Introduction

This book is an edited collection of papers gathered from an international conference held at the University of Bergamo, Italy, ¹ which brought together regional economists, economic geographers, and international political scientists. The aim of the book is to assess the importance of space, by drawing together different related, although rarely integrated, strands of research. The main aim is to analyze the shaping and reshaping of the global map and to identify the major impacts on people and places which occupy different positions in the global economic system. Different approaches are grouped together here in order to understand the pressures and constraints put on space by the current phase of capitalist development. All the different streams of literature presented here have complementary arguments in both their theoretical and empirical composition, mainly in terms of the role of space in the global economy. Some consider space only in geometrical terms, others in relational terms, others in terms of power. These arguments feature throughout the book, which is structured in two parts. Part I is more theoretical and focuses on the different conceptualizations of space: space in political terms (Chapter 1), space in terms of power (Chapter 2), space as a system (Chapter 3), and space as an intellectual concept (Chapter 4). Part II is empirical and deals with the current role of space in this new phase of capitalist development.