Page - (000094) - in Knowledge and Networks

86 and validate the hypothesis by using quantitative and reproducible methods. Because a political process by nature involves relations among actors, network analysis appears to be a relevant tool to investigate this regionalization. I begin with a short overview of network analysis in geographical studies because the similarity in vocabulary between the sciences can hide a large gap in methods, procedures of validation, and questions of research. Opportunities for political geography will be highlighted. Because techniques of network analysis are rarely used in geopolitical studies nowadays, the strengths and relevance of political geog- raphy will be underscored. The next section presents the main hypothesis, the field of observation (the United Nations General Assembly from 1985 until 2010), and the methodological choices made to study world political regionalization. The final section presents the main results obtained and underlines the relevance of network analysis for investigating questions of political regionalization. If tools of network analysis prove valuable in highlighting processes of innovation, they can also pro- duce innovative results when brought to bear on many research questions. Geographical logics of coalition and policy-making, which in this chapter are inves- tigated on a world scale but can be studied from a multiscalar perspective, can greatly benefit from such input (Hafner-Burton, Kahler, & Montgomery, 2009). Network Studies in (Political) Geography: A Quick Refresher Because I am a geographer, my academic training involved a specific relationship with the network approach, and I feel it necessary to describe geographical network analysis briefly before highlighting the opportunities that network analysis offers in geopolitical investigations. There is no pretense that this description is exhaustive, and it is based largely on a French perspective. Network literature has grown so voluminous and diverse since the mid-1990s that it has become nearly impossible for one individual to follow all the developments—although an overview of rela- tions between complex network studies and geography was recently proposed (Ducruet & Beauguitte, 2013). This chapter therefore offers not a definitive state- of- the-art treatment of geographical networks but rather some observations on the dis- ciplinary biases inherent in network approaches as well an appeal for dialogue between disciplines. Since the inception of political geography, its practitioners, like those of international relations, have intensely investigated the question of power. Although many definitions of this central concept have been proposed, the canonical one by Dahl (1957) remains one of the most elegant: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do” (pp. 202–203). This definition underlines the strong relational nature of power. It cannot be considered an attribute of an individual actor; it implies relations between actors and at least dyadic examinations. L. Beauguitte