The Dictionary of Human Geography

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Suggested reading

Debord (1981 [1955]).

public administration Studies of the spatial

organization and management of thestate

apparatus (Bennett, 1990). The public

administration sector comprises the different

government agencies that administer, oversee

and manage public programmes and that have

executive, legislative or judicial authority over

other institutions – such asquangos– within a

given spatial unit, such as anation-stateor a

region. Studies of the spatiality of public

administration have explored the relationships

between, on the one hand, the types ofser-

vicesbeing delivered, and, on the other, the

scaleof their delivery (Barlow, 1991). kwa

Suggested reading

Bennett (1990).

public choice theory Using the techniques

ofneo-classical economics, public choice

theory examines issues of political decision-

making and of the behaviour of government.

It derives from the pioneering work of Duncan

Black (1958) and James Buchanan and

Gordon Tullock (1962), and was conceived

to study politics on the basis of economic

principles. Its original proponents argue that

it should be understood as a research pro-

gramme rather than as a discipline, or even a

sub-discipline, of economics. It contends that

elected politicians and government bureau-

crats make decisions on the basis of self-

interest. So, the behaviour and decisions of

all individuals within the political sphere is

purely instrumental. Politicians enact policies

in terms of ensuring re-election, the voters

remain deliberately ignorant because individu-

ally they do not understand it to be in their

interest to learn more, and bureaucrats – those

who put decisions into practice – do whatever

is necessary to keep their jobs and get pro-

moted. All involved strive to maximize their

own welfare. At each decision, politicians,

voters and bureaucrats make a rational

choice. Public choice theory covers a series

of issues; namely, government constitutions,

state bureaucracies and voting behaviour.

While the staple diet of political scientists,

these concerns, and in particular their spatial

patterns and trends, have been analysed in

electoralandpolitical geography.

Within public choice theory, there are five

core theoretical tensions. First, there are diffi-

culties in aggregating individual choices and

decisions to produce a collective outcome.

How is it possible to produce policies on the

basis of the preferences of individuals?

Second, there is the range of issues that stem

from the introduction ofpublic goodsand

market failure. There is a tendency, stemming

from their monopolypower, for governments

to extend public ownership beyond that

deemed efficient by the market. Third, there

is the issue of political party competition.

According to public choice theory, the out-

come of two vote-maximizing parties is almost

identical parties. Only with three political par-

ties vying for the votes of the electorate is

policy variability introduced (cf.hotelling

model). Fourth, there is the difficulty of form-

ing and organizing interest groups due to the

free-rider problem (seegame theory). Fifth,

there are a number of conceptual difficulties in

assuming and treatingpublic financeas a

rational exchange amongst citizens. These

issues have been the subjects of much empirical

and theoretical work over the past four and a

half decades. As a branch ofneo-classical

economics, public choice theory is subject to

all the standard critiques of that school and, in

particular, the supposition ofrational choice.

Withingeography, a small number of key texts

have explored the issues of public goods and

market failure (Cox and Johnston, 1982) and

public finance and government decentraliza-

tion (Bennett, 1990). kwa

Suggested reading

Bennett (1990); Cox and Johnston (1982).

public finance Human geographers have

studied the spatial distribution of public-

sector income and expenditure. In addition

to producing and analysing spatial patterns,

work has examined the mismatch between

the geographies of public-sector revenue gen-

eration and expenditure (Bennett, 1990) – put

another way (Bennett, 1980, p. ix):who gets

what, where, and at what cost?The twin focus

on spatial patterns and their consequences

allows the exploration of differences between

individuals and between the local govern-

ments that collect and spend the revenues

(cf.collective consumption). As the needs,

costs and preferences forpublic goodsvary

geographically, so a failure to attend to the

spatial consequences of public finance matters

to issues ofsocial justice. Once the ‘who’ and

the ‘where’ are known, it is then possible to

attend to the third element to the question, ‘At

what cost?’ So, for example, how might the

state-led geographical redistribution of

resources alleviatespatial inequality? While

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