The Politics of Scale in Policy

"This original contribution demonstrates an empirically grounded approach to what some critical social scientists have been calling for: a move beyond one-dimensionalism to consider the multiple ways sociospatial relations are constituted and organised..." Local Government Studies

“The message of the book is an important one [and serves as a] reminder of the many ways that scale plays a role in politics and public administration. The contribution of Papanastasiou’s book is that scale cannot be considered a given but should instead be regarded as a focal point of political forces and ambitions.” Critical Policy Studies

“An original and constructive contribution to policy studies… It benefits from interesting data and particularly clear accounts of conceptual development that could be taken up in work across many fields of policy studies.” Social Policy Administration

"Conceptually rich and empirically tempered, this book combines insights spanning different academic disciplines to offer up a new and exciting vantage point through which to theorise the messy relationship between space, place and policy making. The proposed vantage point – ‘scalecraft’ – is an essential toolkit to thinking through the dilemmas and problematics shaping policy translation and implementation both nationally and globally.” Andrew Wilkins, University of East London

"Weaving together novel insights from critical geography, political discourse theory and interpretive policy analysis, Natalie Papanastasiou advances an innovative conceptualisation and reading of scalecraft, one that challenges policy analysts to take space seriously." Steven Griggs, De Montfort University

Dr. Natalie Papanastasiou is a postdoctoral researcher of public policy and governance with a particular interest in exploring practices of policymaking and the politics of education governance. She is currently based in the Globalisation, Education, and Social Policies (GEPS) research group at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona’s Department of Sociology.

Foreword by John Clarke (Open University);

Policy, scale and the importance of space;

Problematising scale in the study of policy;

Exposing scale hegemonies;

Knowledge, policy and scale;

Hegemonies of statecraft and scale;

Spatial entrepreneurs and scalecraft;

The practice of scalecraft.