ABSTRACT
My chapter considers the role of academic geographers as policy advisers, and explores what may lie behind the absence of economic geographers in American national policy contexts. I look at a moment in history when scholars, loosely described as economic geographers, did weigh in on national economic policy issues. I discuss research practice in a policy context and then note that in the United States, economists dominate the practice of policy science because of their specific world view and epistemology. I then examine what happens when we do weigh in on policy issues and what happens to our ideas, including their use in unintended ways. I conclude with some topics that should receive geographical investigation – topics about which geographers are unusually quiet despite the incredible spatiality of such problems.
