The idea of spatial competition comes from Hotelling (1929) and Smithies (1941), who used “space” to describe firms' need to be near markets. Spatial theory was adapted for analytical politics by two pioneers: Anthony Downs, in An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), and Duncan Black, in The Theory of Committees and Elections (1958). They uncovered two of the most important theoretical contributions of analytical political theory:

• Political power lies at the “middle” of the distribution of citizens effectively enfranchised by the society's political institutions.

• The stability of political systems is a variable, or subject of analysis. Stability depends on the distribution and nature of citizens' preferences, as well as the rules used to add up these preferences for social choices.

The contribution of the spatial theorists who have built on the work of Downs and Black has been to state these two principles of political power very precisely. Most importantly, analytical politics works to distinguish situations where the principles are true, false, or conditionally true based on other variables outside the model. The two principles themselves, however, have been recognized by political theorists for more than two thousand years.

The first spatial theorist: Aristotle

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) was a student of Plato, a tutor to Alexander the Great, and a great thinker. One of his accomplishments has gone unnoted, however, until now: Aristotle was the first spatial theorist.