CALL FOR PAPERS: RGS-IBG 2013 - GEOGRAPHIES OF THE POLITICAL PARTY
SUBMISSION DEADLINE - FRIDAY 1st FEBRUARY 2013
ORGANISERS - James Scott (QMUL) and Professor Jane Wills (QMUL)
While Low (2007) noted the rather strange neglect of the political party in geographical scholarship almost half a decade ago, research has been slow to develop. Indeed when considered at all, democracy and the political parties which function within democratic systems have had an almost ‘ghostly presence’ (Barnett and Low 2004: 1), restricted to providing the institutional backdrop for more serious analyses of neo-liberal governance or radical social movements. When political parties are brought into focus by geographers, it is has either been through an empirical lens (Johnston and Pattie 2008) or when positioned as liberal institutions active only in relationship with the state (Agnew 1996).
In other words, political parties have not been subjected to the type of analyses prompted by the social and cultural theory which permeates the geographic literature. This is despite the fact that political parties are born in particular places; that their relationships to the electorate, the state and other power-brokers exist in and across space; that they play an active role in local political life and its possibilities; that they are present in the mediation of democracy at all spatial scales; and that they bear particular traditions which shape the trajectory of the nation and international relations.
This session is designed to subject the geography of political parties to scrutiny. We welcome contributions from across theoretical perspectives and a range of spatial dimensions. We hope to attract papers from a range of national experiences, past and present.
Particular areas of interest may include:
**Historical geographies of the political party**
**The geography of ideology and policy development in the political party**
**The geography of the relationships between the party and its electorate**
**The geography of party-state relations and practice**
**The geography of effort to remake the political party**
**The geographical imagination of the political party**
Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to James Scott ([log in to unmask]) by Friday 1st February 2013.
References
Agnew, J. (1996). Mapping politics: how context counts in electoral geography. Political Geography 15(2).
Barnett, C. and Low, M. (2004) Spaces of Democracy. Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation. Sage: London
Low, M. (2007). "Political parties and the city: some thoughts on the low profile of partisan organisations and mobilisations in urban political theory." Environment and Planning A 39(11): 2652 - 2667.
Johnston, R. and Pattie, C. (2008) Place and Vote, in Cox, M., Low, M. and Robinson, J. (eds) The Sage Handbook of Political Geography, Sage: London.
_______________________________________________________
[log in to unmask]
An urban geography discussion and announcement forum
List Archives: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/URB-GEOG-FORUM
Maintained by: RGS-IBG Urban Geography Research Group
UGRG Home Page: http://www.urban-geography.org.uk
|