State / Space

During the last three decades, inherited geographies of state power have been significantly unsettled. The primacy of forms of government organized along traditional, Westphalian lines has been undermined by the unprecedented rise of supranational and subnational levels of state power and by the proliferation of new forms of governance. This groundbreaking, interdisciplinary volume brings together diverse analyses of these ongoing transformations of state space. The contributions explore state restructuring on multiple spatial scales, and from a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives. They provide innovative analyses of key theoretical and topical issues, including: The nature of state space under modern capitalism The historical geographies of the Westphalian interstate system The transformation of state territoriality under conditions of 'globalization' The changing roles of national states in socioeconomic regulation The governance of cross-border regions, global cities, and offshore financial centers The consolidation of new supranational regulatory arrangements The geographical rearticulating of struggles over citizenship and democracy Analyses are supported by case study material covering Western Europe, North America, and East Asia, as well as parts of Africa and South America. The volume will be welcomed by students seeking an overview of this new field of inquiry, and by scholars concerned to decode contemporary patterns of state restructuring.