The grass isn't any greener over there

• Published in: Political geography Vol. 65; pp. 156 - 158
• Main Author: Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01-07-2018; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Death & dying; Editing; Editors; O Loughlin, John; Political geography; Political science; Politics; Transparency
• ISSN: 0962-6298; 1873-5096
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2018.05.008

Jackson comments about John O'Loughlin's contrasting of political geography and political science may be somewhat misleading. He would argue that other fields and other disciplines often look pretty coherent when viewed from the outside, simply because outsiders aren't "tuned in" to subtle nuances signaling profound differences, and because insiders pretty much by definition are all drawing on a similar stock of material and a similar enough intellectual tradition to be recognizable to one another. He admits that he find some of O'Loughlin's contrasts odd, perhaps in a way that only someone from "there" would. O'Loughlin suggests that political science has done a better job making a public contribution, and has done so at least in part because of a greater commitment to transparency and because of a greater consensus about its core concerns. John O'Loughlin suggests that political geography may be "dying for a 'G'," that there is no common geographical concern that unifies the various threads and strands of political geography, no common interest in "the role of place as a site of politics."