Book Reviews 65

developments in non-framing applications and the innovations required to allow the wider use of steel in developing countries.

A. J. MACDONALD

Political Studies from Spatial Perspectives

Anglo-American Essays on Political Geography

Edited by ALAN D. BURNETT and PETER J. TAYLOR

John Wiley, 519 pp., ISBN 0 471 27909 9 (H) 20.60 (1981), ISBN 0 471 27910 2 (Paperback) 9.45.

THE LAST two decades have seen the social sciences, especially sociology and economics, re- affirm the political dimension in their respective in- terpretation of society. Geography has not been slow to follow and has further expanded its traditional boundaries to encompass political studies to explain spatial distribution. This stimulation has produced a rich and diverse research activity among political geo- graphers. The book, Political Studies from Spatial Perspectives, reflects this research activity and aims to indicate possible research directions for the 1980s.

The book brings together papers covering the three territorial scales af local, national and international and broadly is directed towards the spatial con- sequences of political decision-making. The majority of the papers (over 20 original papers from university researchers and teachers of political and human geo- graphy in North America and Great Britain) were first presented at the Institute of British Geographers' Conference in 1980. The editors, Burnett and Taylor, link the various papers with a 'state of the art' com- mentary, within sections covering an overview of political geography, theoretical analysis, research agenda and empirical studies (which include electoral

geography, community councils, urban services and changing transport networks). The strengths of this reader include a display of the pluralistic nature of the topic while showing the diversity of interests, the conflicts of various approaches at the various scales of concern and the dilemmas of spatial comprehen- sion of political processes. The weaknesses, needless to say, lie with all such amalgams of diverse topics: namely the lack of coherence and theoretical authority in spite of the editorial introductory gym- nastics. However, the content does not necessarily set out to clarify but primarily to present a range of political studies within a presentation order devised by the editors.

Those authors spreadeagled across the divide of political science and geography while considering Iocational patterns tended to show the strain of the spread. Those who remained in the domain of politi- cal science to focus on territorial analysis displayed more conviction, so the more substantive papers ap- peared to be concerned with theoretical political analysis, as shown by the papers by Agnew and Dear, for example, covering respectively 'A Theory of the Local State' and 'Structural and Dialectical Theories of Political Regionalism'. In terms of empirical research, often constrained by limited resources, the public inquiry, among other examples, was shown to be a convenient vehicle for the study of locational conflict, with the benefits of its own study boun- daries, a 'captive audience' and often a detailed in- formation source.

The lurch of knowledge, ideas and approaches from a descriptive and causal set of explanations, with their flirtation with quantitative and systems views of analysis, to the normative and commentary on public policy found in geography parallels the paradigmatic shift experienced generally in the social sciences. These papers echo this shift, and further question the basic units of research approach and the traditional boundaries of political geography.

I. APPLETON