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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Political geography'
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Smith, Leslie F. "The political geography of annexation--Roanoke, Virginia." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/45738.
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The evolution and relative importance of four issues -- civic boosterism and community autonomy, public services and planning, financial considerations, and race-related considerations -- were examined and analyzed as critical factors in Roanoke, Virginia's historic use of annexation. Particular attention was paid to the 1943, 1949, and 1962 annexation suits because they occurred during the period of increasing county opposition to annexation.
An historical and political geographic methodology, which focused on Guelke's idealism, was used to analyze the role of the two principal actors, city and county officials as public personae, whose actions on the four issues constituted the scenario for the city's thirteen annexation suits.
Civic boosterism and community autonomy played the initial role motivating the two principal actors in each suit. Expanding population, urbanization, and the statutory changes in Virginia’s annexation laws in 1904 increased the importance of public services and planning and financial considerations. Race-related considerations, however, were publicly ignored until the late 1960s after passage of the civic rights legislation.
Rising county opposition resulted in passage of numerous bills permitting counties to provide services and other government functions comparable to those offered by cities. This gave Roanoke County officials and their constituents an alternative to annexation. As a consequence, Roanoke County increasingly opposed the city's annexation plans. In 1980 Roanoke County gained immunity from further annexations.Master of Science
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Kim, Myung Jin. "Optimization Approaches to Political Redistricting Problems." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306896676.
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Al-Mayyal, Ahmad Y. A. "The political boundaries of the state of Kuwait : a study in political geography." Thesis, SOAS, University of London, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.262130.
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McGowan, Katherine Megan. "Political geography and political structures in earlier mediaeval Ireland : a chronicle-based approach." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2002. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272027.
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Kenny, T. J. "A critical geography of human rights." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1994. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.240362.
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Clark, Rebecca. "Montesquieu on the History and Geography of Political Liberty." Thesis, Boston College, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:103616.
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Thesis advisor: Christopher KellyMontesquieu famously presents climate and terrain as enabling servitude in hot, fertile climes and on the exposed steppes of central Asia. He also traces England's exemplary constitution, with its balanced constitution, independent judiciary, and gentle criminal practices, to the unique conditions of early medieval northern Europe. The English "found" their government "in the forests" of Germany. There, the marginal, variegated terrain favored the dispersion of political power, and a pastoral way of life until well into the Middle Ages. In pursuing a primitive honor unrelated to political liberty as such, the barbaric Franks accidentally established the rudiments of the most "well-tempered" government. His turn to these causes accidental to human purposes in Parts 3-6 begins with his analysis of the problem of unintended consequences in the history of political reform in Parts 1-2. While the idea of balancing political powers in order to prevent any one individual or group from dominating the rest has ancient roots, he shows that it has taken many centuries to understand just what needs to be balanced, and to learn to balance against one threat without inviting another. Knowledge of the administration of criminal justice has proven the most important to liberty, as well as the most difficult to acquire and put into practice. Montesquieu's attention to accidental causes sheds light on the contradictions within human nature, and the complex relationship between humans and their physical and conventional environments. He shows how nature provides support for both political liberty and for despotism. The wisdom of organizing government with a view to political liberty, as well as the means for doing so, does not follow from human nature in the abstract, but has required reflection on experiences with the consequences of actual governments. By highlighting the dependence of free politics on conditions outside the legislator's immediate control, he encourages reformers to attend to the non-legal supports of political liberty, the limits of human ingenuity, and the risks of unintended consequences. His attention to forces beyond human control provides the occasion to clarify the character of liberal legislative prudence, the art of leading by "inviting without constraining."
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Political Science
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Robert-Nicoud, Frederic L. "New economic geography : multiple equilibria, welfare and political economy." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2002. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2879/.
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This thesis contributes to the body of research known as the new economic geography. According to this paradigm, increasing returns to scale at the firm level, monopolistic competition, and transportation costs interact in shaping the spatial distribution of economic activity. The introductory chapter lays out the motivation of this thesis and puts it into the perspective of the existing literature. Chapter 1 introduces a typical model of new economic geography: the nature of the agglomeration and dispersion forces it displays is recurrent in this body of research; the model also displays multiple equilibria. The welfare properties of these equilibria are also analysed. Chapter 2 completely characterizes the set of equilibria of a wide range of models that are the quintessence of the new economic geography paradigm. The model of chapter 2 is shown to share the qualitative features of these models. Chapter 3 integrates a simple version of the model chapter 2 within a political economy framework. The welfare analysis of chapter 2 provides the motivation for this theoretical exercise. Chapter 4 seeks to provide an answer to the important but thus far neglected question of what is the mechanism that actually determines the magnitude policies that seek to affect the equilibrium spatial allocation of industries. The geography model is integrated in a fully specified political economy process of policy selection. Chapter 4 extends the model of chapter 2 to deal with the issue of the 'fragmentation' of the production process when new economic geography forces are at play. Finally, the analysis of chapter 5 contributes to the growing literature on the labour market imperfections as a driving force for agglomeration. In particular it shows how the hold-up problem can be softened or worsened by the cluster of industries using workers with similar skills.
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Howell, Philip M. R. "'A free trade in politics' : a geography of Chartism's political culture, c.1838-1848." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1993. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272582.
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Ford, Of The. "Parallel worlds : attribute-defined regions in global human geography /." Thesis, Connect to resource online, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1805/2004.
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Thesis (M.S.)--Indiana University, 2009.Department of Geography, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Owen J. Dwyer, Jeffrey S. Wilson, Scott M. Pegg. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 135-168).
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Mysak, Mark. "The Environmental is Political: Exploring the Geography of Environmental Justice." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2010. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30497/.
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The dissertation is a philosophical approach to politicizing place and space, or environments broadly construed, that is motivated by three questions. How can geography be employed to analyze the spatialities of environmental justice? How do spatial concepts inform understandings of environmentalism? And, how can geography help overcome social/political philosophy's redistribution-recognition debate in a way that accounts for the multiscalar dimensions of environmental justice? Accordingly, the dissertation's objective is threefold. First, I develop a critical geography framework that explores the spatialities of environmental injustices as they pertain to economic marginalization across spaces of inequitable distribution, cultural subordination in places of misrecognition, and political exclusion from public places of deliberation and policy. Place and space are relationally constituted by intricate networks of social relations, cultural practices, socioecological flows, and political-economic processes, and I contend that urban and natural environments are best represented as "places-in-space." Second, I argue that spatial frameworks and environmental discourses interlock because conceptualizations of place and space affect how environments are perceived, serve as framing devices to identify environmental issues, and entail different solutions to problems. In the midst of demonstrating how the racialization of place upholds inequitable distributions of pollution burdens, I introduce notions of "social location" and "white privilege" to account for the conflicting agendas of the mainstream environmental movement and the environmental justice movement, and consequent accusations of discriminatory environmentalism. Third, I outline a bivalent environmental justice theory that deals with the spatialities of environmental injustices. The theory synergizes distributive justice and the politics of social equality with recognition justice and the politics of identity and difference, therefore connecting cultural issues to a broader materialist analysis concerned with economic issues that extend across space. In doing so, I provide a justice framework that assesses critically the particularities of place and concurrently identifies commonalities to diverse social struggles, thus spatializing the geography of place-based political praxis.
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Castree, Noel. "Envisioning capitalism, geography and the renewal of Marxian political-economy." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1998. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk1/tape11/PQDD_0033/NQ38864.pdf.
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Raleigh, Clionadh. "The political geography of civil war: Insurgencies in Central Africa." Connect to online resource, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3284499.
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Madsen, Michael. "The Mormon Influence on the Political Geography of the West." Diss., CLICK HERE for online access, 1999. http://patriot.lib.byu.edu/u?/MTGM,33224.
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Sunley, Peter John. "Broken places : a geography of the 1926 coalmining dispute." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.335806.
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Calluzzo, Nicholas T. "The urbanization of insurgency : shifts in the geography of conflict." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59796.
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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74).
The 20th century witnessed the steady decline of the ability of states, particularly great powers, to defeat insurgencies. During the same period, the world has become both more populous and more urban. As people have taken to the cities, so too have insurgents increasingly made battlefields out of urban areas. This study has sought to determine the impact of urbanization on insurgency outcomes using a post-war dataset of insurgencies. It has predicted that urbanized insurgencies favor the insurgent by facilitating concealment and cover, nullifying the relatively power differential enjoyed by states, and providing them with an abundance of soft targets useful for undermining the counterinsurgent's legitimacy. Although constrained by a number of data limitations, the results demonstrated that more urbanized insurgencies were a significant challenge to counter insurgents. By partitioning the dataset by insurgency type, the study was able to determine unique predictors of conflict outcome for each type. Urbanized insurgencies are particularly hard to defeat when the counterinsurgent is a foreign occupier, more democratic, and the insurgency has external support. Rural insurgencies become more difficult to defeat the more linguistically diverse the population. Furthermore, by increasing the number of conflict casualties, rural insurgents can particularly benefit from rough terrain.
by Nicholas T. Calluzzo.
S.M.
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Zucherman, Hannah M. "Geography of the Gender Gap| Brexit, Income, and Scale." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10604951.
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Brexit was one of many recent votes that stunned pollsters and voters alike, in part because traditional methods of polling had failed. This failure creates a need for new approaches to predicting electoral behavior. This thesis will explore the electoral behavior of women using statistical and spatial analysis as methods. Using the gender gap in income as an indicator, I hypothesize that (1) there is an inverse association between the gender income gap and the vote to remain in the European Union and (2) this association varies at different geographic scales of analysis. As women become economically independent, they vote independently from their partners, and, in this case, vote in favor of staying within the European Union. This is due to women favoring the economic stability of remaining in the European Union. My findings show some support for the first hypothesis, and there is ample evidence that the association does change according to different geographic scales.
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Carr, Douglas Alan. "ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY POLICY: POLITICAL ECONOMY, INDUSTRIAL GEOGRAPHY, AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL FISCAL EFFECTS." Lexington, Ky. : [University of Kentucky Libraries], 2007. http://lib.uky.edu/ETD/ukypuad2007d00621/carr_dissertation.pdf.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Kentucky, 2007.Title from document title page (viewed on August 6, 2007). Document formatted into pages; contains: vii, 92 p. : ill., maps (some col.). Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-91).
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Murray, Laurel Alexandra. "Following protocol : the political geography of climate change policymaking in Canada." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2014. http://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/following-protocol-the-political-geography-of-climate-change-policymaking-in-canada(16273cca-47d3-4657-bd37-4a7be2628cbf).html.
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Canada is a country often painted as a unifying power and an honest broker in world affairs. She has a respected history within the United Nations and a tradition of championing international norms, especially to curtail dangerous actions amongst the community of nations. From NAFTA to peacekeeping missions, she has carved a respected niche in global politics, perhaps fairer than her domestic situation warrants. Recent economic and environmental problems challenge this legacy of international cooperation and the rule of law with poor implementation of key international treaties. Environmental problems, in particular, have not translated into robust environmental policies even though Canadian identity is intrinsically woven with the concepts of nature and stewardship. The issue of climate change is a case in point: Canada was one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of the international climate change regime, and simultaneously, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters per capita. The government signed the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with a commitment to lower emissions by 6% of 1990 levels; yet emissions rose by 19% by the end of the commitment period. The country appears to suffer from a Jekyll and Hyde syndrome: defending international norms and the rule of law whilst at the same time ignoring the very treaties she fought to create. This thesis explores how the federal Canadian government shifted from being an international leader to a laggard in the Kyoto Protocol; and in doing so it will explain the socio-economic and political forces that shaped Canada’s Kyoto strategy. A grounded theory research design was used, combining key informant interviews, policy document analysis, and participant observation. The case study raises important questions for a country such as Canada with lessons for climate politics both within the country and other federalist countries.
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Fyfe, Nicholas R. "Community/police consultation in London and the political geography of policing." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.304033.
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Anderson, Glenn. "Henry Clay and Latin America, 1813-1829 shaping a political geography." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Centro de Investigación en Geografía Aplicada, 2014. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/119892.
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Moradi, Sanan. "MELLAT AND QOWM:A POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF `NATION’ AND `ETHNICITY’ IN IRAN." Miami University / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1406723560.
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Kedzior, Sya. "A POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE CHIPKO MOVEMENT." UKnowledge, 2006. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_theses/289.
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The Indian Chipko movement is analyzed as a case study employing a geographically-informed political ecology approach. Political ecology as a framework for the study of environmental movements provides insight into the complex issues surrounding the structure of Indian society, with particular attention to its ecological and political dimensions. This framework, with its focus on social structure and ecology, is distinct from the more traditional approaches to the study of social movements, which tend to essentialize their purpose and membership, often by focusing on a single dimension of the movement and its context. Using Chipko as a case-study, the author demonstrates how a geographical approach to political ecology avoids some of this essentialization by encouraging a holistic analysis of environmental movements that is characterized by a bottom-up analysis, grounded at the local level, which also considers the wider context of the movements growth by synthesizing socio-political and ecological analyses. Also explored are questions on the importance of gender-informed approaches to the study of environmental activism and participation in environmental movements in India.
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McManus, Phil. "An ecological political economy of sustainability : nature, forestry and trade." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.336834.
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Kinsella, Chad J. "Democracy on Shifting Ground: An Analysis of the Use of Precincts in Spatial Electoral Studies." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1330023850.
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Holland, Edward C. "Nationalism framed? Homelands, institutionalism, and the political geography of territoriality in Dagestan." Connect to online resource, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:1447675.
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Alex, Yvette Marie. "Assessing the effects of neighborhood and family contexts on political orientations and behavior /." The Ohio State University, 1993. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487844485896702.
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Wolosin, Robert Tyrell. "EL MILAGRO DE ALMERÍA, ESPAÑA: A POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND GREENHOUSE AGRICULTURE." The University of Montana, 2008. http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-05202008-114939/.
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The purpose of this thesis is to investigate changes in the landscape of Almería in southeastern Spain, particularly in relation to the emergence of the 80,000-acre greenhouse sector. This thesis questions why the province of Almería has the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world and determines what processes led to this industry. The research focuses on local-global scale interactions and environmental history analysis within a political ecology framework. The methods for data collection included literature review of secondary sources and four months living in Almería conducting interviews and field observations. Located in Europes driest desert, the greenhouses of Almería produce millions of tons of produce for European markets. Initially fueled by abundant aquifer water, years of heavy water usage have depleted the quality of the water and led to innovative methods for reducing water use and the introduction of desalination. The Almería hydropolitics associated with water usage and distribution highlight the importance of the greenhouse sector to various levels of government. Almerías environmental history demonstrates profound climate and landscape modifications by human actions fueled by local-global exchanges for resources. Expanding on the geographer David Touts 1980s research on Almería greenhouses, this thesis compares current and past issues, economic and land development, and technologies within the greenhouse sector. This case study presents an opportunity for examining the processes that shaped the environmental history through local-global exchanges that are unique to Almería.
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Grove, Kevin J. "Governing Social and Ecological Contingency through Disaster Management Policy and Practice in Jamaica." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1306245970.
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Pelling, Mark. "A political ecology of urban flood hazard and social vulnerability in Guyana." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.263908.
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During the 1990s vulnerability analysis has brought political ecology into the study of hazards, and in so doing allowed the study of risk in society/environment relations to engage more directly with broader issues of social science interest. This approach acknowledges that hazards are the product of risk and vulnerability but focuses primarily on the ways in which social organisation influences the distribution of hazard impacts; when and where risk becomes hazard, who is affected. if and how people respond and the extent to which hazard events may provide opportunities for, as well as constraints on, society. The vulnerabilities approach rests upon two key conceptual tools, the Pressure and Release Model and the Access Model, which were designed for use in exploring a wide variety of stressful events. Their utility in an urban flood hazard context is, however, limited because of a lack of meso-level conceptual tools and models. This weakness was overcome by bringing in a range of tools from the urban management literature which can also be combined within a political ecology frame. For the 90% of the Guyanese population, resident on the Atlantic coastal plain. flood hazard as a consequence of episodic and everyday events is an ongoing problem manifesting in collective and individual vulnerabilities, and a problem which is likely to become more acute as a consequence of global climate change. This project sought both to identify superficial experiences of hazard and vulnerability, and the deeper human and physical processes producing risk and vulnerability. National level experience and vulnerability indicators were gathered from a review of secondary data from the press, consultants' reports and government and academic publications. Following this, the first stage of primary field research identified the extent to which vulnerability indicators were associated with observed vulnerability and flood impact in both urban and peri-urban case studies. The second stage of field research examined local social/political-economic relations and their role in directing the flow of resources for environmental management and, consequently, in shaping distributions of vulnerability within the case study areas. For households in peri-urban and urban neighbourhoods economic and social assets are shown to be equally important for shaping the distribution of vulnerabilities; however, for low-income groups, and for squatter communities in particular, social assets are often the key to mitigating vulnerability. The importance of social assets at the household level contrasts with the weakened condition of social capital locally, and within Guyana as a whole. Locally, the low level of social capital was seen in a withdrawal of households from communal activity and a preference for investing in flood adaptation mechanisms within the household or extended family, and by topdown constructions of community and unrepresentative and unresponsive leadership serving to deepen dependency and alienation from the decision-making process. At a national level, government and public institutions are weak and ineffective, the private sector and civil society are undeveloped with few inter-sectoral linkages being maintained. Failures in social development and the low level of social capital are identified as key determinants in the production of vulnerability despite democratisation and structural adjustment which has promoted both privatisation and the funding of community sponsored development.
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Kumalo, Siseko H. "Knowledge as Political : The Philosophical Society of Southern Africa and the Geography of Dissent." Diss., University of Pretoria, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/73183.
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This study analyses the politics of knowledge, through the political that was the call to dissolve the Philosophical Society of Southern Africa (PSSA); a call that was made at the 2017 January Annual Conference at Rhodes University, Eastern Cape – South Africa. An analysis of knowledge as political seeks to demonstrate how the philosophical community situates decoloniality in our context, necessitating that social theorists respond meaningfully. The study demonstrates how an analysis of the PSSA, highlights the political and historical machinations that influence the knowledge project. The call to dissolve the PSSA revealed the political and historical machinations of the knowledge project, along with the rationale of the decolonial philosopher, i.e. revealing loci of enunciation(s). The study therefore, locates the discipline of Philosophy within the decolonial debate that presently preoccupies the contemporary scholar and the University, more broadly. I highlight how the call to dissolve the PSSA offers insights into decolonial struggles while substantiating the claim of Knowledge as Political.
The speakers’ loci of enunciation reveal the author’s political underpinnings and how these influence their knowledge claims. Revealing the politics of knowledge is aligned with the aims of the decolonial philosopher who attempts to respond to epistemic injustices.
In response to epistemic injustices that are both historically situated, while highlighting the political motivations of the knowledge project, I propose the use of the Black Archive. The Black Archive is constitutive of the works of Black/Indigenous literato, poets, musicians and artists who were thinking through and theorising the Fact of Blackness/Indigeneity even as they were excluded from knowledge production institutions; i.e. the South African University.Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2019.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Political Sciences
MA
Unrestricted
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Bianchi, Matías Federico. "The political economy of sub-national democracy : fiscal rentierism and geography in Argentina." Paris, Institut d'études politiques, 2013. http://www.theses.fr/2013IEPP0032.
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Cette thèse recherche les causes des expériences divergentes de développement politique et économique dans les provinces de l´Argentine. Malgré les ressources financières importantes et politiques que les provinces moins peuplées reçoivent, un grand nombre parmi elles deviennent chaque fois moins dynamiques du point de vue économique et plus dépendantes de ressources financières venant du gouvernement national. Au même temps les élites locales ont tendance à rester au pouvoir, à construire clientèles, et à dominer les autres branches du gouvernement, ainsi stagnent -et parfois inversent- du processus de démocratisation commencé dans le pays il y a trois décennies. En particulier se proposent deux variables cruciales qui expliquent la démocratisation sous-nationale: les institutions du système fédéral, en particulier les dispositions fiscales et la distribution géographique du développement dans les provinces. Dans la premier, se utilise l´encadre théorique de la « malédiction » du pays exportateurs de pétrole mais se concentre sur les mécanismes par lesquels opèrent. Dans le deuxième, se preuve que le développement de pôles relativement éloignées et autonomes dans quelques provinces, sont facteurs que résistent aux forces centripètes et centralisatrices qui connaissent les provinces rentièresThis dissertation investigates the causes for the divergent experiences of political and economic development of the provinces in Argentina. Despite the important fiscal and political resources less populated provinces receive, a large group of them are increasingly less dynamic economically and more dependent on fiscal resources coming from the national government. At the same time, local elites have tended to remain in power through patronage and have surpassed the autonomy of other powers, thus stagnating – and sometimes even reversing – the democratization process started in the country three decades ago. It proposes two explanatory variables that help to explain the sub-national democratization process in Argentina: the fiscal rentierism and the geographical distribution of resources within provinces. In the first case, it is used the theoretical framework of the “resource curse” that explain the paradoxical situation of oil exporting countries. Specifically it focuses on the mechanism through which this phenomenon operates looking to specific cases in detail. In trying to explain cases that have managed to escape the “curse”, it shows that in cases in which human and economic resources are dispersed, has helped those provinces to resist the centripetal forces of fiscal rentierism
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Ekoko, Francois E. "The political economy of forest protection and sustainable development : the case of Cameroon." Thesis, University of Liverpool, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.283065.
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Roy, Anurupa. "The Political Economy of the New Urban Development in India." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1398793897.
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Butterworth, Melinda K. "Climate, Ecology, and the Socio-Political Dimensions of Mosquito-Borne Disease in the Southern United States." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/560859.
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Infectious organisms, such as dengue and West Nile viruses, are understood to be part of complex ecologies. The same is true for their common vectors, Aedes and Culex mosquitoes. Standing water, whether from human or naturally fed sources, provides the necessary breeding habitat for immature stages. Climatic variables such as temperature and rainfall can both directly impact the amount of water available for breeding. Temperature can alter this amount via evaporation, while precipitation can maintain or refill breeding sites. The effects of temperature also partially govern the lifecycle and development of these vectors and viruses. Human action and management can further mitigate these sites by eliminating them through dumping standing water or adding insecticide, or conversely promoting them. These factors can impact the spatial distribution of these organisms at multiple scales, such as global patterns of disease, as well as patterns of risk within urban areas. This dissertation examines the ecology of two mosquito-borne diseases, dengue fever and West Nile fever, at multiple scales and asks, 1. How do environmental changes shift distributions of mosquito-borne diseases? and 2. How do local actors and residents understand, respond to, and manage these emerging infections? Dengue fever is one of the most important and fastest spreading global vector-borne diseases. At a large spatio-temporal scale, potential and future dengue transmission is assessed under current and future (2045-65) climate change scenarios across the southern US. Understanding the differential impacts of climate on the Ae. aegypti mosquito and dengue virus is essential for projecting the shifting geographies of dengue fever. This includes considering both temperature and precipitation impacts. The results suggest that winter temperatures may be limiting dengue transmission in the southern US currently, but this may change under climate change. This is particularly true for the Gulf Coast region, which becomes more climatically suitable for dengue transmission under future analysis. To understand the variance of disease risk within urban spaces, the same dynamic mosquito model was coupled with remotely sensed imagery and parameterized for Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes to visualize mosquito risks across the city of Tucson. Despite an arid climate, West Nile virus is an ongoing public health concern in Arizona. The maps, visualized at multiple scales, were used to assess individual perceptions of mosquito abundance and control responsibility held by residents and health officials. The results show disparate interpretations of mosquito risk among these groups, with differing calls for responsibility and action. This further shows the ways in which maps of environmental and health hazards are not only reflective of certain landscapes, but also productive. From a public health perspective, this paper is useful for understanding shifting perceptions of disease landscapes and how they match with ecological realities. While maps and modeling techniques are useful for assessing risk over various scales, the spaces of interaction between disease vectors and humans is particularly local. These interactions, and the creation or eradication of breeding habitats, are always a simultaneous relationship between environmental factors and human action. This is particularly true for the dengue fever vector, Ae. aegypti, which lives in close proximity to humans. Grounded by fieldwork conducted in Key West, FL, the site of two years of dengue fever outbreaks in 2009 and 2010, the final component of this dissertation examines how residents in Key West understand mosquito control responsibility, and what complicates the effective control of the vector on the island. While it was found that residents are highly active in monitoring and controlling mosquitoes in and around their yards, important socio-ecological factors are identified that stand to complicate control efforts. The decisions people make about their risks and around their homes as they manage the ecological spaces of the mosquito are crucial for effective public health practice.
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Giordano, Benito. "A political-economic geography of Italian regionalism : the Northern League (Lega Nord), 1984-96." Thesis, Durham University, 1997. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/5082/.
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This thesis contributes to the debates surrounding the resurgence of regionalism in contemporary Europe by examining the situation in Italy. The main theoretical perspectives of regionalism are examined as well as the historical development of the Italian national-state and the significant transformations it has undergone in recent years. The main focus of the study is the Northern League (Lega Nord) (LN) regionalist political party, which has risen to political prominence in Italian politics over the last ten years. The LN's claims for greater regional autonomy and its attempts to invent an identity for the North of Italy, or 'Padania' (as the LN calls it) have brought to the fore questions about the future structure of governance in Italy. The LN's claims for the secession of 'Padania' are a direct challenge to Italian national unity and identity. The LN claims to be the party of the North of Italy (or 'Padania') but its electoral support is not uniform across the whole of the territory. The thesis explores how and why the party's level of electoral support varies geographically, which involves examining the historical and electoral development of the LN; its organisational structures; how the party communicates its political rhetoric; and how the party’s discourses have evolved over time. The LN is analysed in three case-study areas within Northern and Central Italy in order to understand how different geographical contexts help or hinder the success of the party. The first case study area is the province of Varese, which is symbolically important for the LN and where the party is electorally strong; the second area is the autonomous province of Trentino where the LN is confronted with a distinct set of institutional and political structures; and the third is the province of Macerata in Central Italy where the LN is electorally weak.
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Péloquin, Claude. "Unruly Nature and Technological Authority: Governing Locust Swarms in the Sahel." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/321308.
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This dissertation examines how states and international organizations respond to complex ecological problems that are mismatched to their management capacity. The study concentrates on effort by scientific advisors, technicians, and bureaucrats to manage the population dynamics of the desert locust, Schistocerca gegaria in Western and Northern Africa. Desert locusts periodically invade crops and pastures, where they cause massive depredations that undermine agricultural productivity and food security, often in extremely impoverished regions. The immensely complex and bio-geographically stochastic breeding and gregarization dynamics of the desert locust put the insect at odds with the conventional spatiality of the state. This make it difficult for managers to precisely predict and effectively control locust outbreaks and invasions. To better understand the factors shaping institutional responses to this insect, I address three interrelated questions primarily informed by political ecology, political geography, and critical development studies: (1) What historical trajectory yielded the contemporary configuration of locust control? (2) Why do some approaches to locust management become selected over others amongst experts and organizations? (3) What is the relationship between the spatial dynamics of locust outbreaks and invasions, on the one hand, and the spatial logic and imperatives of the state? Analysis of interviews, field observations, and archival records indicates that the ability of the desert locust to evade and exceed the conventional spatiality of the state has made this pest problem an appealing field to innovate and enact new regimes of governance that operate transnationally. This has embedded locust control in the historical arc spanning from formal colonialism to the current configuration of independent states supported by international programs of foreign aid and technical assistance. In this context, concerns for the professional viability of locust expertise within state agencies and international organizations favor the selection of strategies that best fit the modalities of access to development aid and resources. This motivates state-mandated locust managers to favor the adoption of locust control strategies that are best aligned with capacity building goals of these programs, and that incorporate locust management in broader interventions of social and environmental improvement.
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Torres, Anastasia Bermudez. "Political transnationalism, gender and peace buliding among Colombian migrants in the UK and Spain." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2008. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/1570.
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The international migration of Colombians has received little attention, either at academic or policy levels. This research explores Colombian migration to Spain and the UK. Its main aim is to study the transnational political activities of Colombian migrants, in the context of the armed conflict and search for peace in Colombia, by taking a gendered perspective. The theoretical and conceptual frameworks draw from several research areas, mainly work on diasporas and transnational migration, and studies of armed conflict and peace. Given that these fields of study are rarely combined, this thesis provides an innovative conceptual approach. The current research is based on qualitative fieldwork conducted in the UK and Spain between 2005 and 2007, and comprising almost 100 interviews and participant observation. The main empirical finding is that Colombian migrants are an integral part of the political context in the home country, despite the emphasis by other studies on the polarisation, fragmentation and apolitical nature of the diaspora. Conceptually, this thesis argues for the need to de-construct political transnationalism, to account for: activities emerging from 'above' and 'below', 'individual' and 'collective' participation in formal and informal politics; and the connections between political participation in the countries of origin and settlement. Also, it shows that migrants' transnational politics varies according to gender, as well as other factors, mainly type of migration and social class. More importantly, the transnational political activities of Colombians abroad relate directly/indirectly to the armed conflict and search for peace in Colombia. Future research and policy-making should take into account the potential of this for civil society peace-building efforts, especially seeking to promote a gendered perspective.
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Normann, Andrew J. "Art is Not a Crime: Hip-Hop, Urban Geography, and Political Imaginaries in Detroit." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1503059494063247.
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Essex, Jamey Stuart. "The state as site and strategy neoliberalization, internationalization, and the Foreign Agricultural Service /." Related electronic resource: Current Research at SU : database of SU dissertations, recent titles available full text, 2005. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/syr/main.
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Long, Philip E. "Approaches and organisational forms adopted by local tourism development partnerships in England." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2002. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/3102/.
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A number of partnership arrangements involving public and private sector and community representation have been created in many countries in recent years with local and regional economic development, place marketing and regeneration remits. This research examines partnerships that are concerned specifically with the development of tourism in England. Various forms of partnership for tourism development in England and elsewhere continue to emerge and evolve in the early years of the 21 st century. This study investigates the pre-conditions, processes and outcomes of such partnership arrangements. The study also examines the political, environmental and socio-economic influences that may affect local tourism development partnerships in England. It does so through an integrated conceptual framework that combines theoretical perspectives on resource, and political and institutional considerations in an evaluation of such partnerships. The roles of individual partnership members are also evaluated. This study suggests that the conceptual framework developed for this research may be adopted for the analysis of tourism development partnerships elsewhere. This research involves the critical study of partnerships through the integration of both policy studies, and organisation studies perspectives. Theories developed to account for inter-organisational collaboration are given particular prominence in this research. Additionally, theories are also incorporated from political geography, and from institutional theory. It is shown that all of these approaches are relevant and applicable to the study of tourism development partnerships. Theories developed to account for organisational partnerships have been applied to empirical studies in a number of policy, locational and business contexts in recent years. However, there has been comparatively little work that has developed an inter-organisational collaboration theoretical framework in the study of tourism development partnerships. Therefore, this research contributes to knowledge in relation to an emerging and important subject in the field of tourism studies. The methodology in this study is qualitative, centring upon an intensive analysis of three local tourism development partnerships, including a pilot study, and involves the use of interviews with key actors and documentary analysis. Theories of interorganisational collaboration inform the research design and analytical framework and contribute towards the development of an integrated theory of partnerships in the context of tourism development. The approach adopted here is transferable to the examination of inter-organisational collaboration and partnerships both within and beyond the field of tourism. Therefore, the methodology developed for this research has considerable potential for substantive application elsewhere. The study concludes with a comparative analysis and evaluation of the findings from the three case studies in this research. The implications of these findings for future research on partnerships are highlighted. The implications of this study for the development of theory and methods for researching tourism development partnerships are also suggested.
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Kocher, Austin C. "Notice to Appear: Immigration Courts and the Legal Production of Illegalized Immigrants." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu149428763630055.
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Bricker, Christine. "Vernacular geography and perceptions of place: a new approach to measuring American regional and political subcultures." Diss., University of Iowa, 2018. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/6374.
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This study develops a new theoretical approach and empirical measure of American regional subcultures using public opinion survey data and building on previous research (Chinni and Gimpel 2011; Elazar 1962, 1966; Hero 2000; Lieske 1993; Putnam, Leonardi and Nanetti 1994). Instead of approaching classification of regions based on formal geography, border states, population demography, ethnic groups and migration patterns, or historical traditions, this study uses a vernacular geography approach to study culture in the 50 American states. Vernacular geography is the sense of place revealed in ordinary people’s language. The study uses original nationwide survey data to measure perceptions of place based on states that are most similar to a respondent’s home state. The measure is based on unique survey questions where respondents have the freedom to choose any of the 50 states. The surveys are conducted by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) from 2012 to 2016. These data allow development of a new measure of state similarity or regional subcultures based on vernacular geography. The state similarity network based on people’s feelings shows that state contiguity is not the driving factor in people’s perceptions of regions of the United States. It also shows that people’s perceptions of state similarity are a better predictor of policy diffusion than contiguity. Finally, this study shows that wealth is the most important factor in people’s perceptions of state similarity, but that population size, racial diversity, rural/urban population density, and ideology/partisanship are all predictors of people’s perceptions of state similarity at low levels. This study argues that perceptions of place matter. They are a core building block of political culture and are important for understanding policy diffusion. This study is about how citizens conceptualize their home state and network of most similar states, and whether state similarity networks, or social networks of states, influence government policy adoption and innovation.
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Silva, Corinne. "Dreamlands and ecotones : how can a photographic language be constructed to explore the politics of landscape on the political equator?" Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2014. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/6530/.
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This thesis is structured around a central overriding question: to what extent can the practice of landscape photography be used to make visible the politics of landscape in borderland territories? Introduced by architect Teddy Cruz, the ‘political equator’ suggests an alternative politics of space through which to critically consider socio-economic and geopolitical processes associated with globalisation under neoliberal capitalism. This equator is based on a revised geography of the post-9/11 world, whereby a line drawn across a world map intersects at three contested desert territories: 1) the Mexico USA frontier; 2) southern Spain and northern Morocco; and 3) Palestine/Israel. This concept and its implications for human mobility, porous frontiers and material readings of landscape are explored through my photographic practice. In this work I challenge the idea of ‘hard borders’ between sovereign nation-states and make new political and symbolic associations between the territories along the political equator. Landscape can be seen as a cultural construct imbued with social uses and a more abstract set of desires. Photography as both a material and imaginative medium is able to simultaneously narrate and re-shape landscape. Through my three projects, Imported Landscapes (2010), Badlands (2011) and Gardening the Suburbs (2013) I examine and translate borderland territories. I produce photographs that suggest how these landscapes embody the contradictions of globalisation and carry the traces of past empires and geographies. I analyse the creation of a built environment and the construction of a post-natural landscape to suggest that our understanding of landscape – in ‘real-life’ and as it is aesthetically configured in images – is something materially arranged and a product of the imagination. My practice facilitates an imaginative engagement with potential future political sustainability or modification of these landscapes. Visuality plays a pivotal role in the production of contemporary geo-politics. By exploring three of my art projects in relation to historical and contemporary visual representations of desert borderlands, political and symbolic readings of the desert emerge as inherently connected. This thesis creates an innovative connection between early photographic practices in landscape and their later critical and conceptual versions. The thesis considers the ways in which my work translates, critiques and revises these conventions. I approach landscape phenomenologically, understanding it not as a static entity but as a process. This process is composed of and shaped by human and animal life, material object and place. Through an analysis of my own embodied engagement with landscape and my material and imaginative experience of landscape photographs, this thesis opens new ways of narrating the thresholds of the political equator.
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Al-Muwaled, Faraj Mobarak Jam'an. "Maritime boundary delimitation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia : a study in political geography." Thesis, Durham University, 1993. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10368/.
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Saudi Arabia was the first Arab country to claim offshore jurisdiction and the first Middle Eastern state to define its offshore waters. This study examines the principal geographical factors which have resulted in the present Saudi maritime boundary. The semi-enclosed sea, islands, reefs, natural resources of the continental shelf, exclusive economic zone and coastline, can all be considered principal geographical factors that have influenced Saudi territorial waters policy. Islands, for example, play an effective role in increasing the area of Saudi internal waters, increasing the breadth of the territorial sea, straight baseline and the delimitation of maritime boundary in the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf with opposite and adjacent states. Natural resources demanded the swift implementation of unique agreements, used later as an example worldwide. The author has drawn the 1958 Saudi straight baseline and a theoretical straight baseline based on the 1982 Convention and states practice. The territorial sea which is drawn on this basis along the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf coasts, is affected by the presence of islands and reefs. The Saudi Exclusive Fishing Zone claimed by the 1974 decree gave the Kingdom the same right as the 1982 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), but the Kingdom had to adapt the latter in order to gain more control over its resources and non-mineral activities. The importance of the 1949 Saudi decree can be found in the contribution made by Saudi Arabia to the development of the law of the sea, and to safeguarding the national hydrocarbon resources (natural gas and oil) on and below its seabed. Saudi Arabia engaged in several agreements, mainly in the Gulf, in order to define its boundary. This study has highlighted these agreements as a model which can be used in different parts of the world to solve similar disputes, and can be adopted as methods of maritime delimitation between opposite and adjacent states. The importance of the economic factor has been shown, along with security, as the main factor influencing the successful conclusion of such agreements, but where there is no such importance, the boundary may become less significant and by the absence of such motivation the boundary may not be defined. Saudi waters are a rich and highly important maritime area. This is based on the facts that Saudi Arabia has 30 per cent of the world seawater desalination plants; that the sea represents food, fuel and wealth to Saudi Arabia; and that the existence of huge deserts emphasises the importance of the sea.
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Klaas, Zachary. "The political and electoral geography of Quebec: A critical analysis of the 1998 Quebec provincial election." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/28957.
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The results of the 1998 provincial election in Quebec reveal the existence of six distinct "electoral regions" in the province. The concentration of the vote for the three major political parties, the Parti Quebecois (PQ), the Parti liberal du Quebec (PLQ) and the Action democratique du Quebec (ADQ) defines these regions, in conjunction with information provided by a geographical and statistical database of indicators representing spaces, actors and rationales of action. The portrait of Quebec afforded us by an analysis of such a research database suggests strongly that there are "many Quebecs" rather than a unitary Quebec. A Quebec seeking to remain a political unity must culturally recognise the existence of six distinct regions within it, a number of which differ on basic matters with the majority culture of the province.
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Smith, Sara Hollingsworth. "A Geopolitics of Intimacy and Anxiety: Religion, Territory, and Fertility in Leh District, Jammu and Kashmir, India." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/194792.
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What happens when bodies are the territory through which geopolitical strategies play out? In the Leh district of India's contested Jammu and Kashmir State, religious identity has become politicized and Buddhist/Muslim conflict is being articulated at the site of the body. This dissertation contributes to political geography by exploring intimacy and fertility as geopolitical practice. In Leh, political conflict between Buddhists and Muslims is being enacted through women's bodies. Activist members of the Buddhist majority are encouraging Buddhist women to maximize fertility and avoid marrying Muslim men in order to maintain Buddhist electoral control. When women's bodies are instrumentalized and geopolitical strategy seeks to control desire, how do women cope with or resist these pressures? Can the body be an effective site of resistance against the politicization of religion and intimacy? My dissertation research consists of over 200 interviews and surveys of Buddhist and Muslim women in Leh district, as well as a participatory oral history project that engaged students in Leh with these difficult questions. The research explores how the politicization of marriage and fertility is affecting decision-making, how women negotiate religious and political pressures to participate in pro-natal territorial struggles, and how emergent geopolitical religious identities shape visions of the future.
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Moore, Anna. "A Critical Geography of the United States' Diplomatic Footprint." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/22294.
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The practice of diplomacy has changed dramatically in recent decades as a result of technological advancements and shifting geopolitical concerns. No longer confined to the cloaked and closed-door practices of elite state institutions, the diplomatic landscape has broadened, and been made visible, across space and scale. Amidst this rapidly changing environment, it is imperative to understand how states are adjusting their material diplomatic infrastructure and what that means for everyday diplomatic practices. While many countries have adjusted to twenty-first century diplomatic realities by adapting to a more mobile, maneuverable diplomatic corps and fewer facilities, the United States remains committed to a widespread diplomatic network, the largest in the world. This diplomatic footprint is the hallmark of universality, a sustained effort over time to acquire near total diplomatic coverage by dotting the world with embassies and consulates designed to look, work, and behave in a similar, if not, ageographic, manner. Attending to this understudied phenomenon means studying the historical and geographic conditions out of which this relatively even and uniform diplomatic apparatus materialized. It further means analyzing the contemporary pattern of U.S. diplomatic infrastructure against the shifting terrain of diplomatic norms and space.
Drawing empirically on interviews with elite diplomatic practitioners, substantial archival material, and the researcher’s own experience working within the U.S. diplomatic assemblage, this study has sought to examine why the United States remains committed to universality and what embassies and consulates actually do to secure U.S. foreign policy goals. Specifically, the study—presented in this dissertation as three discrete original research articles—is framed by the following research questions:
(1) What ideas and policies shaped the geographical footprint of U.S. diplomatic infrastructure over the course of the twentieth century?
(2) How does the globe-girdling U.S. diplomatic assemblage reflect and influence geopolitical ideas and practices?
(3) How does the grouping of diplomatic missions along regional lines reflect and influence U.S. foreign policy?
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Evans, James Philip Martin. "Biodiversity conservation and brownfield sites : a scalar political ecology?" Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2003. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/185/.
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This thesis develops a multi-scalar political ecology of biodiversity conservation on brownfield sites in Birmingham, U.K. While urban brownfield biodiversity is increasingly recognised as a valuable resource, political pressure to develop such spaces is also growing. Forty-five interviews were conducted with practitioners and policy makers, supported by genealogical and discursive analyses of a range of texts, to interrogate this tension. Common discourses structuring ecological, conservation and planning activities are traced across national and international levels, to contextualise the formulation and implementation of biodiversity action plans at the local level. Because urban landscapes are characterised by disequilibrium, planning policies and ecological models under-represent the worth of these spaces. The mediation of these discourses through local networks of actors engaged in the biodiversity action plan process is explored socially and geographically. A scalar political ecology of urban planning is developed through the consideration of wildlife corridors, and a case study of a specific brownfield site. The thesis offers an integrative analysis of socioecological transformation, and urban ecological governance. It is argued that while the BAP process has the potential to reconfigure urban geographies, it is currently sterile because such forms of sustainable governance contradict the dominant ‘scalar fix’ of capitalism.
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Menendez, Gonzalez Irene. "The politics of compensation under trade : openness, economic geography and spending." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7974d14a-b88d-46a3-99aa-553dc85a9192.
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This thesis examines the conditions under which democratically elected policymakers are more likely to provide policies that compensate individuals that lose from international trade. It develops and empirically tests a theoretical framework of compensation in open economies that accounts for differences in the degree to which governments benefit losers from trade. It first develops a theory of preference formation based on economic geography, and then argues that electoral and legislative institutions jointly condition the supply of compensation. The theoretical analysis provides three sets of observable implications evaluated using micro- and macro-level data in Europe and Latin America. First, exposure to international competition increases demand for policy that compensates for the costs of trade, but this effect is more pronounced among those individuals in economically specialised and uncompetitive contexts where reemployment in the event of a shock is difficult. Second, policymakers in proportional electoral systems face weak incentives to target trade losers in geographically concentrated and uncompetitive regions. In contrast, majoritarian institutions generate incentives to increase compensation when trade losers are geographically concentrated. Another implication is that under some conditions, the presence of a strong upper house that represents regional interests dampens the provision of compensation, and the relative effect of electoral rules. The empirical implications of the argument are tested using a multi-method research strategy that combines cross-national and case study analyses and draws on quantitative and qualitative techniques. Chapter 3 tests the micro-level implications of the model using survey data for European regions over 2002-2006. The findings indicate that regional economic specialization and regional competitiveness jointly condition the impact of trade on preferences for compensation. Chapter 4 systematically tests the extent to which the geographical concentration of trade losers conditions the effect of electoral institutions on levels of compensation. It uses panel data from 14 European countries from 1980 to 2010. The findings indicate that where trade losers are concentrated, lower district magnitude leads to more compensation. Chapters 5 and 6 conduct case studies of compensation in Spain and Argentina, both countries that underwent deep liberalisation and offer significant variation at the regional and institutional level. Chapter 5 explores preferences over compensation in selected regions in Spain and Argentina, and shows that regional specialisation and competitiveness were important in shaping levels of support for compensation. Chapter 6 examines the role of electoral institutions and legislative veto bargaining in shaping the politics of compensation in Spain and Argentina.
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Einstein, Katherine. "Divided Regions: Race, Political Segregation, and the Fragmentation of American Metropolitan Policy." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10123.
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Since the 1980s, the American federal government has devolved a wide array of crucial policy decisions - from transportation to welfare initiatives - to the state and local levels. With a decrease in federal aid and an increase in the number of tools available to lower tiers of government, scholars of American urban politics have suggested that cooperation among metropolitan jurisdictions could help address critical political and policy challenges, including inequities in municipal resources and unfettered suburban sprawl. This dissertation argues that metropolitan political segregation|that is, geographically-based political divisions - represents a serious obstacle to these partnerships and remains poorly understood. This project thus has two goals: to explain variations in metropolitan political segregation and explore their consequences for regional coalition-building. I first present a theory connecting America's unique racial geography to political segregation. I contend that racially segregated metropolitan areas with large minority population concentrations will experience more political segregation than their more homogenous peers. These political divisions will in turn hinder coalition-building surrounding critical metropolitan policies. Marshaling 1988 and 2000 precinct-level electoral data for every metropolitan area in the country, I find that racial demographics almost exclusively explain variations in political segregation, with more racially segregated, heavily black and Latino metropolitan areas exhibiting greater geographic political divisions. These rifts in turn have a potent impact on metropolitan policy outcomes. Taking advantage of an array of qualitative and quantitative data on mass transportation and affordable housing policy-making, I discover that greater political segregation constrains metropolitan coalition-building and spurs more fragmented policy outcomes. These findings have a disturbing implication: those regions with concentrated pockets of poverty - places most in need of metropolitan cooperation in the contemporary, heavily localized political climate - are the least able to forge partnerships around shared local policy goals.