PLEASE NOTE this is a 2013 reading list—the precise content may change in future years.
Term 1, Weeks 1 & 2
Topic: Space and Time
Questions for discussion:
I am not expecting you to answer any direct questions on space, time, or space-time in the exam or
in essays. When I started thinking about these related subjects I wanted to make a very simple point
- one meant to colour your later reading within the specific realm of World Politics. That point is to
emphasise from the outset of the module that the world around us is socially constructed. I want to
illustrate that it is not possible to understand world politics in the absence of an appreciation that
the world we live in is a world of relationships (and therefore of power). In my view (and I should say
at the outset that there are many who would disagree) there are no immutable 'facts'. Everything
we know and understand is a consequence of social interaction.
There is almost nothing written (directly) on the subject of Time within the field of Political Science.
In fact, most of the literature in this area seems to have been written by the Geographers, the
Philosophers, and the Sociologists. A similar story emerges in relaton to Space - although more work
has been done on this (for example, the literature on 'natural' resources and geopolitics). Indeed,
sovereignty and power, perhaps the two key concepts in International Relations, are entirely reliant
for their force on assumptions regarding space-time.
So, what I am gently prodding you with is the notion that not only is the world socially constructed,
and thus space and time contested (and, hence, 'political') but that in order to fully appreciate the
complexity of World Politics you would be well advised to look beyond the literature on Politics & IR.
Read the Geography journals; immerse yourself in Philosophy; wallow in Sociology and History.
Above all challenge yourself to think critically about the literature on World Politics / International
Relations: don't take it at face value.
Core Reading
Space
Have a look at Oxfam's campaign against land-grabbing. There are some interesting links - including
a recent briefing paper entitled 'Land and Power'.
Have a look at Stuart Elden's blog, Progressive Geographies. Stuart is a leading scholar of Space /
Territory, and this link will bring up some recorded lectures which cover, in more depth, some of the
material introduced in my lecture. Luckily for us, Stuart has recently re-joined the department so you
should keep an eye on his staff webpage.
Thanks to Ciaran O'Connor for telling me about this visual representation of the link between space
and time: A History of the World in 100 Seconds
Something from the BBC on the social costs of digital mapping technology.
Recommended Readings:

Agnew, John, ‘The Territorial Trap’, Review of International Political Economy, 1(1), 1994

Branch, Jordan, 'Mapping the Sovereign State: Technology, Authority, and Systemic
Change', International Organization, 65(1), 2011, 1-36.

Charnock, G., 'The Space of International Political Economy : On Scale and its Limits', Politics,
30(2), 2010, 79-90.

Vaughan-Williams, Nick, 'The Generalised Bio-political Border? Re-conceptualising the Limits
of Sovereign Power',Review of International Studies, 35(4), 2009, 729-49.
Additional Readings:

Special Issue of Geopolitics. 15(4), 2010. Five or 6 articles celebrating / responding / updating
Agnew’s original piece on the ‘territorial trap’. Also includes a response from Agnew.

Berezin, , Mabel, and Martin Schain (eds), Europe Without Borders: Remapping Territory,
Citizenship, and Identity in a Transnational Age, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Brenner, Neil, 'Beyond State-Centrism? Space, Territoriality, and Geographical Scale in
Globalization Studies',Theory and Society, 28, 1999, 39-78.

Brenner, Neil et al (eds), State/Space: A Reader, Blackwell, 2002.

Davies, Matt, and Michael Niemann, 'The Everyday Spaces of Global Politics: Work, Leisure
and Family', New Political Science, 24(4), 2002, 557-77.

Elden, Stuart, 'Territorial Integrity and the War on Terror', Environment and Planning A,
37(12), 2005, 2083-104.

Elden, Stuart, Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty, University of
Minnesota Press, 2009.

Friedland, Roger, and Deirdre Boden (eds), NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity, University
of California Press, 1994.

Giddens, Anthony, The Nation State and Violence, Polity, 1985.

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918, Harvard University Press, 1983.

Macartney, Huw, and Stuart Shields, 'Space, the Latest Frontier? A Scalar-Relational
Approach to Critical IPE', in Stuart Shields, Ian Bruff and Huw Macartney (eds), Critical
International Political Economy: Dialogue, Debate and Dissensus (Palgrave, 2011), 27-42.

Massey, Doreen, 'A Global Sense of Place', Marxism Today, June 1991.

Massey, Doreen, For Space, Sage, 2005.

Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation, M.E. Sharpe, 1998.

O Tuathail, Gearoid et al (eds), The Geopolitics Reader, Routledge, 1998.

Paul, T.V. et al (eds), The Nation-State in Question, Princeton, 2003.

Peck, J. and A. Tickell, 'Neoliberlizing Space', Antipode, 34(3), 2002, 380-404.

Ruggie, John, 'Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International
Relations', International Organization, 47(1), 1993, 139-74.

Smith, Neil, 'Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Vehicles and the Production of
Geographical Scale', Social Text, 33, 1992, pp. 54-81.

Taylor, Peter J., 'The State as Container: Territorialty in the Modern World System', Progress
in Human Geography, 18(2), 1994, 151-62.

Taylor, Peter J., 'Beyond Containers: Internationality, Interstateness,
Interterritoriality', Progress in Human Geography, 19(1), 1995, 1-15.

Vasquez, John A., and Marie T. Henehan, Territory, War and Peace, Routledge, 2010.

Walker, R.B.J., After the Globe, Before the World, Routledge, 2009.

Wallerstein, Immanuel, Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century
Paradigms, Polity, 1991.

Wilson, Japhy, 'Colonising Space: The New Economic Geography in Theory and
Practice', New Political Economy, 16(3), 2011, 373-97.
Time
[Note: I haven't separated these out into 'recommended' and 'additional' readings, simply because
there are no easy starting points. Have a look at this material in your own time and space....]
This is a nice animation to get started with: The Secret Powers of Time.
Another nice animation; and one that will become increasingly relevant as time
passes.... Procrastination

Bell, Duncan (ed.) Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship
between Past and Present, Palgrave, 2010.

Blaney, David L., and Naeem Inayatullah, ‘Undressing the Wound of Wealth: Political
Economy as a Cultural Project’, in Jacqueline Best and Matthew Paterson (eds), Cultural
Political Economy, Routledge, 2010, pp. 29-47.

Conrad, Sebastian, 'What Time Is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural)
Historiography', History and Theory, 38(1), 1999, pp. 67-83.

Edkins, Jenny, Trauma and the Memory of Politics, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Friedland, Roger, and Deirdre Boden (eds), NowHere: Space, Time and Modernity, University
of California Press, 1994.

Hall, Edward T., The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time, Anchor Books, 1983.

Hay, Colin, Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction, Chapter 4.

Hom, Andrew R., 'Hegemonic Metronome: The Ascendancy of Western Standard
Time', Review of International Studies, 36(4), 2010, 1145-70.

Hutchings, Kimberly, Time and World Politics: Thinking the Present, Manchester University
Press, 2008.

Kern, Stephen, The Culture of Time and Space 1880-1918, Harvard University Press, 1983.

Nowotny, Helga, Time: The Modern and Postmodern Experience, Polity, 1994.

Pierson, Paul, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis, Princeton, 2004.

Pollitt, Christopher, Time, Policy, Management: Governing with the Past, Oxford University
Press, 2008

Postone, Moishe, Time, Labor, and Social Domination, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Vaughan-Williams, Nick, The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: New Border
Politics?, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 32, 2007, 177-195.

Wallerstein, Immanuel, Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century
Paradigms, (Polity, 1991).