Kevin R. Cox: Research interests
The Politics of Local Economic Development
Local economic development is a huge preoccupation of local politics in the US. There is intense competition for new investment and the process is one ridden with conflicts: with local people who will be affected as well as with localities elsewhere that stand to lose out. A major feature of this politics has been the role of local growth coalitions, typically embracing some businesses and local government. Over the last fifteen to twenty years I have written extensively on this topic. More recently I have become interested in studies of a more comparative nature. Some of my papers include:
• (with A. Mair) "Locality and Community in The Politics of Local Economic Development," Annals, Association of American Geographers (1988) 78(2):307-325.
• (with Alan Townsend) "The English Politics of Local Economic Development and the American Model" Regional Studies (2005). 39:4, 541-553.
• "Globalization and the Politics of Local and Regional Development" Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 29:2 (2004), 179-194
• "The Scalar Politics of Local and Regional Development in the U.S.: How and Why it is Peculiar:" In D Valler and A Wood (eds.) Governing Local and Regional Economies: Institutions, Politics and Economic Development. London, Ashgate, 2004.
The Local and the Global
During the ’nineties, this interest became intertwined with the growing academic interest in globalization. A focus on the politics of local economic development led to a research focus on the relations between the local and the global. One of the products of this was a collection of papers entitled Spaces of Globalization that I edited. The interest in the local-global also led to research into the politics of scale. Some of my papers in this area include:
• "Spaces of Dependence, Spaces of Engagement and the Politics of Scale, or: Looking for Local Politics" Political Geography (1998) 17:1, 1-24.
• "Global / Local". In P Cloke and R J. Johnston (eds.) Spaces of Geographical Thought (Sage 2005).
• "Globalization, the Class Relation and Democracy." GeoJournal 60 (2004), 31-41.
The Politics of Urbanization
My interest in the politics of urbanization, later to morph into my concern with the politics of local economic development, goes back at least thirty years with the publication of my book Conflict, Power and Politics in the City (McGraw-Hill 1973). It has since taken in research on neighborhood activism, the territorial organization of metropolitan areas, and a critical concern for the defensibility of the category of the urban,
• "The Politics of Turf and the Question of Class," Chapter 4 in M. Dear and J. Wolch (Eds.), Territory and Reproduction. Boston, 1988: Allen and Unwin.
• (with Andrew Jonas) "Urban Development, Collective Consumption and the Politics of Metropolitan Fragmentation", Political Geography (1993) 12 (1):8-37.
• "Territoriality, Politics and the Urban." Political Geography 20:6 (2001), 745-762.
South Africa
More recently my research interests have extended to South Africa. What has been of especial interest is the fact of migrant labor. Circulatory movements between home areas and places of employment, often many miles distant, leave a huge imprint on the country’s geography, including its patterns of urbanization. In fact, during apartheid one of the arguments about migrant labor in South Africa was that it had to be seen against the background of that regime’s highly restrictive urbanization policy. But the fact that migrant labor still continues on a massive scale suggests that there are other forces at work, if not then, then certainly now. Some of my research in this area is summarized in a paper with David Hemson and Alison Todes:
• "Urbanization in South Africa and the Changing Character of Migrant Labour" South African Geographical Journal 86:1(2004), 7-16.
What happens in South Africa’s cities, however, is deeply intertwined with events in the rural areas. This has led me, along with Alistair Fraser, a graduate student, to look at the politics of land reform in those areas.