POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY QUARTERLY, Vol, 1, No. 1, January 1982, 1-17 0 1982 Butterworths

Editorial essay: political geography- research agendas for the nineteen eighties

The nineteen fifties were a good decade for political geography. This simple fact is often lost sight of in the current resurgence of our sub-discipline. In 1958 a review article by Jackson was able to cite several key articles published in the early1950s culminating in seven political geography books published in 1956 and 1957. Jackson was not fully satisfied with the situation, however. He complained that the new books consisted of a mixture of man-environment discussions and/or regional descriptions ‘working the same materials over and over again’. Jackson’s prescription was predictable: ‘There is a real need for the development of systematic thinking in political geography’. We know now that Jackson’s hopes for the sub-discipline floundered in the wake of the quantitative revolution in geography. Political geography did become more systematic in orientation but soon ossified into a rather static listing of topics with none of the exciting theoretical departures in location theory found in other parts of human geography. Hence the 1960s were a bad decade for political geography with too many textbooks and too little basic research which continued into the mid-1970s. The question that must now be answered is whether the new hopes for political geography that emerged in the 1970s will be any more likely to be fulfilled than those of an earlier generation.

There are good reasons why we may be more optimistic today. The apolitical trends in geography that emerged after Jackson’s review were obviously out of sympathy with political researches. As human geography climbed upon the ‘neutral’ ‘objective’ bandwagon of positivist social science, political issues inevitably became relegated to obscurity. Ironically the challenge to the positivist school has been brought about by political reaction to the complacencies of modern social science concurrent with more general societal trends. Hence it can be argued that, at last, political geography’s day has come. Whereas the previous generation had to plough its furrow in a very barren field of geography, political issues have now become a central focus for modern human geography providing the most suitable intellectual environment for political geography since the end of the First World War. Even researchers who would not identify themselves as political geographers (e.g. Wolpert and Harvey) have produced some of the best political geography of recent years.

Of course we must not be carried away by our optimism. Opportunities only matter when they are taken and its chequered history reminds us .that there is nothing inevitable about the future growth of our sub-discipline (Dikshit, 1977). Continued growth must be the result of attracting a higher proportion of geography’s creative and productive researchers than have worked in the field in the past. This cannot be done by regurgitating the stale list of systematic topics that emerged from the sixties in the classroom and most textbooks. Looking at many of these textbooks a decade on it is not surprising, in hindsight, to see why young researchers were not choosing to work in political geography. There were simply very few interesting questions that could be identified in our subject matter and it

2 Editorial essa_v

was even implied that there was little need for research at all. This situation must be changed and there are indications that a much more healthy research position is evolving. Political Geography Q2uarter& has been founded primarily as a vehicle for encouraging these processes. In particular this editorial essay has the task of identifying ‘pertinent research questions’ in political geography to try and ensure that we get a reasonable quota of the next generation of human geography researchers and to promote more fruitful links with political science and political sociology.

Before we embark on these tasks one point must be made abundantly clear. This essay does not profess to define a new orthodoxy. In fact we argue for quite the opposite, The lesson of all forms of evolution is that variety provides a critical advantage. The systematic political geography to emerge after the 1950s was conspicuous by its grey uniformity of topics and perspective. The most healthy aspect of the recent growth in political geography is in its pluralism. New topics are being investigated while alternatives are being employed: variety is becoming the watchword of the new political geography and this is explicitly reflected in the membership of the editorial board of this journal.

The remainder of this essay consists of a collation of the views of board members concerning what they believe to be some of the most important areas of political geography research to pursue in the 1980s. Each board member’s view was solicited so that what follows is the collected opinions of a dozen or more leading practitioners in the field. No consensus was sought or achieved as our previous discussion had indicated. Instead we have a variety of opinions covering the whole spectrum of modern political geography, hence our title of, not agenda but, ‘agendas for the 1980s’. (Of course, we do not mean to preclude other interesting topics from appearing in the journal and emerging as future growth areas.)

The ideas collected have been organized under three main headings. The substantive suggestions are divided into ‘geographical themes’ and ‘geographical perspectives’ to provide the first two main headings. In the former case some ‘spatial topic’ is identified for study within political geography (e.g. regionalism) whereas in the latter case a ‘political topic’ is proposed for investigation from a spatial perspective (e.g. elections). Obviously these two approaches are closely related but they do have important epistemological implications. Geographical themes may produce ideas that can be incorporated into the mainstream of geography, or at least human geography. Topics such as political boundaries and electoral districting are now beginning to appear in human geography textbooks. On the other hand geographical perspectives are orientated towards contributing to a wider social science organization of knowledge. In this sense geographical themes tend to look inwards while geographical perspectives look outwards. At a very general level this illustrates the variety in modern political geography as it explicitly lays its eggs in more than one basket.

Not all board members’ suggestions directly concerned substantive topics. A third section concerns methodology and theory and highlights a more fundamental dichotomy than that described for the substantive areas. Political geography is now beginning to reflect the underlying conflicts endemic to the politics of the societies it studies. This inevitably leads to the employment of very different assumptions in theory and model-building and it is in this realm of activity that modern political geography departs most fully from its one-dimensional heritage.

Editorial essay

Geographical themes

Ten research questions are identified as geographical themes involving both traditional elements and new items for consideration. These spatial topics are related to political geography in two contrasting manners. In the first case the human geography of an area acts as a spatial framework which will have political implications. In simplest terms the causal arrow is from geography to politics. In the second case political spatial organization will have important implications for the human geography of an area: the causal arrow is from politics to geography. Spatial organization is at the heart of both types of geographical theme. In the former case the emphasis is upon defacto spatial organization and its relations with political geography whereas in the latter case the concern is for de jwe spatial organization and its effects upon human geography. Hence the topics identified in this section are largely concerned with rigorously locating political geography in the still-dominant spatial school of geographical research.

De facto spatial orguniqation and political geography

Six research topics are classified under this heading.

The Ipace-time framework. If we start at the individual scale then the most basic geographical organization of society may be described by the space-time co-ordinates of individual members of society carrying out their tasks within society. Unfortunately we have tended to have a static view of the location of people in political geography since basic data usually relate to their home locations. For this reason we get only a partial view of such concepts as cultural segregation or political participation. The opportunities for improving this situation are com- pletely open. Use of such techniques as time budget diaries are unknown in political geography and could be employed for elites and non-elites to derive new insights into the process and conduct of political power. Furthermore the whole range of ideas from t~~ege#grap~~ is available to look at potential patterns of communication, co-operation and conflict for different groups at different Iocations. In addition key concepts such as spatial access to resources and spatial constraints on participation can be modelled although the relationship between political geography and these space-time methodologies awaits further exploration.

further read&g: Parkes and Thrift (1980), Pred (1977a), Forer and Kivell (1981), Hagerstrand (1970) and Garner (1975).

The settlementframework. At an aggregate scale these individual locations combine to form a settlement pattern. These settlements reflect the needs of the underlying economy and respond to changes in that economy. The result is a dynamic settlement pattern producing changing social environments with important political implications. The continuing trends towards suburbanization and new counter-urbanization processes have been shown to have important electorai inpacts while producing further inequalities in local national government services. In the USA these settlement trends have long been associated with political effects although elsewhere there is far less work on this topic, One interesting development concerns the use of urban systems, and the urban hierarchy in

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particular, to understand local government expenditure patterns. There is an urgent need for a political geography of urban systems, including the politics of suburbanization, especially outside the USA.

Further reading: Pred (1977b), Cox (1978, 1979) and Newton (1981, section 2).

The problem of contextual effects. Sociologists, political scientists and geographers have long identified contextual effects in human behaviour. Social, cultural, ethnic or religous segregation leads to differential contact patterns which are ultimately reflected in attitudes, values and behaviour. In political geography these ideas have been most developed in terms of locational effects in election results and this research relates to the first two topics very directly. The space-time framework indicates biased contact networks and the changing settlement pattern sets up different ‘biased environments’. Hence it is argued that suburbanization reinforces behaviour favouring individualistic attitudes in voting patterns. It may well be that the study of contextual effects will provide the link to integrate space-time and settlement studies in political geography. Before this can be achieved, however, much work remains to be done understanding the operation of these effects. While the basic ideas concerning contact patterns are simple enough most evidence for contextual effects has been aggregate in scale and circumstantial in nature while individual level studies have not been conclusive. This area of research is due for some new ideas, empirical and theoretical, to facilitate further understanding of this elusive topic.

Further reading: Taylor and Johnston (1979), Rumley (1979, 1981), Wolfe and Burghardt (1978) and O’Loughlin (1981).

The question of ethnic regionalism. The core-periphery dimension in modern European state-building was identified by Rokkan as chronologically the earliest cleavage. As it came to be superseded by religous and economic cleavages the cultural and ethnic regional residues tended to be considered as anachronisms that were in the final stages of withering away. This, of course, has not happened. Uneven economic development within states has led to regional consciousness and where this coincides with earlier cultural peripheral identities of an ethnic nature various types of autonomous political movements have grown. Hence even in western Europe the ‘home’ of the ‘ideal’ homogeneous nation-state, ethnic divisions are readily apparent in regional and nationalist political activity. Clearly our models of the role of ethnicity in state development need to be reviewed. Comparative political study is required both within Europe and between European states and other parts of the world to isolate the determinants and pre-conditions for this ‘surprising’ phenomenon. In particular how do such regional movements relate to regional economic inequalities and the other cleavages particularly class conflict? Geo- graphers have traditionally been concerned with the ‘regional problem’; an obvious step in this area of research would now seem to be to understand the political dimension of problem.

Further reading: Williams (1980, 1981), Hechter (1975), Hoffman (1977,1980), Nairn (1977), Sharpe (1980) and Orridge and Williams in this issue.

The problem of plural societies. Cultural or ethnic pluralism is not always neatly reflected in a peripheral regional pattern. The nature of modern society produces

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urban-system settlement patterns which attract ethnic groups from different regions to produce a mixed plural society. In this case simple separatist political movements are obviously harder to launch although partition solutions are sometimes imposed with a minimal success rate. In the static spatial approach, levels of integration and segregation have to be defined from published data sources but clearly much more is needed. The careful study of behaviour, perhaps using the time-space models mentioned previously, may be employed to identify segregation beyond residential patterns and to pin-point areas of conflict and co-operation, dominance and control. In essence this produces a functional analysis of two or more societies sharing the same space-living and working in one urban system. These cultural conflicts distort the competition for resources that occur in all urban systems. What is the nature of this distortion? By making ethnic differences the salient cleavage the politics of plural societies are effectively defined on lines that cut across economic class divisions. The political implications of such shared space are obvious but a political geography of plural divided societies has yet to get beyond the case study stage.

Further reading: Lijphart (1977), Laponce (1980a) and Bose (1980).

The concept of the nation-state. The important political model that equates the cultural phenomenon of a nation with the institution of the sovereign state brought together in a single territory has been the most influential spatial theory in the modern world. It became the centre piece of geographical contributions to the boundary drawing of Europe especially after the First World War. Despite the important contributions of Gottmann, this theory has come to be neglected in political geography as somehow ‘old-fashioned’. This, of course, betrays an ethnocentric bias in western-based research since the majority of countries in the world are post-1945 in origin and the geography of their state-formation and nation-building is still to be fully understood. There is the question of whether such western concepts as ‘nationalism’ can be transferred to the post-colonial situation especially in sparsely populated areas where new states are hardly viable and make easy pickings for multinational corporations. Certainly the notions of nationalism and communication modelled by Deutch for European nations hardly seem appropriate to most post-colonial countries with their foreign economic depen- dence. The question of the nation state is not dead and political geography needs to consider the issue afresh from a wider perspective than in the past.

Further reading: Gottmann (1973), Rokkan (1970, 1980), Orridge (1981), Nairn (1977) and Tivey (1981).

De jure spatial organ&&on and human geograph_y

The spatial organization of political institutions can have important consequences for the human geography of an area. This relevance of de jure spatial organization has been traditionally expressed in boundary studies and more recently it has been highlighted by studies of gerrymandering in electoral geography. In this section we identify four questions which seem to warrant further consideration.

The ftitwe of the state system. It is indisputable that the most important of all de jure

spatial organizations is the world-wide pattern of sovereign states. This is so much

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the case that most other human geography studies simply assume the state-system as given. In political geography, in contrast, this familiar political map must be a prime target for explanation. In past studies this explanation has largely taken the form of historical research so that current processes and their future implications have been neglected. The present time is a particularly opportune moment to change this emphasis. Political observers of many different political hues are proclaiming the end of the nation-state as a viable entity. Such arguments come under the general heading of technological explanations as they involve the notion that the sizes of most modern states are too small in the wake of advances in transport, communications and military strike capabilities. This can lead on to discussion of strategic issues and military alliances, trading issues and political and/or economic integration, and communication and control issues and the challenge of multinational corporations. Clearly there is a need to rethink the political geography of the 150 or so states that cover the world.

Further reading: Deutch (1981), Brunn (1981), Hymer (1978), Murray (1971), Hertz (1968) and Tivey (1981).

The variable natwe of international botlndaries. The boundaries that mark out the political map of the world have been a topic of major interest in political geography. In the last hundred years Europeans have been responsible for drawing the boundaries in much of the Third World and for reordering the map of Europe twice. Since 1945 however decolonization and a stable European map has resulted in far less interest in international boundaries by political geographers. The emphasis has moved from boundary drawing and boundary conflict to one of landscape contrasts and trade impediments. This represents a clear case of ethno-centric bias in political geography. The period since 1945 has seen numerous border conflicts and disputes over border lines although outside Europe and North America. The boundaries shown on the political map of the world are not all equivalent even in strict legal terms. The openness of the Canada-USA or France-Italy borders are the exception not the rule. Many other boundaries are disputed, have sporadic conflicts over them and are marked by refugee camps. A political taxonomy of international boundaries is a necessary starting point for revitalizing boundary studies in political geography.

Further reading: House (1980, 1981) and Strassoldo (1980).

The spatial structwe of the state. (i) Constitutional questions. The internal structure of the state has long been a major element of political geography. Federalism, that most geographical of constitutional arrangements, has been of particular interest. Although boundary issues have been largely absent in Europe and North America in recent years, such constitutional issues have reappeared on the political agenda. Even classic unitary states like Britain and France are considering devolution and decentralization as centre-periphery problems have arisen. The failures of imposed federations in the decolonization process have been followed by renewed tensions in older federations notably Canada. Questions as to why centre-periphery competition has become reflected as a constitutional issue in Canada while being accommodated as the rise of the Sun Belt in the USA immediately spring to mind as interesting comparative research topics. The political and economic implications of

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these various ‘revolts of the periphery’ means that the problem of federalism is bound to remain a growing concern in the 1980s.

Further reading: Dikshit (1971, 1974), Hoffman (1981), Archer and Taylor (1981) and Johnston (1980b).

The spatialstructure of the state. (ii) Administrative issues. The study of administrative issues has been one of the major growth points in modern political geography. This has ranged from practical concern for the design of administrative areas through to theoretical developments ranging from social choice modelling to the concept of the local state. The fiscal crises of cities has received particular attention and the notion of spatial externalities has entered our studies. Other studies have concentrated upon the comparative study of the performances of local government units and particular attention has been paid to the size of area1 units and the efficiency and democratic implications of geographical scale. The one thing that seems to link these various studies is the general lack of agreement on both empirical findings and theoretical frameworks. This is perhaps best typified by the wide range of views from metropolitan to neighbourhood government for urban areas and the lack of agreement on the salience of political variables in explaining local government policy. Here we have a research field in an early stage of development with very many loose ends to be tied up.

Further reading: Massam (1975), Johnston (1979), Honey (1981), Newton (1981), Cox and Nartowicz (1980), Cockburn (1977), Barlow (1979,1981), Dear (1981) and Clark (1981).

Geographical perspectives

The study of political topics from spatial perspectives constitutes the second group of questions identified here. These are divided into political activities within states and political activities beyond any one state’s borders.

Some internal state politics

Four questions are identified under this heading and each deals with the substantive area of political science in which geographers have been showing increasing interest in recent years.

‘Whogets what, where and why?’ This is the geographical version of Harold Lasswell’s definition of politics as ‘who gets what, when, how?’ Welfare geography has been a major growth area and has sometimes been interpreted as a new approach to all of human geography and sometimes more narrowly as a new definition of political geography. The ‘where’ element of the question has produced numerous geographical descriptions of material inequalities at all scales but with a bias towards regional and urban problems. In the past regional problems have largely been the concern of economic geographers and urban problems the domain of social geographers so that in both cases the political and historical dimensions have been neglected and under-valued. This involves operationalizing the ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions which involves some of the theoretical issues discussed below as well as further empirical studies. This type of definition of politics has been productive in the past and the addition of the geographical perspective has been

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fruitful. Two important current research efforts in this field concern the question of ‘who pays, where?’ and the efficacy of areally-based policy responses to material inequalities.

Further reading: Smith (1977, 1979), Cox (1979), Bennett (1980), Eyles (1979) and Hamnett (1979).

The stud_y of locationalconflict. An alternative definition of politics emphasizes conflict in society. The geographical perspective upon this topic deals with locational conflicts usually at a local, urban scale. This work has been concerned with land-use conflicts especially the location of noxious facilities such as intra-urban highways where the findings usually confirm the regressive conclusions of the ‘who gets what?’ school. These empirical case studies have been supplemented by theoretical formulations in both the social choice mould and political economy approach. In the former spatial externality fields are modelled and pay-offs evaluated. In the latter studies, local conflicts are related to wider political issues such as urban social movements. Whether these locally-defined political cleavages can produce lasting alliances that cut across traditional class structures is currently an issue of some debate among European researchers. The formal institutional arrangements within which society attempts to resolve conflicts are also becoming increasingly important topics of concern. This whole area of research provides a mine of empirical opportunities for research within a surfeit of theoretical frameworks and is destined to become one of the main debating areas in future political geography.

Further reading: Cox (1973), Wolpert, Humphrey and Seley (1972), Saunders (1979), Janelle (1977), Ley and Mercer (1980), C ox and Johnston (1982) and Kirby (1981).

The role of political parties and elections. Formal politics in western societies is concentrated in the activities of political parties and elections. The geography of elections has been a major growth area of political geography in the 1970s. Unfortunately the study of elections in geography has tended to proceed on a weak and undeveloped theoretical basis. For this area of research to maintain its popularity much more emphasis must be placed upon the functions of elections

within the state and the role of political parties in performing those functions. This requires that future research go beyond mapping voting patterns and their correlates to consider electoral change. In particular there is a need for more historical geographies of political parties in their role of mobilizing support for themselves and the state of which they are part. This emphasizes their legitimizing and spatial integration role and cannot be understood in traditional cross-sectional voting studies. While maps of party support remain of interest, new themes such as patterns of participation, spatial strategies in campaigning, the activities of special interest groups in elections and the ‘geography of protest’ outside formal democratic channels, become equally salient topics. In short electoral geography needs to be integrated into political geography and this is now happening.

Fwther reading: Taylor and Johnston (1979), Archer and Taylor (1981), Taylor (1978), Johnston (1979, 1980 a and in this issue), Dunleavy (1979 and 1980), O’Loughlin (1981), Minghi and Rumley (1978), Rumley (1980) and Woolstencroft (1980).

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Studies of environmentaland territorialpohy. In geography the ‘who gets what?’ school has produced a welfare geography as we have seen. Lasswell’s original ‘how?’ question, on the other hand, leads on to studies of policy and decision-making and, of particular relevance to us, concern for environmental and territorial policy. These studies have normally been set into either a political systems framework and/or have developed within a behavioural methodology. They represent political geography’s minor contribution to systems analysis and the behavioural revolution both of which swept geography in the 1960s. In political geography, in particular, these developments have been disappointing and it is generally agreed that they have failed to live up to their promise. This is one area where theoretical frameworks have outstripped empirical case studies and there is a genuine need for detailed understanding of the processes of decision-making and the formulation of public policy. The values, attitudes and perceptions of the decision-makers, the relative importance of different actors such as professional experts and elected representatives all warrant the attention of political geographers.

Further reading: Muir and Paddison (1981), Cox, Reynolds and Rokkan (1974), Burnett (1981), Lineberry (1977) and Gottmann (1980).

Politics and external state relations

The geostrategic researches of Sir Halford Mackinder are undoubtedly the most well-known area of political geography outside of geography. This is misleading because studies at a global scale have been conspicuous by their general absence in modern political geography. The effect of the current world-wide recession and the renewal of the East-West cold war have meant, however, that global issues are once again coming to the forefront of our research.

The revival of geostrategic studies. The current East-West strategic conflict is superficially very much like the two-power model proposed by Mackinder at the beginning of this century. However much has happened since Mackinder developed his ideas and the current situation is by no means as simple as applications of these early models would imply. In particular the massive growth of the world economy in the twentieth century has meant that economic links between countries are much stronger and hence more important. Add to this the decolonization of the ‘South’ providing very many new countries on the international scene and clearly new models are required to encompass these complexities. Geostrategic considerations will now have to take into account the world distribution of key raw materials upon which the superpowers and their allies depend. This is most clearly illustrated in American policy to the Middle East and southern Africa. The rise of multinational corporations as economic actors and developments in military technology require further consideration in the field. What is clear is that new geostrategic modelling will require an integration of economic and military considerations in ways not considered by early workers in their field.

Further reading: Cohen (1973), H enrikson (1980a, 1980b), Brunn (1981), Brohman and Knight (1981), Mabogunje (1980) and O’Sullivan in this issue.

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Dependence andpoliticalactions. Treatment of strategic raw materials emphasizes the

dependence of industrial countries and the resulting constraints on their actions. There can be no doubt, however, that levels of dependence and resulting constraints are far greater for the non-industrial and less powerful states. Dependence may be of a political and military nature, as for instance for the Warsaw Pact countries, although it would seem that economic dependence is much more pervasive throughout the world. A thorough stock-taking of the colonial experience in terms of the political legacy for new states requires working out which countries maintain links with their former colonial power and which countries enter new alliances and why? This brings us to the whole notion of neo-colonialism and the concept of informal imperialism which has long been vital for understanding the Latin American situation and now operates in Africa and Asia. Of course the level of dependence is itself a variable which must have political implications and leads on to identification of regional powers within the periphery. Development of such themes is important for providing a balance in political geography and avoiding Eurocentric biases which inevitably arise with the re-emergence of cold war attitudes.

Further reading: Brandt Commission (1980), d e S ouza and Porter (1974), Brookfield

(1975), Santos and Peet (1979), Dikshit (1979), Frank (1978, 1980b) and Smith

(1980).

World-economy effects on political actions. Economic influences upon political actions has been an element of several preceding themes. There is a need for a systematic investigation of such linkages. As the world-economy experiences the ups and

downs of its long cycles the spatial effects are uneven across the world. Some countries, regions, groups or classes gain at the expense of others, sometimes in relative terms other times in absolute terms. Such changes will have profound political implications as the post-war revival of Germany and Japan has illustrated. As well as such differential effects, however, the upturns and downturns of the world-economy will produce similar political responses across the various countries. In terms of foreign policy, alterations between informal and formal imperialism have historically been associated with world economy cycles and this is more recently reflected in the changing emphasis from free trade to protectionism. In terms of internal politics, changes in world-economy growth profoundly effect the political agendas of competitive parties in similar ways within and between countries. This point is vividly illustrated at the present time by the cut-backs in state expenditure by government parties of all colours in a wide range of countries. The world-economy provides a vital framework for comparative political studies over space and time.

Fz/rther reading: Wallerstein (1979), Taylor (1981a), Frobel, Heinrichs and Kreye (1980), Frank (1980a) and Bergesen (1980).

Methodology and theory

The themes identified in this section inevitably overlap with some of the concerns expressed above but they are distinguished by their non-substantive nature. It is in this area that the modern variety of political geography has been most explicitly developed. Different political geographies are being proposed based upon

Editorial essay 11

alternative theoretical assumptions. In simplest terms these reduce to either traditional theory or critical theory. The former encompasses conservative and liberal perspectives and can be said to be supportive of the status quo or at least not to challenge it in any fundamental manner. In contrast critical theory does not accept the inevitable existence of contemporary social formations and attempts to look behind their ‘public facade’ usually employing concepts from Marxist political economy. The influences of both theoretical perspectives can be identified in the substantive themes above. It is fair to say, however, that the increased awareness of theoretical issues in political geography owes most to political economy and its role in the political attack on the quantitative positivist school. Here we identify four themes three of which reflect this new radical influence on our sub-discipline.

Normative and positive tbeoq-building

Positive modelling involves abstract descriptions of how political processes do

operate while normative modelling involves prescriptions as to how political processes should operate. In practice it is often very difficult to make this distinction since most positive models have normative implications so we treat them together here. Between them they make up the major modern contributions to traditional theory. Typically they involve borrowing ideas from other traditional social sciences and applying them to spatial or environmental issues. Such theoretical frameworks which have been employed and will continue to be useful are Boulding’s conflict resolution theory, Deutch’s social communication theory and Downs’ consensus model. Researches on de jt/re spatial organization such as federalism and electoral districting usually have an explicit normative contribution: for instance federal arrangements are usually discussed in terms of their contributions to problems of plural societies while electoral districting typically involves evaluation of existing arrangements and proposes new methods. The most comprehensive theoretical departure of this type, however, comes with the application of the public choice paradigm to political geography. This provides a rigorous framework based upon individual choice for assessing existing institu- tions and suggesting improvements. This is undoubtedly one of the major theoretical developments which we can expect to influence political geography in the 1980s.

Further reading: Hall (1974 and in this issue), Gudgin and Taylor (1979), Archer (1981), Reynolds (1981), Rushton (1980), J h o ns t on and Rossiter (1981) and Morrill (1976).

The question of the natwe of state and government

The two theoretical perspectives described above interact most directly in their treatment of the state. Most of traditional political geography has been concerned with the state although its overall theory of the state has usually been implicit rather than explicit. The recent debate on the nature of the state in geography has come about as part of the growth of the political economy perspective in the subject. The form, function, historical evolution and hierarchical interrelations of the state can be modelled from both traditional and critical approaches and much interest will remain on the relationships between such alternative models. It is also important to

12 Editorial essay

develop methodologies that can integrate theories of the state with models of government action so that public policy decisions can be set within a broader theoretical framework. This seems to be particularly necessary in the case of local government studies and developments in theories of the ‘local state’. Political geography can no longer develop without explicitly recognizing the theories of the state that it uses.

Furtherreading: Johnston (198Oc), Clark and Dear (1981), Clark (1981), Dear (1981), Scase (1980), Scott (1980) and Duncan and Goodwin in this issue.

Bringing history back in

Although an historical approach has been an important element of traditional political geography, the revival of a concern for the past has tended to come from the new critical perspectives. There has been a tendency over a long period for political geography to concentrate upon current affairs. This is reflected in such divergent themes as traditional interests in boundary studies and in recent quantitative studies of electoral geography. This substantive interest in present day issues and cross-sectional analyses has unfortunately tended to foreclose explana- tion by limiting interest to contemporary events and forces. Even the radical theories of the state described above have tended to ignore the historical dimension to produce a sort of ‘Marxist functionalism’. Ironically it is the current world-wide recession that has been partly responsible for bringing major social changes that operate over longer historical periods back on the social science research agendas. This ‘bringing history back in’ is most explicitly developed in the world-economy approach with its treatment of long (Kondratiefl) waves of growth and stagnation. A whole new body of research questions is opening up for political geographers in this area.

Further reading: Research Working Group (1979), Rokkan (1980), Gottmann (1973), Goldfrank (1979), Modelski (1974), Wallerstein (1974,198O) and Meyer and Hannen (1979).

Identifying ideoIo@ in political geograph_

In this theme political geography and its theories become the subject matter of research. Critical evaluation of our theories can be conducted from both philosophical and materialist viewpoints. In the former case we question the philosophical presuppositions underlying our theories such as assumptions concerning human nature, the relation of the individual to society, the nature of facts and values, etc. In recent years we have asked what is distinctive about ‘urban’ questions and we can now extend this to discuss the particular nature of the ‘political’ to question in what sense a ‘political geography’ exists. In this materialist vein we need to consider the social interests served by our theories. This can sometimes be explicit as in Mackinder’s proposal for regional devolution linked to the need to defuse class conflict or more subtle as in the current role of the public choice paradigm in reintegrating liberal thinkers into the traditional conservative consensus. This areas is obviously highly controversial and will no doubt lead to alternative historical interpretations and current evaluations or criticisms of the

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sub-discipline. The fruits of this endeavor in terms of knowing ourselves and understanding what we are doing are potentially very rich indeed.

Further reading: Anderson (1973), Gordon (1978), Smith (1979), Agnew (1981) and Taylor (1981b).

Concluding comments

This list of 21 themes is probably the widest review in scope and the most comprehensive agenda yet produced for political geography. While there is certainly much overlap and hence doubts about whether they are all distinctive themes, this listing nevertheless reflects a reasonable cross-section of current views on political geography as represented by the editorial board. It is clear that variety has triumphed over any notions of a new orthodoxy. Political geography is a mosiac of research traditions (ideographic v. nomothetic), ideologies (free market v. neo-Marxist), scales of enquiry (global to urban) and methods (historical, behavioural, etc.) which reflects the divisions of modern social science in general. The disadvantages of this situation in terms of the failure to find a clear core of interest to provide a dominant focus to the field’s practitioners is countered by the potential for exchanges of views over a wide range of perspectives. It is hoped that this journal will be able to play its part in a point-counterpoint debate on many of the themes identified.

We are avowedly pluralist in our editorial approach to this journal. There are inevitably many themes not suggested in this essay which readers may feel to be as important or more important than those identified above. In particular political geography reflects social science in general in having been largely dominated since 1945 by Anglo-American viewpoints. We invite responses to this essay in terms of identifying neglected themes, correcting ethnocentric biases and generally continu- ing the discussion of political geography in the 1980s.

Finally we must emphasize the inter-disciplinary orientation implicit in this discussion. In a recent ‘import-export analysis’ of political science and other social science journals Laponce (1980b) has identified geography as the most isolated of the social sciences:

‘If political science does not import more from that discipline it is of course partly because political geography is only a small component of a much larger field but . . . the reason lies also in the basic orientations and assumptions that characterize modern political science . . . in a period of rapid and easy communication, political scientists have tended to ignore the importance of space’ (Laponce, 1980b, 415417).

Laponce concludes his discussion pessimistically: ‘As for the appearance of geography on the political science scene, there is no indication in our data where that might occur, if at all’ (Laponce, 1980b, 418). The appearance of this journal has the express purpose of converting such genuine pessimism to a new and reasonable optimism. We hope to bring together ideas and discussions from political scientists, political geographers and all other social scientists with an interest in the interaction of politics and space.

14 Editorial essay

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Editorial essay 17

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