An Introduction to Political Geography: Space, Place and Politics

An Introduction to Political Geography provides a broad-based introduction to how power interacts with space; how place influences political identities; and how policy creates and remoulds territory. By pushing back the boundaries of what we conventionally understand as political geography, the book emphasizes the interactions between power, politics and policy, space, place and territory in different geographical contexts.

This is both an essential text for political geographers and also a valuable resource for students of related fields with an interest in politics and geography.

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 21st 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.