Last week, I presented a paper at the annual conference of the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (‘the IBG’, if you’re old and slow enough). This was my last formal act as an OUer. The paper was in one of two sessions on Geographies of the Political Party, organised by James Scott and Jane Wills. The two sessions were full of entertaining stuff, about patronage and corruption in New South Wales, Communist Party reinvention in the Czech Republic, versions of Max Weber, and much else besides.

Anyway, my paper was an attempt to think about some of the reasons why political parties don’t show up in ‘critical’ research on politics in geography, beyond a handful of stereotypes. In part, it was based on some reflections on how and why they have and haven’t shown up in some research projects I have been involved in, although that part is not very explicit. In the same spirit as my posting of my AAG paper earlier this year, I have added this paper to the Things to Read section, if anyone is interested to know what I spent at least some of the summer thinking about.