Ideas, ideation, institutions, and geographical political economy

Abstract

The paper develops the case for a systematic engagement with ideas and ideation in the evolving project that is geographical political economy. Ideas and ideation have yet to receive sustained or programmatic attention in geographical political economy, despite a provocative line of work under the sign of science studies and performativity, sporadic explorations of the historical geography of economic thought, and some suggestive treatments of the spatiality of economic discourse. Characteristically (self-) defined as an open, pluralist, and reflexive project, geographical political economy is unlikely to be resistant to the claim that “ideas matter,” but would this amount to an eclectic addendum, or perhaps something more consequential? Developing the latter argument, the paper reviews debates around the “rediscovery of ideas” in heterodox political economy, attending in particular to the constructivist project of historical institutionalism, before moving on to a methodologically purposeful assessment of three exemplary monographs, each read for its distinctive take on processes and practices of ideation. If the subfield of economic geography has been (re)defined, in recent decades, through a succession of “turns,” the broadly inclusive and integrative project of geographical political economy has gestured instead in the direction of consolidation. It is in this spirit that the paper invites further reflection on the ontological and epistemological premises of geographical political economy, prompted by the contention that “ideas matter” in geographically distinctive ways.