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perception; and, not least, it did not provide a
theoretically derived set of concepts to explore
particular environmental outcomes or trans-
formations. These weaknesses, coupled with
the almost indeterminate and open-ended
nature of political ecology, not unexpectedly
produced both a deepening and a proliferation
of political ecologies in the 1990s (see Hecht
and Cockburn, 1989; Peet and Watts, 2003
[1996]; Bryant and Bailey, 1997). A number
of studies address the question of politics,
focusing especially on patterns ofresistance
and struggles over access to and control over
the environment, and how politics as policy is
discursively constructed (Moore, 1996; Leach
and Mearns, 1996; Pulido, 1996; Neumann,
1998; seeenvironmental justice). Others
have taken the political economy approach in
somewhat differing directions: one takes the
poverty–degradation connection and explores
outcomes with the tools ofinstitutional eco-
nomics(Das Gupta, 1993) and entitlements,
whereas another returns to Marx to derive
concepts from the second contradiction of
capitalism (O’Connor, 1998). Much work
has addressed the original silence of political
ecology on questions ofgender(Agrawal,
1998). And still others, often drawing upon
discourse theory and social studies of science,
examine environmental problems and policies- often outside thethird world– in terms of
ecologicalmodernization,riskandgovern-
mentality(see Leach and Mearns, 1996;
Braun and Castree, 1998; Keil, Bell, Penz
and Fawcett, 1998; Forsyth, 2003; Li, 2007).
Political ecology has in a sense almost dis-
solved itself over the past two decades as
scholars have sought to extend its reach. At
the same time, it has met up with the prolifera-
tions offorms of environmental studies, science
studies,post-structuralismand newsocial
movements. Some of the most interesting work
now speaksto the politicalecologyofcities(see
urban nature),commoditiesand of forms of
green rule and subject formation (Agrawal,
2005; Heynen, Kaika and Swyngedouw, 2006;
Swyngedouw, 2004b) and violence (Peluso and
Watts, 2001). Much of this work continues to
struggle with the dialectical relations between
nature and society that the early political ecol-
ogyidentified (see Harvey, 1996), however, and
which continues to provide the central conun-
drum for what is now a hugely expanded and
polyglot landscape of political ecology. mw
Suggested reading
Adam (1998); Demeritt (1998); Faber (1998);
Fairchild and Leach (1998); Forysth (2003);Guha and Martinez-Alier (1997); Hajer (1995);
Kuletz (1998); Moore (1996).political economy The study of the relation-
ship between economic and political processes.
Aristotle’sPoliticsdistinguished betweenoikos,
the operation of thehousehold(onpatri-
archalprinciples) to meet daily needs, and
thepolis, the domain of public association and
political life. In the early seventeenth century,
political economy began to be used in France
to discuss how economic activity might con-
tribute to the powers of the sovereign and the
prosperity of his subjects. This made economy
a public rather than private activity, and
located the problematic of political economy
at the scale of thestate(and implicitly as a
european concern). Mercantilists explored
how the sovereign/nation could prosper from
running a trading surplus at the expense of
othernation-states. Thephysiocrats, motiv-
ated by economic crises in France, argued that
the source of wealth lies in agriculture: the
‘natural’ fertility of the nation. Physiocrats
began to argue that the sovereign should not
govern the economy too much.
By the mid-nineteenth century, British pol-
itical economy began to emerge, crystallized
around the earlier ideas of Adam Smith
(1723–90), flourishing into a school of thought
of global influence throughout the nineteenth
century. Experiencing Britain’s shift from a
society founded on landowning and rural agri-
cultural economic activities to an urban and
industrial capitalist society (see industrial
revolution), as well as the wealth brought to
Britain as a result of unequal trading networks
with its colonies (seecolonialism) and less
industrialized European neighbours, it came
to be argued that national wealth was embed-
ded in labour rather than land (alabour the-
ory of value), and that crucial driving forces
were thedivision of labour, the extension of
the market, and free domestic and inter-
national trade. Smith, Thomas Malthus,
David Ricardo, James and J.S. Mill conceived
the relationship between economic activities
and the national polity in terms that aligned
political economy with Lockeanliberalism.
Freedom was founded in men (sic) owning
privateproperty, and political intervention
into their activities was an invasion of liberty
and privacy. With this geographical shift from
monarchical France to democratic Britain, the
political came to be equated with the national
state rather than the sovereign.
By the end of the nineteenth century, polit-
ical economy had split into two very different,Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 547 1.4.2009 3:20pmPOLITICAL ECONOMY