Power and Space

John Allen is Professor Emeritus at The Open University. His publications include Lost Geographies of Power (2003) and Topologies of Power: Beyond Territory and Networks (2016).

Currently, John Allen is the most important theorist of power and space. The present collection gives a superb overview of his seminal contribution. A real strength of his work is his ability to combine classical social theory and the continental tradition of Foucault and Deleuze, moving seamlessly between them to explore power’s choreography of space.-Mark Haugaard, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, University of Galway. Founding editor of Journal of Political PowerJohn Allen is one of our most insightful writers on power and space. His persuasive account of power’s diverse modes and their topological spatialities has transformed thinking in geography and beyond. This collection provides a compelling picture both of the development of those ideas and of the shifting contours of power in its many guises (and disguises).-Joe Painter, Professor of Geography, Durham University.

• 1 Introduction: making space for powerPart 1 Spatial power plays2 Ambient power: Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz and the seductive logic of public spaces 3 Pragmatism and power, or the power to make a difference in a radically contingent world 4 Powerful city networks: more than connections, less than domination and controlPart 2 Assemblages of power5 Beyond the territorial fix: regional assemblages, politics and power(with Allan Cochrane)6 Assemblages of state power: topological shifts in the organization of government and politics(with Allan Cochrane)7 Powerful assemblages: held together in tension Part 3 Power-Topologies8 Topological twists: power’s shifting geographies9 The circulation of financial elites: invented spaces, power and dissimulation 10 Power’s quiet reach: manipulating publics, policing borders and undermining the NHSAfterword: shifting spatialities, shifting conversations