An Introduction to Political Geography ─ Space, Place and Politics

An Introduction to Political Geography continues to provide a broad-based introduction to contemporary political geography for students following undergraduate degree courses in geography and related subjects.

The text explores the full breadth of contemporary political geography, covering not only traditional concerns such as the state, geopolitics, electoral geography and nationalism; but also increasing important areas at the cutting-edge of political geography research including globalization, the geographies of regulation and governance, geographies of policy formulation and delivery, and themes at the intersection of political and cultural geography, including the politics of place consumption, landscapes of power, citizenship, identity politics and geographies of mobilization and resistance.

This second edition builds on the strengths of the first. The main changes and enhancements are:

• four new chapters on: political geographies of globalization, geographies of empire, political geography and the environment and geopolitics and critical geopolitics
• significant updating and revision of the remaining chapters to discuss key developments, drawing on recent academic contributions and political events
• new case studies, drawing on an increasing number of international and global examples
• additional boxes for key concepts and an enlarged glossary.

As with the first edition, extensive use is made of case study examples, illustrations, explanatory boxes, guides to further reading and a glossary of key terms to present the material in an easily accessible manner. Through employment of these techniques this book introduces students to contributions from a range of social and political theories in the context of empirical case study examples. By providing a basic introduction to such concepts and pointing to pathways into more specialist material, this book serves, both as a core text for first- and second- year courses in political geography, and as a resource alongside supplementary textbooks for more specialist third year courses.

Martin Jones is Professor of Human Geography and Director of the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has influenced debates on economic development and governance, economic and social policy, urban and regional studies, and state intervention. His current research is on devolution, constitutional change and economic governance, the knowledge-based economy and 21^st Century skills, and the geographies of low pay.

Rhys Jones is a Reader in Human Geography at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His research interests are focused on the state and its related senses of group identity. Within this broad area of research he has especial interest in: the reproduction of state power; territoriality; the geographies of citizenship; the geographies of nationalism. He has published widely on these topics in various books and journals in the social sciences.

Michael Woods is Reader in Human Geography at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He is currently leading an ESRC research project on ‘Grassroots rural protests and political activity in Britain’ and was the principal investigator for research on ‘Participation, power and rural community governance in England and Wales’ as part of the ESRC’s Democracy and Participation Programme. He has also directed major studies of the town, parish and community council sector in England and Wales for Defra and the Welsh Assembly Government respectively, and is part of the core research and management team for the Wales Rural Observatory. Other recent research has included work on the local politics of globalization in rural New Zealand, rural protests in Australia, and popular geopolitical narratives of New York and the 9/11 attacks. He has published widely on these topics in geographical and related journals.