The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography

Notes on Contributors viii

1 Introduction 1
John Agnew, Virginie Mamadouh, Anna J. Secor, and Joanne Sharp

Key Concepts in Political Geography 11

2 Boundaries and Borders 13
Anne?-Laure Amilhat Szary

3 Scale 26
Andrew E.G. Jonas

4 Territory beyond the Anglophone Tradition 35
Cristina Del Biaggio

5 Sovereignty 48
Joshua E. Barkan

6 The State 61
Alex Jeffrey

7 Federalism and Multilevel Governance 73
Herman van der Wusten

8 Geographies of Conflict 86
Clionadh Raleigh

9 Security 100
Lauren Martin

10 Violence 114
James Tyner

11 Justice 127
Farhana Sultana

12 Power 141
Joe Painter

13 Citizenship 152
Patricia Ehrkamp and Malene H. Jacobsen

14 The Biopolitical Imperative 165
Claudio Minca

Theorizing Political Geography 187

15 Spatial Analysis 189
Andrew M. Linke and John O'Loughlin

16 Radical Political Geographies 206
Simon Springer

17 Geopolitics/Critical Geopolitics 220
Sami Moisio

18 Feminist Political Geography 235
Jennifer L. Fluri

19 Postcolonialism 248
Chih Yuan Woon

20 Children's Political Geographies 265
Kirsi Pauliina Kallio and Jouni Häkli

Doing Politics 279

21 Electoral Geography in the Twenty?]First Century 281
Michael Shin

22 Nation and Nationalism 297
Marco Antonsich

23 Regional Institutions 311
Merje Kuus

24 The Banality of Empire 324
Luca Muscarà

25 Social Movements 339
Sara Koopman

26 Religious Movements 352
Tristan Sturm

27 Sexual Politics 366
Catherine J. Nash and Kath Browne

28 The Rise of the BRICS 379
Marcus Power

29 Social Media 393
Paul C. Adams

Material Political Geographies 407

30 More?-Than?-Representational Political Geographies 409
Martin Müller

31 Resources 424
Kathryn Furlong and Emma S. Norman

32 Political Ecologies of the State 438
Katie Meehan and Olivia C. Molden

33 Environment: From Determinism to the Anthropocene 451
Simon Dalby

34 Financial Crises 462
Brett Christophers

35 Migration 478
Michael Samers

36 Everyday Political Geographies 493
Sara Fregonese

Doing Political Geography 507

37 Academic Capitalism and the Geopolitics of Knowledge 509
Anssi Paasi

Index 524

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography is a must-have for students and scholars working in this area. This volume shows how long-standing concepts are undergoing rapid change, such as the broadening of agency to include children and the non-human, even as it directs our attention to central concerns that have remained pillars of political geography since its beginning, such as borders and resources. Rarely are so many leading voices gathered in a single volume, and to such effect. This should be the first port of call for any student trying to grasp the whole of the field.
Jason Dittmer, University College London


The Companion to Political Geography is just that, an indispensable volume or companion for any political geographer, whatever the stage of their career; a political geographers "best friend" in the process of learning and doing political geography. It blends historical scope, conceptual depth, theoretical insight, and an impressive empirical range. The Companion balances a reflection upon what has been done, with a call to what needs to be done, while serving as a theoretical and methodological guidebook for how to approach new research. It allows a reader to interpret political geography that has come before and offers meaningful signposts to what may come next. In the process it gives political geographers the ability to reflect on who they are, what they do, and for whom.
Colin Flint, Utah State University


These essays compellingly illustrate how exciting the field has become as they map agendas in political geography...
James D Sidaway, National University of Singapore

John Agnew is Distinguished Professor of Geography at UCLA. His research focuses on sovereignty and globalization, place and politics and the geopolitics of the world economy. He is co-editor of A Companion to Political Geography (Wiley, 2007) and the Sage Handbook of Geographical Knowledge (co-edited with David Livingstone, 2012) as well as author of Hegemony: The New Shape of Global Power (2005) and Globalization and Sovereignty (2009).

Virginie Mamadouh is Associate Professor of Political and Cultural Geography at the University of Amsterdam and an editor of the international academic journal Geopolitics. Her research interestsare in European geopolitics, new media and multilingualism. She is co-editor ofThe Theory and Practice of Institutional Transplantation (withMartin de Jong and Kostas Lalenis, 2002) and Critical Essays in Human Geography (with J. Agnew, 2008).

Anna J. Secor is Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on theories of space, politics, and subjectivity. Recently she has developed ideas of topology in geography by engaging the work of Lacan, Deleuze, and Agamben. Her research on Islam, state, and society in Turkey has been funded by the National Science Foundation.

Joanne Sharp is Professor of Geography at the University of Glasgow. Her research interests are in feminist, postcolonial, cultural and political geographies. She is the author of Geographies of Postcolonialism: Spaces of Power and Representation (2009) and editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to Critical Geopolitics (with Klaus Dodds and Merje Kuus, 2013).

J. A. Agnew, The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); V. Mamadouh, University of Amsterdam; A. Secor, University of Kentucky; J. Sharp, University of Glasgow