Showing papers by "John Agnew published in 2014"

Place and Politics : The Geographical Mediation of State and Society

Abstract: The first part of the book is concerned with developing the place perspective. Three dimensions of place are put forward: locale and sense of place describe the objective and subjective dimensions of local social arrangements within which political behaviour is realized; location refers to the impact of the ‘macro-order’, to the fact that a single place is one among many and that the social life of a place is embedded in theworkings of the state and the world economy. The second part of the book provides detailed examinations of American and Scottish politics, using the place perspective. Contrary to the view that place or locality is important only in ‘traditional societies’, this book argues that place is of continuing significance in even the most ‘advanced’ societies.

The Power of Place (RLE Social & Cultural Geography) : Bringing Together Geographical and Sociological Imaginations

Abstract: Reflecting the revival of interest in a social theory that takes place and space seriously, this book focuses on geographical place in the practice of social science and history. There is significant interest among scholars from a range of disciplines in bringing together the geographical and sociological ‘imaginations’. The geographical imagination is a concrete and descriptive one, concerned with determining the nature of places, and classifying them and the links between them. The sociological imagination aspires to explanation of human activities in terms of abstract social processes. The chapters in this book focus on both the intellectual histories of the concept of place and on its empirical uses. They show that place is as important for understanding contemporary America as it is for 18th-century Sri Lanka. They also show how the concept can provide insight into ‘old’ problems such as the nature of social life in Renaissance Florence and Venice. The editors are leading exponents of the view of place as a concept that can ‘mediate’ the geographical and sociological imaginations.

By words alone shall we know Is the history of ideas enough to understand the world to which our concepts refer

Abstract: Some of the most important geographical concepts—geopolitics, region, and territory—are often decoded according to the norms of the history of ideas, broadly construed. By this, I mean that their ‘genealogies’ as ideas are regarded as providing the key to unlocking their current meaning in relation to how the world works. As such they are thought of as constituting the world as we know it. Practice is seen as deriving from the meaning ascribed to the concept. In certain circumstances, an empirical case can be made for this. But it cannot be presumed to be the case. This idealist epistemology is a rather inadequate basis for the spatial ontology that is more our focus as geographers. We are not primarily interested in the history of ideas/concepts per se, only in how they help us understand real-world phenomena. After a brief review of the dilemma using Ian Hacking’s approach, I question thinking about the three geographical concepts mentioned at the outset to suggest some limitations to the infatuation wi...

World cities and international organizations: Political global-city status of Chinese cities

Abstract: In this study, the authors use a political perspective to explore the relative global status of cities in China. Two questions are addressed. Firstly, by using international organizations as the subjects and quantitative analysis of the spatial distribution of their offices, the overall position of Chinese cities in the global distribution of international organizations is estimated. The results show that 22 Chinese cities are involved in international political affairs. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou dominate these activities and have high political global-city status. Secondly, through qualitative analysis of Guangzhou City, the authors explore how its status as a center for international organizations has been shaped in recent years. The locational decision-making process is analyzed and the factors are demonstrated at both national and city scales. The definition of international organizations as used in this study refers not only to those supranational bodies that have the ability to manage relations across states (such as the European Union), but also those inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and diplomatic representatives and delegations that today also manage and regulate relations between and among states.

Le piège territorial : les présupposés géographiques de la théorie des relations internationales

Abstract: Quand bien meme le pouvoir politique serait territorial, la territorialite n’implique pas necessairement les pratiques d’exclusion mutuelle totale que lui attribuent les conceptions dominantes de l’Etat moderne. Cependant, dans les theories des relations internationales, lorsqu’il est question de la territorialite d’un Etat, la discussion est presque toujours menee dans les termes de la persistance ou de l’obsolescence d’un Etat territorial compris comme une entite inchangee et non dependante des circonstances historico-geographiques variees. Cette approche est remise en question par les evenements contemporains. La fin de la Guerre froide, la velocite et la volatilite croissantes de l’economie mondiale et l’emergence de mouvements politiques hors du cadre des Etats territoriaux, suggerent qu’il faut comprendre la territorialite des Etats dans un contexte historique. Les trois presupposes geographiques sur lesquels s’appuie la pensee orthodoxe (les Etats comme des unites fixes d’espace souverain, la polarite interieur/etranger et les Etats comme des « conteneurs » des societes) aboutissent a un « piege territorial »., Even when political rule is territorial, territoriality does not necessarily entail the practices of total mutual exclusion which dominant understandings of the modem territorial state attribute to it. However, when the territoriality of the state is debated by international relations theorists the discussion is overwhelmingly in terms of the persistence or obsolescence of the territorial state as an unchanging entity rather than in terms of its significance and meaning in different historical-geographical circumstances. Contemporary events call this approach into question. The end of the Cold War, the increased velocity and volatility of the world economy, and the emergence of political movements outside the framework of territorial states, suggest the need to consider the territoriality of states in historical context. Conventional thinking relies on three geographical assumptions (states as fixed units of sovereign space, the domestic foreign polarity, and states as “containers” of societies) that have led into the “territorial trap”.

By way of a response: Contemporary intellectual creativity versus tracing the conceptual past into the present

Abstract: I restate my argument as a critique of lexical conservatism and the so-called history of the present as a history of words. This leads to a discussion of what we mean by genealogy and agency in contemporary theoretical work. I then briefly respond to some of the key points raised by the commentators.

The Great Powers and the International System: Systemic Theory in Empirical Perspective. By Bear F. Braumoeller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 297p. $90.00 cloth, $29.99 paper.

Abstract: (Chapters 4 and 5). Zanotti draws on her own professional experiences with operations in Haiti and Croatia, respectively, to offer new insights. Detailing the historical run-up (starting in the 1800s) to peacekeeping in Haiti is perhaps unnecessary. The application of Foucault’s ideas on prisons, however, is spot-on with respect to the reform of Haiti’s judicial system. There are insights about this operation here that are offered nowhere else and comport well with the author’s critique of Western liberalism. In contrast, the subsequent chapter on Croatia is more superficial, missing some of the depth that is found in the explication on Haiti. In both instances, the analysis is more about UN actions and strategy broadly than about the actual peacekeeping operations per se. The Zanotti book is likely to be read only by those in the growing and important milieu of peacekeeping scholars who are critical theorists. Nevertheless, it is not clear that there is anything unique about the insights relative to other works in this genre, although those with an interest in Foucault will find this application new. Policymakers will find little to grasp, given the difficulty in understanding and their predilections toward the very orientations that are critiqued here. Both books are representative of the increasingly Balkanized study of peacekeeping, with authors writing to audiences with similar orientations to their own. Nevertheless, behavioral scholars of peacekeeping could benefit from Governing Disorder and other critical theory treatments in that they force scholars to look beyond the agencies and state providers of peace operations to the local level and the actors and impacts there. Such studies also raise new questions about motivations and impact that are often ignored when the focus is solely on empirical regularities. On the other hand, Providing Peacekeepers reveals a diversity of motivations and actions among member states contributing to operations that suggests to critical theorists that assumptions about a monolithic UN are misguided and require more nuanced treatments. Only by crossing some of these scholarly fault lines will students of peacekeeping gain a fuller picture of the operations and the implications for theory and practice.