Political Geography: An Introduction to Space and Power

Revised and updated, this is a new edition of a core undergraduate resource on Political Geography. Unique in the teaching literature, Political Geography (published originally as Politics, Geography, and ‘Political Geography’ ) retains its focus on the social and cultural, while systematically overviewing the entire discipline. The text explains: politics, geography, and ‘political’ geography - power, resources, institutions, and the history of political geography; state formation - classical views as well as recent work on governance and governmentality; welfare state to workfare state - the restructuring of present state strategies; and, democracy citizenship, law - different models of democracy from Held to Mouffe, democracy citizenship, law in European and global context. It also explains: electoral geography; identity and social movements - the relation between identity and political action; nationalism and regionalism - ethnicity, national identity, ‘otherness’; imperialism and post-colonialism - the theoretical literature from World Systems Theory to post-structuralist accounts; and, geopolitics - the political, economic, and strategic significance of geography, illustrated with examples from recent world politics. Comprehensive, accessible and illustrated with real world examples, Political Geography provides undergraduates with a thorough understanding of the relationship between geography and politics.