A HANDBOOK OF POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

Political geography is the field of human geography that is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally political geography adopts a three-scale structure for the purposes of analysis with the study of the state at the centre, above this is the study of international relations (or geopolitics), and below it is the study of localities. The primary concerns of the sub-discipline can be summarised as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory. The origins of political geography lie in the origins of human geography itself and the early practitioners were concerned mainly with the military and political consequences of the relationships between physical geography, state territories, and state power. In particular, there was a close association with regional geography, with its focus on the unique characteristics of regions, and environmental determinism with its emphasis on the influence of the physical environment on human activities. Critical political geography is mainly concerned with the criticism of traditional political geographies vis-a-vis modern trends. As with much of the move towards ‘Critical geographies’, the arguments have drawn largely from postmodern, post-structural and postcolonial theories. Updating the prospects of the students of political geography this encyclopedia takes the development of the past century into the present century.

Contents: • Introduction • Concept of Nation and State • Election Geography • Continent of Asia • Continent of Europe • Continent of Africa • Continents of Americas • Political Geographies of Globalization Governance • Economic Development as a Matter of Political Geography