Lawrence is developing a research agenda around geographic divides in political attitudes, between richer and poorer areas, central and 'peripheral' areas, and above all between urban and rural areas. Forthcoming papers explore why voters perceive local decline, unpack citizen beliefs about government's biases towards urban centres, and conduct experiments on the politics of 'levelling-up'.
I research the political geographies of governance and citizenship, with a focus on three main areas:
1) Innovative responses to globalisation (2004-present)
This research has been funded by grants from the Nuffield Foundation and the Local Government Alliance for International Development. On global citizenship, I’ve published three articles on mobile transnational citizens, including one in?Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers?(Clarke 2004). On ethical consumption, my co-authored book,?Globalising Responsibility (Barnett et al 2011, Wiley-Blackwell), approached ethical consumption as a platform for campaigning by social movement organisations. This book was the subject of a review forum in?Area?(see Barnett et al 2013). The approach was developed over numerous articles, including articles in?Political Geography?(Clarke et al 2006) and?Journal of Rural Studies?(Clarke et al 2008). On interurban partnerships, I’ve published five articles on town twinning, comparative urbanism, and urban policy mobilities, including articles in?Contemporary British History?(Clarke 2010),?Political Geography?(Clarke 2010), and?Progress in Human Geography?(Clarke 2011).