The Political Organization of Space

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the political organization of space – the ways in which space and human interaction in space are structured to fulfill political functions – as it relates to the central theme or modern geography: the spatial organization of human society. This is a subject which, despite its obvious importance, has received relatively little direct and systematic attention from geographers or other social scientists. The political geography remains firmly locked into the “statist” tradition within geography, with its emphasis on areal differentiation and description of unique characteristics. This study is not aimed at substituting a new orthodoxy for and old one. Nor is it meant to encompass the full breadth of interest in political geography. Its fundamental objective is to explore a few new paths and to suggest a framework of concepts and themes which may possibly link political geography more effectively with recent methodological and philosophical developments in geography itself and in the other social sciences. Perhaps most important, its ultimate goal is to involve the reader, to make him aware of the political organization of space, of the way himself perceives this organizations, and how it affects his own activity and behavior.