"Living together separately" - Thoughts on the relationship between political science and political geography

Ln their provocatively titled book, Living Together Separately, Michael Rom ann and Alex Weingrod argue that the shared terrain of Jerusalem obscures d eep divisions in the physical and social lives of its Arab and Jewish ethni c communities (Romann & Weingrod, 1991). Multiple divisions exist not only among peoples sharing a common space; they are also found among communities of scholars sharing common intellectual interests. This has certainly been the case of Political Science and Political Geography during much of the t wentieth century. Members of both disciplinary communities seek insights in to the role of politics and political structures in human society, yet unti l recently they have pursued their work within orbits that only rarely inte rsected. They attended different conferences and symposia, they employed di fferent methodological tools, and they did not draw heavily on each others published work. Recent theoretical and empirical developments have begun to erode the barriers separating Political Science and Political Geography, a nd a discussion of the relationship between the disciplines is thus both ti mely and welcome. Professor Elazar is an appropriate person to place at the center of this discussion, for his work as a political scientist is unusua l sensitivity to geography. Professor Elazar's comments about research orie ntations and career constraints provide an interesting point of departure f or such a discussion, but to understand the nature and depth of the divide between the disciplines it is important to consider the core intellectual c onstructs and practices that have characterized Political Science and Polit ical Geography during the twentieth century. These have fostered theoretica l orientations and research approaches that are sufficiently different from one another to create significant barriers to interdisciplinary contact. ( C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.