Abstract：Since 1980s, ‘politics’ has been introducing into the academic field of geography in the West. A great number of geographical studies investigate with diverse approaches on the influences of political factors. Political geography is becoming one of the latest-established sub-fields in Chinese Human geography in recent years. But only a few geographers involve themselves in this field, and most of them just introduce the relative theories established in the West into China. This paper provides reviews of research trends in political geography at home and abroad, and identifies four restrictions on the development of Chinese political geography. Based on the comparison between the development of Western and Chinese political geography, this paper outlines the revitalization of Chinese political geography, and points out three important research subsets:urban politics, the politics of place, and new geopolitics. Urban politics focuses on the urban subject matters, mainly on the political process of implementation and the effects of the making of national politics. As for the research methods, the study mainly relies on political-economic analysis, policy analysis and stakeholder analysis in a carefully chosen case-study area while mainly using oral interviews, participant observation and other qualitative research methods. The study is often based on critical social theories and geography. With the same approaches, the politics of place explores the place-based identity, locality, local political milieu, sense of place, etc. And the new geopolitics establishes the world-system theory and critical geopolitics. In the context of this research, the study aims to develop an in-depth understanding of Chinese political geography, prompting the research of multi-scale political geography. In recent years, many subject matters, problems and incidents on regional development, urbanization, integrated administration, and new countryside planning, are in need of being understood deeply in political approach. Meanwhile, the administrative and political reforms are also in need of the researches on the political factors. The paper aims to put forward some suggestions to the study on the political geography in China.
刘云刚. 中国政治地理学研究展望[J]. 人文地理, 2009, 24(2): 12-16,28.
LIU Yun-gang. A RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE ON CHINESE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, 2009, 24(2): 12-16,28.
