Abstract
Since the late 1970s there has been a rapid growth in the study of political geography in the Eng-lish-speaking countries. There has been particular interest in electoral geography, public choice, locational conflict, and similar topics. This growth seems to be in response to rising concern with political and social problems in the social sciences and increasing emphasis on studies from a political-economic perspective. There is much evidence of research efforts for the methodological and theoretical unification of political geography, and also a shift in the focus of research in the 1980s to the role of the state and topics of global scale.
The author reviews this research trend, focusing on the works of F. J. Taylor, who introduced the world-systems analysis to human geography, especially to political geography. Wallerstein's world-systems analysis is a holistic historical social science that does not take individual nation-states as the objects of study but rather focuses on the world-economy. Using the world-systems analysis to political geography has provided the capability of resolving problems on were tradition-ally regarded as three geographical scales (global, national, and local); the unification of tradi-tional and new political geography in time-space dimensions; and the integrating of electoral geog-raphy into political geography. Further, it has extended the research area to Third World countries in the world-economy. Taylor's textbook Political geography: world-economy, nation-state and locality, in which his comprehensive studies were systematized, has facilitated the unification of political geography. Consequently new trends have been recognized in geopolitics and electoral geography. The world-systems analysis is also identified as one of the major theoretical perspec-tives in the new regional geography.
Geography textbooks from the world-systems perspective, which emphasize global scale, total-ity, historical perspective, and the error of developmentalism, are very useful for enlightening stu-dents. The author thinks studies from the world-systems perspective in geography should contrib-ute to the world-systems analysis by emphasizing a spatial perspective. Japanese geographers should make more effort to take an interest in political matters in order to develop political geogra-phy as an active discipline on Japan.
