Revitalizing Electoral Geography

From the 1960s to the 1980s, the analysis of spatial patterns in voting was a distinguished branch of geography, but has fallen into senescence since then. The decline is attributed partly to the increasing interest in social theory and political economy, which discounted electoral geography's preoccupation with empirical analysis and technique. Geographers and political scientists here document the beginning of a revival, as new concepts have been integrated, and the scope has expanded beyond the US. Among the topics are trends in electoral geography research since 1990, spatial regression for electoral studies in the Italian Lega Nord, the political geography of the Bloque Nacionalista Galego in Spain's Galacian Autonomous Community, the Puerto Rican diaspora and the island's status referenda, the 2008 US president al primary elections in geographic perspective, and electoral geographies of Florida's marriage protection amendment. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Dr. Barney Warf is Professor of Geography at the University of Kansas. He has diverse interests in the broad domain of human geography, particularly political economy and social theory, and has published papers concerning elections, the U.S. electoral college, and voting technology. Dr. Jonathan Leib is Associate Professor of Geography at Old Dominion University. A political geographer by training, his research interests are in political and cultural geographic change in the American South. He has published papers and book chapters concerning issues of redistricting, voting rights, and elections in the American South.