The Dictionary of Human Geography

ontological and metaphysical characteristics,
existentialism became part of theideology
it attacked: its radicalism was illusory (cf.
critical theory). jpi

exit, voice and loyalty A theory of consumer
influence on the quality of public goods
developed by Hirschman (1970), who argued
that service quality is likely to be lower in
monopoly conditions than in situations where
consumers have a choice. With the latter, the
following options are available to consumers
who consider a service either inefficient or
ineffective:

. exit– consumers transfer to an alternative
supplier;
. voice– consumers complain about the ser-
vice, threatening exit if they are not satisfied
with the response; or
. loyalty– consumers remain with their cur-
rent supplier, without either exercising
voice or threatening exit.

The higher the (exit) costs of switching sup-
pliers, the lower the potential impact of voice,
because suppliers can assume loyalty; under
monopolies, voice need have little impact
on service quality. Although individual voice
may be ineffective, however, collective voice
through organized pressure groups may have
morepowerover suppliers; such power may
be unequally distributed, however, with wealth-
ier people better able to mobilize support and
sustain their cause.
Hirschman’s ideas have been developed by
governments in recent decades by one or more
of:privatizationpolicies, placing formerpub-
lic servicesin the private sector, believing
that competition will lead to improved quality;
creating quasi-marketswithin public services
(among health care providers, for example),
with the same general expectation; or by pro-
moting choice, through providing information
(as in school performance league tables),
which consumers can use in considering exit
strategies. (See alsoneo-liberalism;public–
private partnerships;tiebout model.) rj

exopolis A new city located beyond exist-
ing urban forms (seeedge city). Soja (1996a)
defines it as representing a new form ofurban-
ism. The exopolis turns ‘the city inside-out
and outside-in at the same time’, he suggests
(p. 239). In this conception, functions for-
merly associated withcentral business dis-
trictsand commutersuburbsare not merely
transposed, but their character and relation-
ships are reconfigured. ‘Exopolis’ and ‘edge

city’ are terms that indicate attempts to under-

stand cities beyond the traditional framework

of the chicago school (cf. los angeles

school) and to analyse urban processes at

the city-regional scale (Brenner, 2002). em

Suggested reading

Soja (1996).

explanation A statement that identifies the

essential reasons for the occurrence of a given

event or phenomena. Reasons can be physical

causes, mental states, contextual circumstan-

ces or even beneficial consequences. For each

of these different kinds of reasons to count as

an explanation, they must be linked to the

event or phenomena by set of general rules

(and at the extreme by universal laws). For

example, to explain why my copy of the

Dictionary of human geographyjust fell off the

desk, I must connect that specific event to a

wider set of laws governing motion and grav-

ity. Once the reasons behind the occurrence of

a phenomenon or event are determined, the

world is revealed as it really is. As Pierre

Duhem (1962 [1906], p. 19) put it: ‘To

explain is to strip the reality of the appearances

covering it like a veil, in order to see the bare

reality itself.’

Geographers have been trying to discern

‘bare reality’ ever since the nineteenth century,

when the discipline was first institutionalized.

environmental determinismwas initially a

favoured explanatory form in which variations

inclimatewere posited as the reason for geo-

graphical variation in human behaviour, beliefs

and institutions. Discussions of explanationas

an idea, however, did not emerge until the

quantitative revolutionin the 1960s. In

contrast to those who insisted thatgeography,

like history, had to be conducted under the sign

ofexceptionalism, the proponents ofspatial

scienceinsisted that their ‘new’ geography was

a science like any other, and thus had to meet

the strictures of scientific explanation estab-

lished byphilosophy. Those strictures were

originally formalized by Hempel and

Oppenheim in 1948, and known as the

Deductive–Nomological (D–N) model. Scientific

explanation rested on applying a deductive syl-

logism to a combination of generallawsand

initial empirical conditions. For example,

explaining why theDictionaryjust fell off my

desk would involve linking by means of a

deductive syllogism the particularities of that

event to a scientific law (e.g. the law of gravity).

Within the philosophy of science, the

D–N model provoked, and continues to

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EXPLANATION