Economic Geography

Policy analysis: what is it, who does it, 
and how is it done?
Economic geographers do not engage in the policy process because they lack the
skills to do so (see Staeheli and Mitchell 2005 for a discussion of geographers
and policy participation). Policy research is about evidence and is based upon a
specific methodology. If we are not prepared to challenge the beast on its own
terms, with statistical models and conventional representations of the world,
then our contributions will be limited to description. This is good as far as it
goes, and in the initial stages of a policy trajectory it is a fundamental place to
start. But, to really make a lasting difference, one that improves the lives of
people and the health of communities, we must go beyond description and
subject our initial hunches to rigorous evaluation, even at the risk of discovering
that they are ultimately relevant only in very specific contexts. Rigorous analysis
is the only way we can escape from being handmaidens to a policy process that
is fraught with unequal power and poorly understood problems (see people like
Jennifer Wolch whose research reflects a contemporary example of effective
policy research). People like Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone used data and
statistics to make their interventions. What set them apart now is their ability to
listen to and critique policy dialogue on its own terms. Similarly, what set the
activist-oriented geographers of the 1980s apart was their training in conventional
theoretical approaches and subsequent decision to challenge them.
Economics is not the only issue
Economists are the dominant advisers in policy discussions today, in part because
of their positive view of the world and in part because policy problems are
On the intersection of policy and economic geography
213

---

increasingly narrowly scripted and framed in a manner that excludes questions
that are not affirmative. Stated another way, policy discourse is about how to bring
into alignment the world as it has been defined by a narrow band of interests.
The ascent of economists as hegemonic policy wonks still does not entirely
explain the absence of geographers in contemporary policy debates. At least since
the beginning of the twentieth century, with minor and temporally specific excep-
tions, geographers have been silent on important social issues. There is a singular
absence of discussions in the geographic literature about such issues as the Great
Depression, the First and Second World Wars, Vietnam, the War on Poverty, and
even the 1960s urban crisis.
Two years ago I explored geographical perspectives on a critical social issue –
poverty in America. I took the top eight journals in geography published elec-
tronically in JSTOR,
4
the online full text article service, and asked a simple ques-
tion: how many times was the term ‘poverty’ mentioned in the tens of thousands
of words in articles published over the 80 or so years for which key journals
existed? After conducting a complete search of the eight journals referenced in
JSTOR I then expanded my search to the top 20 geography journals. What I
found was nothing less than shocking: Over 80 years of journal entries and thou-
sands of pages of articles, there were 700 uses of the term ‘poverty’. In the top-
ranked journals over the same period only 200 references were found. Half of
the time the term, ‘the poverty of knowledge’, was used as a literary device. I
found far fewer references to the spatial location of and explanations for endur-
ing poverty. Over the same time period literally thousands of references to the
term poverty could be found in the sociology, political science and economics
texts. In the 1960–1970s, arguably the most active and well-funded period of
social policy research focusing on issues of poverty and deprivation in the last 
40 years, entries about poverty in sociology and economics journals number in
the thousands. Evidently, it is not just that economists and sociologists have
carved out a role for themselves in this area, but that geographers have chosen
not to study problems like poverty in society.
Tracking poverty discourse carefully from the 1950s forward, I could find a
few notable geographers actively engaged in policy research and referenced in the
field-defining journals. Names do come to mind: Dick Morrill of the University
of Washington; Stan Brunn of Kentucky; Bill Bunge and his various institutional
associations; Brian Berry, then of Chicago; and Richard Peet of Clark University.
Of a more recent vintage, Jan Kodras, J. P. Jones, and a few others also come to
mind. A clinical assessment of geographers’ participation in policy discussions of
poverty pull up names that include Niles Hansen (an economist), Andrew
Isserman (a regional economist), and a few others.