight to the British
Empire (see O ’Tuathail 1996).
Geopolitik provided the intellectual justification
for Nazi Germ any’s annexation o f Czechoslovakia and
Poland, for the H itler-S ta lin pact and, later, for
Germany’s ill-fated invasion o f the Soviet U nion.
However, the extent o f H aushofer’s influence on the
Nazi leadership is questionable (see H eske 1987). More
significant was the contribution o f Geopolitik in shaping
public opin ion , m ost effectively achieved through
the prom otion o f a new form o f cartography in which
highly subjective maps were used to emphasise the
mismatch between G erm an y’s p o s t-1 9 1 9 borders
and its ‘cultural sphere’ , to justify the annexation
o f territory and to suggest that it was vulnerable to
aggression by its Slavic neighbours (see H erb 1997 for
examples). The misadventures o f Geopolitik inextricably
associated political geography w ith the brutality and
racism o f the Nazi regim e and led to its discrediting
n su m ed as a serious academic pursuit.
>st from
iny. For
The era o f m a r g in a lis a t io n
w h ich
nilitary The excesses o f Germ an G eopolitik cast a pall over all
■olitical political geography. W r itin g in 1 9 5 4, the leading
lep rin t American geographer R ichard Hartshorne m ou rn ­
in this fully remarked o f political geography that ‘in perhaps
lilitary no other branch o f geograp h y has the attem pt to
em ber teach others gone so far ahead o f the pursuit o f learn­
p u b lic ing by the teachers’ (H artshorne 1954: 178). In an
irising attempt to ‘depoliticise’ political geography and to put
d the it on what he regarded as a m ore scien tific footin g ,
a d the Hartshorne (19 5 0 ) prom oted a ‘ functional approach’
erman to political geography. H e argued that political g e o g ­
ssions raphy should be concerned not w ith shaping political
ident. strategy, but rather w ith describin g and analysing
from the internal dynamics and external fun ction s o f the
guing state. Included in the former were the centrifugal forces
addi­ that placed pressures on the coh esion o f states (such
I
I
POW ER, SPACE A N D PO LIT IC AL G E O G R A P H Y 7
as com m u nication problem s and eth n ic differences),
the centripetal forces w hich held states together
(such as the state idea and the concept o f a "nation"),
and the internal organisational mechanisms through
w hich a state governed its terri to n -. T he external func­
tions, meanwhile, included the territorial, econ om ic,
diplom atic and strategic relations o f a state w ith other
states.
T he functional approach led p olitical geographers
to becom e concerned w ith questions such as the dis­
tribution o f different ethnic populations in a state, the
match between a state s boundaries and physical
geographical features, and the structure o f a state s local
governm ent areas, as w ell as w ith m a p p in g patterns
o f com m unication networks w ith in states and o f trade
routes between states. (Som e exam ples o f this type o f
w ork include C ole 19 5 9; East and M o o d ie 1 9 5 6 ;
M ood ie 19 4 9; Soja 1 9 6 8; W e ig e rt 1 9 4 9 .) H ow ever,
w hile the functional approach was popularised after
the Second W o rld W a r, it was pion eered in Britain
and N orth Am erica between the wars and arguably can
be traced back to the w ork o f Isaiah B ow m an in the
early 1920s.
Like M ackinder Bow m an had been a participant in
the Versailles talks, b ut unlike M ackinder he regarded
the new w orld m ap that em erged as extrem ely u n ­
stable. H is pessim ism stem m ed from con cern not
w ith strategic m odels, but w ith social and eco n o m ic
factors such as access to natural resources and the
distribution o f population, w hich he considered to be
the real sources o f political instability. B ow m an set ou t
these concerns in The N ew W orld (1 9 2 1 ), in w h ich he
identified the ‘m ajor problem s’ facing the new w orld
order as national debts and reparations, con trol over
the produ ction and distrib u tion o f raw m aterials,
population m ovem en t and the d istrib u tion o f land,
the status o f mandates and colon ies, trade barriers
and con trol over com m u n ica tion s and transit links,
the lim itation o f arm am ents, the status o f m in ority
populations and disputed boundaries betw een states.
Bow m an changed the scale at w h ich p olitica l g e o g ­
raphy was focused and set the foundations for a new,
arguably m ore scien tific and m ore o b je ctiv e , form
o f analysis. This new style o f political geography was
m ore ex p licitly ou tlin ed by East (1 9 3 7 ) in a paper
 8 POW ER, SPACE A N D 'P O llT IC A l G E O G R A P H Y '
w hich Jo h n sto n (1981) identifies as laying dow n rht*
principles o f the functional approach later cham pioned
by H arteshom e. East argued th a t 'th e p roper function
o f p o litical g eography is th e stu d y o f th e g e o g ra p h ­
ical results o f p o litical d ifferen tiatio n ’ an d ‘th a t th e
visible landscape is m odified by th e resu lts o f s tate
and in te r-sta te activ ities is a m a tte r o f com m on
observation an d experience’ (East 1937: 263). As such.
East continued,
p o litic a l g e o g raph y is d istin g u ish ab le fro m o th e r
branches ofgeography only in its subject m a tte r and
specific objectives. , . . W hereas th e regional g eo g ­
ra p h e r has fo r h is o b jectiv e th e discovery an d
d escrip tio n o f th e d is tin c t co m p o n en ts o f a physical
an d h u m a n landscape . . . th e p o litic a l g e o g ra p h er
analyses g e o g ra p h ic ally th e h u m a n an d p h y sica l
te x tu re o f p o litic a l territo ries.
(East 1937: 267)
Political geography as practised in the immediate
posc-Second World War period therefore had little by
way o f a distinct identity separate from mainstream
regional geography, and became largely fixated on
the territorial state as its object o f analysis. Moreover,
fear o f the sub-discipline’s past made political geog­
raphers wary o f modelling and theorising, such that
research remained essentially descriptive and empiri­
cally driven. The consequences o f this self-restraint
were twofold. First, political geography largely missed
out on theoretical developments taking place elsewhere
in geography, notably the ‘quantitative revolution’
o f the late 1960s. Second, (and reiatedly), political
geography became marginalised within geography and
began to disappear as a university subject. Berry (1969:
450) famously described it as 'that moribund back­
water" and by the mid-1970s Muir (1976) found that
political geography was taught in only half o f Britain’s
university geography departments, with over tw o-
thirds o f heads o f geography departments considering
that the development o f political geography literature
was unsatisfactory compared with other branches o f
geography.
However, Muir's article, which was provocatively
entitled ‘Political geography - dead duck or phoenix?’ ,
found grounds lor o p tim is m . t le im it a Hutt over Imli
o f respondents to his su rve y hud tele ih.n |>olnU l,|
g eog rap h y was .in n iu k n le v e lo p r d lin u u li >,1 jj,.,>fi
rap hy thatihonltl im reuse ¡11 m ip o r tu iu r- (Mini I>)/(,,
196),and pointed rn rhrorrin.il innovations rluti wri‘t-
beginning to rake pl.ur on ilit- fringes ol ihr sub
discipline. He concluded, '(hr i oiiirmpoiury <limui<.
of geographical opinion iiugers well lov ilv tumrr of
political geography, anil a promising tm kle ol pro,
gressive contributions suggests stimulating times m
come' (p. 200),
The era of revival
The revival o f political geography rhur Muir ilriri m l
in the 1970s was driven hy two parallel processes •
the réintroduction o f theory into political geography
and a political turn’ in geography more broadly.
Significantly, neither resulted from developments
in the established mainstream o f political geography,
but rather reflected innovation at the fringes o f polit i -
cal geography, producing research clusters which
eventually came to eclipse the old-style 'functional
approach'. One illustration o f this is the rise ol
quantitative electoral geography from the late 1960s
onwards. Although the quantitative revolution tended
to pass political geographers by, some quantitative
geographers realised that the spatially structured
nature o f elections, com bined with the large amount
o f easily available electoral data, made them an ideal
focus for the application o f quantitative geographical
analysis. Elections had not traditionally been a concern
o f mainstream political geographers, and the new
electoral geographers did not therefore have to chal­
lenge any orthodoxies as they em ployed quantitative
techniques to develop m odels and test hypotheses
across their tripartite interests o f geographies o f voting,
geographical influences on v o tin g and geographical
analyses o f electoral districts (Busteed 1 9 7 5 ; McPhail
1971; Taylor and Johnston 1 979). T h e lure o f technical
and theoretical innovation m ade electoral geography
the fashionable ‘ cu ttin g ed g e’ o f p olitica l geography in
the 1970s, such that b y 1 981 M u ir was moved to
com m en t that its ou tpu t had b ecom e ‘disproportionate
in relation to the general needs o f p olitica l geography

over half
p olitica l (Muir 198 h 204). (W e discuss electoral geography in
o f geog- fuller derail m Chapter 8.)
lir 1976: The growth o f electoral geography was the most
chat were prominent aspect o f the belated introduction o f a sys­
the su b- tems approach ro political geography, drawing on the
broader development o f systems theory in geography
y clim ate
future o f as part o f a focus on processes, not places (Cohen and
Rosenthal 1971; Dikshit 1977). Electoral geographers
le o f p ro-
viewed the electoral process as a system — comprised
l times to
o f various interacting parts, follow ing certain rules and
having particular spatial outcom es — but they also
realised that other parts o f the political world could
also be conceived o f and analysed as systems, including
the state, local governm ent, policy making and public
ùf detected spending (see Johnston 1979). Significantly, the mech­
processes - anical principles underlying systems theory meant
\geography that adopting the approach rendered com plex political
)re broadly. entities suitable for mathematical analysis and m od­
evelopments elling. H owever, the extent to which a full-bodied
il geography, systems analysis was adopted in political geography
iges of politi- varied. A t the m ost basic level, ‘systematic political
Listers which geography* im plied no more than reordering the way
e ‘functional in which political geography was taught and researched
the rise o f to start from themes or concepts rather than regions
ie late 1960s (see de Bil; 1967). W h ile this allowed generalisation
.ution tended in a way that the regionally focused approach did
quantitative not, it did not necessarily lead to in-depth theorising.
y structured Yet even the m ost conscientious attempts to produce
large amount models and theories through quantitative analysis
hem an ideal were constrained by their positivist epistem ology —
geographical that is, the belief that the w orld m igh t be understood
een aconcern through the construction and testing o f laws based on
iiid the new empirical observation. As critics poin ted out, p o s i­
lave to chal- ; tivism is problem atic because it creates a false sense o f
ritative ; objectivity, filters ou t social and ethical questions,
Ì otheses
voting,
iphical
oversimplifies the relation betw een observed events
and theoretical languages, and fails to engage w ith
the part played by both hum an agency and social,
economic and political structures in shaping the human
5;McPhaiI
if technical world (see C loke et a l. 1 9 9 1; G regory 2 0 0 0 b ). Thus,
geography because o f these epistem ological shortcom ings, p osi­
igraphy in tivist political g eogra p h y con tin u ed to be strangely
moved to apolitical (Johnston 19 8 0). M oreover, the ‘tim e la g’
xirtionate that afflicted the introduction o f concepts into political
?ography’ geography meant that p ositivism was b ein g ch a m ­
PO W ER . S P A C E A N D 'P O L IT IC A I G E O G R A P H Y
pioned in political geography at a time when these
criticisms were already widely accepted elsewhere
(Walsh 1979).
Ironically, the challenge to positivism was led by
theoretical approaches that were intrinsically political,
not lease the development o f Marxist political economy
within geography (see Box 4.1 for more on models o f
political economy). In SocialJustice and the C ity (197 3),
for example, David Harvey proposed a new analysis
o f urban systems as em bedded in capitalism which
described an urban geography saturated by class,
corporate and state power and forged through political
conflict. H owever, the infusion o f these ideas into
political geography was slow. D espite the calls o f com ­
mentators such as Walsh that 'what political geography
needs most urgently . . . is a com prehensive analysis
o f the state as a politica l-econ om ic en tity' (W alsh
1979: 92 ), political-econ om ic research w ith in p o li­
tical geography remained the exception, not the rule,
and the task o f studying urban conflicts, the geography
o f the state and the political—geographic expressions
o f capitalism was taken up prim arily by urban and
econom ic geographers, political scientists and s o ci­
ologists. It was not until the 1980s that mainstream
political geography really started to take the politica l-
econom y approach seriously, w ith the b lossom in g
o f work on the state, localities and urban politics (see
Johnston 1989). The developm ent o f the political
econom y approach in political geography and its co n ­
tinuing in current research concern w ith state strategy,
governance and the p o licy process is discussed in
Chapter 4, w hile political econ om ic approaches to local
politics are am ong those discussed in Chapter 6.
O ne o f the relatively few attem pts to lin k the
traditional concerns o f political geography w ith theo­
retical insight from M arxist p o litica l e co n o m y was
Peter Taylor’s introduction o f w orld systems analysis.
T he w orld systems approach, had been developed by
a p olitica l sociolog ist, Im m anuel W a llerstein , w ho
was h im s e lf in flu enced by the m aterialist sch ool o f
historical analysis associated w ith Fernand Braudel and
Karl Polanyi and by neo-M arxist d evelopm ent studies
(see W allerstein 1 9 7 9 , 1 9 9 1 ). As B o x 1.2 details,
W allerstein rejected the idea that societal change cou ld
be studied on a cou n try-by -cou n try basis and argued
 P O W ER , S P A C E A N D 'P O LIT ICA L G E O G R A P H Y '

instead that change at any scale can be understood only
in the context o f a ‘world system’. The modern world
system, Wallerstein argues, is global in scope, but he
recognises that it is only the latest of a series o f his­
torical systems and proposes that it is the changes
within and between historical systems that are the key
to understanding contemporary society, economy and
politics. For Taylor, the world systems approach was
particularly attractive to political geography not only
because spatial pattern was core to its analysis (Taylor
1988) but also because it offered the potential to
develop a comprehensive, unifying theory o f political
geography that could include traditional areas like
geopolitics and electoral geography and accommodate
political-economic analysis o f the state, urban politics
and so on. However, despite its superficial attractive­
ness, world systems analysis is open to a number o f
criticisms (Box 1.2), and although it has formed the
framework o f Taylor’s series o f textbooks (see Taylor
1985 and Taylor and Flint 2000 as the first and most
recent editions), the world systems approach has not
been widely adopted by political geographers.
Far more influential have been two con cept (
developments which served to further politicise the
outlook o f human geography as a whole. The first of
these was the so-called ‘cultural turn’ o f the late 198os
and 1990s which promoted a new understanding 0f
culture as the product o f discourses through which
people signify their identity and experiences and which
are constantly contested and renegotiated (see Jackson
1989; Mitchell 2000). Consequently, issues o f power
and resistance were positioned as central to the analysis
o f cultural geographies, generating significant clusters
o f research on questions o f identity and place, including
national identity and citizenship; conflict and con­
testation between cultural discourses; geographies of
resistance; the role o f landscape in conveying and
challenging power; and ‘micro-geographies’ o f politics,
including investigation o f the body as a site o f oppres­
sion and resistance (see for example Pile and Keith
1997; Sharp et al. 2000). These themes are discussed
further in Chapters 5, 7 and 8.
Moreover, the ‘new cultural geography’ drew on the
conceptual writings o f post-structuralist thinkers such

BO X 1.2 PETER TAYLOR, IM M A N U E L WALLERSTEIN A N D W O RLD

SYSTEMS A N A LYSIS

World systems analysis forms the basis of the best-known attempt to construct a comprehensive theoretical
framework for political geography, undertaken by Peter Taylor. It was initially developed by Immanuel
Wallerstein as a critique of analyses of social change that focused on one country and considered only a
short-term perspective. In contrast, two of the fundamental principles of world systems analysis are that social
change at any scale can be understood only in the context of a wider world system, and that change needs
to be approached through a long-term historical perspective. (The latter principle is derived from economic
historians such as Fernand Braudel and Karl Polanyi.)
Wallerstein holds that a single modern world system is now globally dominant, but that it has been preceded
by numerous historical systems. These systems can be categorised as one of three types of 'entity', characterised
by their mode of production. In the most basic, the mini-system, production is based on hunting, gathering or
rudimentary agriculture where there is limited specialisation of tasks and exchange is reciprocal between
producers. In the second type, the world empire, agricultural production creates a surplus that can support
the expansion of non-agricultural production and the establishment of a military-bureaucratic elite. The third
type, the world economy, is based on the capitalist mode of production where the aim of production is to
create profit. From the sixteenth century onwards, Wallerstein argues, the European 'w orld economy' system
expanded to subjugate all other systems and monopolise the globe. Transformation from one system to another
 P O W l R, S P A C E A N D ' P O L I T I C A ! G P G G R A P M Y

can occur os a result o f either internal or external factors, but changes con also occur within systems (termed
'continuities') - for example, in cycles of economic growth and stagnation. In the modern w orld economy
these cycles are m apped by the Kondratieff waves which describe fifty-year cycles o f growth and stagnation
in the global economy since 17 8 0 /9 0 .
Wallerstein further described the modern w orld economy as being defined by three basic elements. First,
there is a single w o rld market, which is capitalist, and in which competition results in uneven economic
development across the w orld. Second, there is a multiple state system. The existence o f different states is
$een as a necessary condition for economic competition, but it also results in political competition between
states, creating a variety o f 'balances o f pow er' over time. Third, the world economy always operates in a
three-tier format. As Taylor and Flint (2000) explain: 'in any situation o f inequality three tiers o f interaction
are more stable than fwo tiers o f confrontation. Those at the top w ill always manoeuvre for the 'creation' of
a three-tier structure, whereas those a t the bottom w ill emphasize the two tiers o f 'them and us'. The continuing
existence o f the world-economy is therefore due in part to the success o f the ruling groups in sustaining three-
tier patterns throughout various fields o f conflict' (p. 12). Examples cited by Taylor and Flint include 'centre'
I parties in democratic p olitical systems and the 'm iddle class', but also, crucially, a geographical ordering o f
the world into 'core', 'periphery' and 'semi-periphery'. For Wallerstein, core areas are associated w ith complex
production regimes, and the periphery w ith more rudimentary structures. But there is also a 'semi-periphery'
in which elements o f both core and peripheral processes can be found, and which forms a dynam ic zone
where opportunities for politica l and economic change exist.
By drawing on these different components o f w orld systems theory, Taylor identified a 'space-tim e m atrix'
for political geography, structured b y Kondratieff cycle and spatial position (core, periphery o r semi-periphery),
which formed a context for the analysis o f a ll types o f political interaction from the g lo b a l scale dow n to the
household scale, hence p ro vid in g a unifying fram ework for political geography.
However, the w o rld systems approach can be criticised on a number o f grounds. First, it is econom ically
reductionist - it sees the d rivin g processes o f change os purely econom ic; it positions p o litic a l action as
secondary; and it reduces sexism and racism to reflections o f the economy. Second, it is totalising in that it
incorporates everything under one b ig umbrella and fails to acknowledge fully the heterogeneity o f p o litica l
or cultural relations. Third, it is functionalist, not recognising that w hat causes something to exist m ay have
nothing to do w ith the effects it produces. For exam ple, the factors behind the creation o f a nation-state m ay
not be related to subsequent nationalist actions.

Key readings: For m ore on w o rld systems analysis see Taylor and Flint (2000), especially chapter l f a n d
Wallerstein (19 9 1 ). For m ore on the critiq ue o f w o rld systems analysis see Painter (19 9 5 ) and G iddens
(1985).

as Michel Foucault, Jacques D errida, G ilíes D eleuze
and Félix Guattari, and p o s tco lo n ia l theorists such
as Homi Bhabha, fo r w h o m th e relation o f p ow er
and space was a key concern (see B ox 1.3). A num ber
of different strands o f post-structuralist th ou gh t have
been introduced in to p o litica l g eog ra p h y , in clu d in g
ideas about difference in research on the cultural
politics o f identity and the use o f D errid a ’s m eth od o f
deconstru ction in critical g e o p o litics (see b elow ).
H ow ever, it is the w ork o f M ich el Foucault that
has arguably had the greatest influence in p olitica l
geograp hy, in particular through the d evelopm en t
and application o f tw o key concepts. T he first o f these
is ‘discourse', w hich Foucault redefined as referring to
the ensem ble o f social practices throu gh w hich the
w orld is made m eaningful but w hich are also dynam ic
2 ^OWER, SPACE A N D 'POLITICAL G E O G R A P H Y '

and contest«: (Box 1.4). In books such as The Order of
TbiK& (1975 {1966]) and The Archaeology of Knowledge
(1 ( 1969]) Foucault examined the articulation of
discursive practices and thus established precedents as
to how discourses might be analysed. These ideas have
been fundamental to the development of geographical
work on cultural politics and of critical geopolitics,
as well as to the development of discourse analysis as
a methodological approach which is now widely used
across political geography. The second key concept is
govemmentality’, by which Foucault refers to the
means by which government renders society govern­
able. Govemmentality is essentially about the use
o f particular apparatuses of knowledge’ and has been
employed in recent years in work on the state and
citizenship (see Chapter 8).
A significant aspect o f both discourse analyst ^
govemmentality is the potential they allow for exp|0ra
tion of the incorporation o f space itself as a tool ¡n ^
exercise of power. Much o f Foucault’s writing Wa$
concerned with power, but he rejected convention^
notions o f power as a property that is possessed
focusing instead on how power is exercised and how
it circulates through society. Foucault stated that 'spa^
is fundamental in any exercise of power' (Rabino„
1984: 252), and this principle underlies much of his
work on disciplinary power. His best known illy,
tration of this is his discussion o f Jeremy Bentham's
panopticon (Foucault 1977: ch. 3). The panopticon was
a proposal for an ideal prison, the spatial arrangement
o f which would effectively force prisoners to discipline
themselves. The panopticon would be built in a circular

BOX 1.3 POST-STRUCTURALISM

Post-structuralism refers to the theories advanced by a loose collection of philosophical writing produced in
the late twentieth century, most notably in France. Labelled 'post-structuralism' because of the way it built on
earlier structuralist theories, the approach is particularly identified with the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel
Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Julia Kristeva and Jean Baudrillard. The core ideas of post-structuralism are the
rejection of (he notion of an essential 'truth' and the consequential examination of the notion of 'difference'.
Building on the work of structuralist thinkers like Saussure (1983), post-structuralists hold that language does
not reflect meaning, but rather that meaning is produced within language and that the relation between the
signifier (a sound or written image) and the signified (the meaning) is never fixed. Moreover, post-structuralists
reject the idea of the rational subject, arguing that subjectivity (the sense of who we are) is constructed
through discourses (see Box 1.4) that are open to change and contestation, and that there is no external 'reality'
outside discourse. The 'claims to truth' that are advanced by science, religion and other discourses are
considered by post-structuralists to be enforced by particular power relations.
Post-structuralism is also associated with the development of particular methodologies to explore these
concerns. Derrida, for example, promoted the method of the deconstruction of 'texts' (that need not necessarily
be written texts) as a means of destabilising truth claims (Norris 1982), while Foucault traced the genealogies
of discourses to uncover their contingency (see Foucault 1966, 1969, 1979). These approaches have been
adopted by a number of political geographers, notably in the field of critical geopolitics, while other political ,
geographers have been attracted to the ideas of difference and of power and space that are prominent in -
much post-structuralist writing (see, for example, Deleuze and Guattari 1988; Foucault 1979, 1980, 1984).

Key readings: For an overview of the work of key post-structuralist writers see Lechte (1994). For a concise y
introduction to post-structuralist thought see Belsey (2002).
 cO W E 3 SPACE A N D =O LlTIC A l G E O G R A P H Y ' 13

■
| < oX ,.4 D IS C O U R S E
• . ,____ .

tvjk» aix many different definitions o f precisely what 'discourse' is, and the term is often used quite loosely
: « Dcese^. >¡jeogaiphicol literature. Put simply, however, discourses structure the w ay we see things. They are collections
■ c ts e c ia c * ' ^ ¿«as. beliefs and understandings that inform the w a y in which w e act. Often w e ore influenced by particular
u ed d tK ^ ji.tixsjrses promoted through the media, through education, o r through what we call 'common sense'. Derek

* w iiubta^ Gfdooiv w! 'n g in The D ictionary o f Human G eography (2000), identifies three important aspects o f discourse.
es roads s*'s, * Discourses are not independent, abstract, ideas but are materially embedded in everyday life. They inform
1cE3T» ^ whot we do and are reproduced through our actions.
nay B e a s ^ - 2 Discourses produce our taken for granted' world. They naturalise a particular view o f the world and position
MrX"'->_p--... ourselves and others in it.
-*5e
3 Discourses always produce partial, situated, knowledge, reflecting our own circumstances. They are
ts to tfo c^ K characterised b y relations o f pow er and knowledge and are always open to contestation and negotiation.
air tnacsc;^.
X8V readings: Barnes and Duncan (1992) and Gregory (2000a).

jtrwnsemenr with all the cells facing a central observa­
tion tower. The circle meant that prisoners could not
#e or communicate with each other, but also by means
r c c v c » ; -» ot backlighting from a small external w indow it
r. •* b.i ■i* ¿Mowed prisoners to be constantly visible via a large
:do. v. cHj. internal window from the observation tower, whose
Ism ore 8ve own windows had blinds to prevent prisoners see­
difference ing in. The prisoners cou ld not know' whether they
5->ageitee4 were being watched at any particular rime, but had to
>eiweeri Ag presume that they were under constant surveillance and
ifrvcfcfoiisti therefore act within the rules. As Foucault describes,
;onshvdec
•no! 'reeky the major eftect o f the Panopticon {is] to induce
:curses ce in the inmate a state o f conscious and permanent
visibility that assures the automatic functioning o f
unverifiable surveillance, assisted by spatial ordering,
has been replicated in many areas o f social and political
activity. More broadly, the ideas about space and power
that Foucault explored through his study o f the pan­
opticon have been translated into political geography
through work on the ordering and control o f space,
for example, by Herbert (19 9 6 , 1997) on p olicin g
strategies in Los Angeles and by O gborn (1 9 9 2 ) on
the exercise o f state power in nineteenth-century
England.
The influence o f ideas from post-structuralist and
postcolonial writers meant that the ‘cultural turn’ not
only identified new avenues o f geographical enquiry,
but also introduced new conceptual and m ethodolog­
ical approaches, including the use o f discourse analysis

.ptore these power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is to 'deconstruct' the meaning o f texts, maps, p olicy

-ecesio<>. permanent in its effects, even i f it is discontinuous documents and landscapes. However, as with Marxist

jenedogies in its action; that the perfection o f pow er should political economy two decades earlier, the uptake o f

i Have be« rend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that these innovations in established political geography

her political this architectural apparatus should be a machine
for creating and sustaining a pow er relation inde­
rsminen!ir
pendent o f the person w h o exercises it.
8 0 . 1984!
(Foucault 1979: 201)
a concise
Although Bentham’s pa n opticon was never actually
built, the principle o f con trol through visible yet
was patchy. It was more com m on ly cultural g e o g ­
raphers who took up the challenge o f the new research
questions posed by the cultural turn than people who
described themselves as ‘political geographers’ .
Surprisingly, perhaps, the area o f political geogra­
phy where the new conceptual and m ethodological
approaches had most impact was the neglected field
 P O W E R ; S P A C E A N D "P O L IT IC A L G E O G R A P H Y '
ot geopolitics. Drawing on Foucault’s notions about
discourse, as %vetl as on critical political theory, geog­
raphers, including most notably Simon Dalby and
Gearoid O Tuathail, began to develop the new approach
o f critical geopolitics. By treating geopolitical knowledge
as a discourse, critical geopolitics has sought to ques­
tion, deconstruct and challenge geopolitical assump­
tions. This has involved, for example, examining the
use o f geographical metaphors such as 'heartland' and
‘containment' in framing strategies, and, significantly,
exploring the popular geopolitical knowledges that
are constructed through cultural media such as film,
literature, news reports and cartoons. We discuss critical
geopolitics in more detail in Chapter 3-
The second recent influence on political geography
has com e from the development o f feminist geog­
raphy and from feminist theory more broadly. To date,
few attempts have been made to think through an
explicitly ‘feminist political geography’ (see England
2 0 0 3; Hyndman 2001; Kofman and Peake 1990), but,
engagements with feminism have highlighted the
masculinist nature o f traditional political geography
and have begun to suggest ways in which political
geography might be done differently. The conventional
concerns o f political geography have tended to focus
on institutions such as the state, government and
political parties which are dominated by men and tend
to reproduce a male view o f the political world (Drake
and Horton 1983). Less attention has been paid to
the institutions through which the patriarchal power
o f gender relations is exercised (such as the family) or
to the spaces in which women's political activity has
conventionally been focused - local education, health
and childcare systems, the household and the voluntary
sector. The integration o f feminist perspectives into
political geography has been associated with the devel­
opment o f work on the politics o f public’ and private’
space, and on place/space tensions (England 2003;
Taylor 1994a, 2000). England (2003: 611) proposes
‘a feminist political geography that takes formula­
tions of the politics o f public" and “private ”, power,
space, and scale seriously’, which she illustrates through
a discussion o f the political significance o f scale for
foreign domestic workers in Canada. Notably, the
empirical research that England cites was not initially
mu [im e’ c
designed as a political geography project (Enalan^ If' / ^ h 9 l lensed
« i^ c h o fw h i
and Stiell 1997; Stiell and England 1997), yct ^ sh yi iouu ,
• a v' „.ylresearcl
suggests, there is much political geography that ¡*
implicit in previous work by feminist geographers s ¡ y i aPhers' (<
Moreover, feminist theory and activism in generall i i j j p olit;cs
have challenged traditional notions o f the 'political K !l ge°«t9P
that underpinned many essentialist definitions of
political geography by proclaiming that ‘the personal■ < o c e . re* ulat
is political’. Combined with the influence o f post- «e0gfaP
structuralism and cultural studies, this message has r . A s c ie n tists;
helped to change perceptions about the scope o f poli­ by h is to ric
tical geography, extending the boundaries o f the V s o n « "
field far beyond those envisaged by many traditional t s e " n c e m S
definitions that focus on the state, or territory, or the
analysis o f political regions. which w:
u^nfereT
The future of political g e o g ra p h y U hersi
i v e d p ro b le n :
Political geography is clearly a much more expansive ^pointed to th e
creature today than it was twenty or thirty years ago. ^ (at least in
However, the danger o f this transformation is that
¡¡litutional healtl
‘political geography’ may become devalued by its
jeuncertainty al
very ubiquity - if everything is ‘political’ then it could
uncertainty wit
follow that all geography is ‘political geography’. This
gp phy s h o u ld
logic was followed by Clarke and Doel (1994), who
employed post-structuralist theory and a Derridian
fora little > ’■'
writing style to imagine a ‘transpolitical geography’
which spilled over the limits o f political geography’s Identity p o litic s
normal concerns and interests. The disturbing conse­ *1 fe m in ist p'
quences of this proposal are posed in the accompanying politics, p la c e t
commentary by Chris Philo: upheavals o f t l
is politics w i th
does this mean that swathes o f work on the »the old p o lit
geographies o f empires, states, nations, territories itlations, s ta te r
and boundaries (from Mackinder’s geopolitics
to Taylor’s 'world systems’) now become solely o f
historical interest, given that such work operates argued that
with the objects specified in a passing domain of •"toes is requirei
politics? And does it also mean that much conven­ ^.and that o
tional research on administrative, electoral and Withl
locational conflict geographies m ight have to be
l( spatial sc:
waved goodbye as well? Clarke and Doel appear to
Staiti ths
answer in the affirmative.
wing th
(Philo 1994: 529) %.
'« • Y e t h e s
 > j
& 0,
x " ch
the same time, the status o f political geography
has ^een challenged in more grounded terms by the
£cc that much o f what m ight be considered as political
eographica! research is not being undertaken by poli-
iS r J N a l; X X fical geographers' (Cox 20 0 3; Flint 2003). Research
in«d Î'N \N'
v a 0n cultural politics and geography is performed by
cultural geographers; on citizenship and the geog­
raphies o f policy delivery by social geographers; on
governance, regulation and state theory by economic
and urban geographers - as well as sociologists and
X i ,.<5k'k political scientists; on state form ation and national
identity by historical geographers; and on geopolitics
• ‘ « îio i» . •" « « j^ S by students o f international relations.
These concerns have informed a debate about
the future direction o f political geography as a sub­
discipline which was articulated in a panel discussion
f p o liH ,
at the conference o f the Association o f American
Geographers in Los Angeles in 2002 and a themed
issue o f the journal Political Geography in 2003. The
l , i ' “ ™l' - » » e „
perceived problem was expressed by Flint (2003),
n,,T r ," s i who pointed to the ‘paradox' that while political geog­
raphy (at least in the United States) was in good
ny may become
institutional health, it appeared to lack coherence and
verythingis'political',^,^
■face uncertainty about its direction. Flint identified
¡raphy is poli ticalgeographj'1.TJ-, the uncertainty with the dilemma o f whether political
by Clarke and Doel (19941,^ ¡geography should concentrate on politics with a big
icturalisc theory and aDern& ‘P’ or a little ‘p'r
agine
h e lim its or poll Identity politics, the environment, post-colonialism,
1 interests. The disturbing ton* and feminist perspectives are all relatively ‘new’
sal are posed in the accompany: politics, placed on the agenda by the political
s Philo: upheavals o f the 1960s . . . and can be classified
as politics with a small ‘p\ They stand in contrast
to the old politics o f the state and its geopolitical
th a t swathes of work oc'
relations, statemanship or politics with a large ‘P\
pires, states, nations, temnrc
(Flint 2 0 0 3 :6 1 8 )
from Mackinders ge<#:"
¡ysrem s’) now become sola* >
Flint argued that knowledge o f both Politics and
given th at such work Op-'.
politics is required to understand the contemporary
?cified i n a p W ^ world, and that coherence could be maintained for
: also mean t M ‘political geography’ by focusing on ‘the way that
idministrarive, different spatial structures are the product o f politics
eographies and the terrain that mediates those actions’ (p. 6 l 9),
»11? Clarke and by showing the relevance o f spatiality to all types
tfvc of power. Yet he also noted that much w ork on the
PO W ER , S PA C E A N D 'P O L IT IC A I G E O G R A P H Y '
’new’ , small 'p ' political geography is undertaken
by individuals who are not ‘card-carrying’ political
geographers, thus raising concerns about disciplinary
boundaries that were echoed by C ox (20 0 3 ). O ther
participants in the debate saw less cause for alarm. John
Agnew, for example, emphasised the historic fluidity
o f political geography and com m ended its diversity
with a geographical analogy:
Much o f what is o f interest to me in contem porary
political geography is exciting precisely because
there is more limited agreement than was once the
case in political geography and is the case today in
some other fields (such as econom ic geography). By
analogy, political geography is like Canada or Italy,
a com plex entity in imminent danger o f collapsing
under the weight o f its internal differences. But for
this very reason each is more interesting to the
political geographer than, say, Luxem bourg.
(A gnew 2 0 0 3 : 6 0 3 )
Broadly speaking, the debate produced three possible
pathways for the future. The first is concentration, in
which political geography would refocus on traditional
key concepts such as the state (Low 2 0 0 3) or territory
(Cox 2003), reverting to an essentialist definition o f
the sub-discipline and establishing firm boundaries
that distinguish it from cultural geography, econ om ic
geography and other predatory neighbours. The second
is expansion, celebrating the dynamism and diversity
o f political geographical research and proactively seek­
ing new objects o f study as part o f a ‘post-disciplinary
political geography' (Painter 2003). K ofm an (2 0 0 3 ),
for example, argued that ‘ there isn't necessarily a
contradiction between a heightened interest in political
questions in human geography and the existence o f
something called political geography’ (p. 6 2 1 ), while
Marston (20 0 3 ) noted that 'the m igration o f the
political to other areas o f the discipline seem to me to
be com pelling evidence that we have failed to attend
to a large portion o f what is legitimately and centrally
the purview o f political geography’ (p. 635). The third
pathway is engagement, forging new intellectual connec­
tions with allied subjects such as peace and con flict
studies (Flint 2003), socio-legal studies (Kofm an 2003),
P O W E R , S P A C E A N D 'POLITICAL G E O G R A P H Y '
political ecology (Robbins 2003), feminist geography
(England 2003) and political theory (Painter 2003),
as well as with political geographies produced from
outside the insular environment of Anglo-American
geography (Mamadouh 2003; Robinson 2003).
W e have already indicated rhat we are sympathetic
to definitions o f political geography that emphasise
diversity, and hence to the pathways of expansion
and engagement. This is reflected in the breadth of
topics covered in this book. However, the key point
to note here is the continuing dynamism of political
geography. What we present is a snapshot of politi­
cal geography at a particular moment in time, and
even by the time you read these words new research
will have been published, new debates started, new
ideas proposed and new areas of study emerging. It is
in this sense that this book presents an introduction
to political geography, providing a foundation from
which the student of political geography can engage
with the cutting edge o f the sub-discipline through
journals and research monographs.
The structure of the book
This book is organised into three parts, each of which
starts from a different perspective. Part 1, ‘State,
territory and regulation’, starts with the state, which
as we have noted above has conventionally been con­
sidered a key focus o f political geography. The first
chapter in Part 1, ‘States and territories’, examines the
development of the territorial state and the signifi­
cance of territory to the operation of the modern state.
The next chapter, ‘The state in global perspective’,
discusses the external relations of the state and the part
that geography plays in them, including geopolitics.
By drawing on a regulation approach to political
economy, the final chapter in Part 1, ‘The state’s
changing forms and functions', focuses on the forms
and functions of the contemporary state and the
strategies adopted by the state in the regulation of
economy and society
Part 2, 'Politics, power and place", starts with place,
a core geographical concept. The first chapter, The
political geographies of the nation', considers the
concept of a 'nation' and the ways in which national
identity is linked with specific places and territories.
The second chapter, ‘Politics, power and place’, steps
down a scale to think about place as locality. It explores
how place is important to politics and discusses the
structuring o f power within place-based communities.
The final chapter in Part 2, ‘Contesting place’,
examines how places become sites o f political conflict,
including conflicts about the meaning o f symbolic
landscapes and the construction o f community.
Part 3, ‘People, policy and geography’, starts with
people, but does so from two different directions. The
first chapter in Part 3, ‘Democracy, participation and
citizenship’, examines the ways in which people engage
with the political process as citizens and how this
engagement both is shaped by geographical factors and
creates new geographies. The second chapter, "Public
policy and political geography’, focuses on policy, the
means by which the state engages with people in a
place. This chapter discusses debates about the extent
to which human geographers should engage directly
with the policy process and raises issues that political
geography students could consider in their own
work.
A book such as this cannot hope to give any more
than a flavour o f the rich variety o f topics that form
part of contemporary political geography. As an intro­
ductory text, it is hoped, the book will stimulate you
to read further on themes that interest you, and even
to become involved in producing your own ‘political
geography’ through undergraduate and postgraduate
project work.
Further re a d in g
Agnew’s Making Political Geography (2002a) provides
a. more detailed history of political geography than
that outlined here, albeit one which emphasises the
traditional concerns o f the sub-discipline more than recent
innovations.
The debate about the future direction o f political
geography, discussed towards the end o f this chapter« is
published in Political Geography, 22, 6 (2003).

j^any o f the classic texts in political geography can still
be found in university libraries, but it is often more
informative to read m ore contem porary commentaries
on these books and articles rather than the originals
rhemselves. For m ore on RatzeVs theories, Bassin s paper
‘Imperialism and the nation state in Friedrich RatzeVs
political geography' in Progress in Human Geography 11
(1987), 4 7 3 -9 5 , is a g o o d overview. O ’Tuathail's paper
‘Putting M ackinder in his place* in Political Geography 11
(1992), 1 0 0 -1 8 , is a sim ilarly g o o d source on Halford
Mackinder. H erb, Under the Map of Germany (1997) is an
interesting exploration o f the perversion o f cartography
by German Geopolitik.
PO W ER, SPACE AND 'POLITICAL G EO G RA PH Y'
Kasperson and M in gh is edited collection The Structure of
Political Geography (1969) contains reprints o f many sig­
nificant contributions from Aristotle onwards. Although
it is long out o f print, many university libraries w ill have
copies. A gnew s reader Political Geography (1 9 9 7 ) has
an illustrative sample o f more recent w riting from the
1970s onwards.
Many o f the themes explored by political geographers
since the 1970s will be covered in m ore detail in later
chapters and guidance to further reading w ill be given
then.