Book review : Population and politics : the impact of scale

Abstract

The role of size has become an increasingly prominent topic in political science. This is to a considerable degree thanks to the pioneering work of John Gerring and Wouter Veenendaal. Their recent collaboration Population and Politics summarizes, synthesizes, and advances several ongoing debates. The authors’ goal is to investigate the role of size, which they refer to as scale, on several political outcomes. The first part of the book presents their analytical framework. In a second part, which is the heart and main body of the book, they summarize existing studies and present new empirical evidence on the effect of size on more than ten central political outcomes. The third part presents a synthesis and conclusion.