AP Human - Chapter 8 / Unit 4 Vocab

__**Political Geography**__

A subdivision of human geography focused on the nature and \n implications of the evolving spatial organization of political governance and formal \n political practice on the Earth’s surface / the study of spatial dimensions of government

__**State**__

A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government \n and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community. A state has a \n defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and is recognized by other \n states

__**Territory**__

Area of land controlled by a nation

__**Territoriality**__

In political geography, a country’s or more local community’s sense of \n property and attachment toward its territory, as expressed by its determination to \n keep it inviolable and strongly defended

__**Sovereignty**__

A principle of international relations that holds that final authority over \n social, economic, and political matters should rest with the legitimate rulers of \n independent states

__**Territorial Integrity**__

The right of a state to defend sovereign territory against incursion \n from other states

__**Peace of Westphalia**__

Peace negotiated in 1648 to end the Thirty Years’ War, Europe’s \n most destructive internal struggle over religion. The treaties contained new language \n recognizing statehood and nationhood, clearly defined borders, and guarantees of \n security

__**Nation**__

Legally, a term encompassing all the citizens of a state. Most definitions now \n tend to refer to a tightly knit group of people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, \n religion, and other shared cultural attributes

__**Nation-State**__

Theoretically, a recognized member of the modern state system \n possessing formal sovereignty and occupied by a people who see themselves as a single, \n united nation

__**Democracy**__

Government based on the principle that the people are the ultimate \n sovereign and have the final say over what happens within the state

__**Multinational State**__

State with more than one nation within its borders

__**Multistate Nation**__

Nation that stretches across borders and across states

__**Stateless Nation**__

Nation that does not have a state

__**Colonialism**__

Rule by an autonomous power over a subordinate and alien people and place

__**Scale**__

Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or \n generalization

__**World-System Theory**__

Theory originated by Immanuel Wallerstein and illuminated by \n his three-tier structure, proposing that social change in the developing world is \n inextricably linked to the economic activities of the developed world

__**Capitalism**__

Economic model wherein people, corporations, and states produce goods \n and exchange them on the world market, with the goal of achieving profit

__**Commodification**__

The process through which something is given monetary value / when \n a good or idea that previously was not regarded as an object to be bought or sold is \n turned into something that has a particular price and that can be traded in a market \n economy

__**Core**__

Processes that incorporate higher levels of education, higher salaries, and more \n technology; generate more wealth than periphery processes in the world economy

__**Periphery**__

Processes that incorporate lower levels of education, lower salaries, and \n less technology; and generate less wealth than core processes in the world economy

__**Semi-Periphery**__

Places where core and periphery processes are both occuring; places \n that are exploited by the core but in turn exploit the periphery

__**Centripetal**__

Forces that tend to unify a country–such as widespread commitment to a \n national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith

__**Centrifugal**__

Forces that tend to divide a country–such as internal religious, linguistic, \n ethnic, or ideological differences

__**Unitary**__

A nation-state that has a centralized government and administration that \n exercises power equally over all parts of the state

__**Federal**__

A political-territorial system wherein a central government represents the \n various entities within a nation-state where they have common interests–defense, \n foreign affairs, and the like–yet allows these various entities to retain their own \n identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres

__**Devolution**__

The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political \n strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government

__**Territorial Representation**__

System wherein each representative is elected from a \n territorially defined district

__**Reapportionment**__

Process by which representative districts are switched according \n to population shifts, so that each district encompasses approximately the same \n amount of people

__**Splitting**__

In the context of determining representative districts, the process by which \n the majority and minority populations are spread evenly across each of the districts to \n be created therein, ensuring control by the majority of each of the districts; as opposed \n to the result of majority-minority districts

__**Majority-Minority Districts**__

In the context of determining representative districts, the \n process by which a majority of the population is from the minority

__**Gerrymandering**__

Redistricting for advantage, or the practice of dividing areas into \n electoral districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number \n of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts \n as possible

__**Boundary**__

Vertical plane between states that cuts through the rocks below, and the \n airspace above the surface

__**Geometric Boundary**__

Political boundary defined and delimited (and occasionally \n demarcated) as a straight line or an arc

__**Physical-Boundary**__

A boundary based on the geographical features of the Earth’s \n surface

__**Heartland Theory**__

A geopolitical hypothesis, proposed by the British geographer Halford \n Mackinder during the first two decades of the twentieth century, that any political \n power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain sufficient strength to eventually dominate \n the world; further proposed that since Eastern Europe controlled access to the Eurasian \n interior, its ruler would command the vast “heartland” of the east

__**Critical Geopolitics**__

Process by which geopoliticians deconstruct and focus on explaining \n the underlying spatial assumptions and territorial perspectives of politicians

__**Unilateralism**__

World order in which one state is in a position of dominance with allies \n following rather than joining the political decision-making process

__**Supranational Organization**__

A venture involving three or more nation-states involving \n formal political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives (e.g. \n the European Union)

__**Deterritorialization**__

The movement of economic, social, and cultural processes out the \n hands of states

__**Reterritorialization**__

With respect to popular culture, when people within a place start \n to produce an aspect of popular culture themselves, doing so in the context of their \n local culture and making it their own