Module 11: Political Geography

Sovereign state

A self-governing sovereign political entity with well-defined, and agreed upon, territorial boundaries, in most uasage synonymous with independent country.

Sovereignty

The supreme authority or right of individual states to control political, economic, and social affairs within their territorial boundaries without external interference.

Nation

A group of people sharing a common culture, and an attachment to a particular territory.

States

A political entity with a defined territory, a permanent population, and a government, which makes decisions about internal affairs and is recognized by other states

Nation-state

A political entity that contains one principal cultural group that gives it its identity.

Geopolitics

The study of state power over space and the ability to shape international political relations

Heartland theory

A geopolitical theory of world power based on the assumption that the state controlling the Eurasian heartland held the key to world domination.

Geopolitik

The study of states as organisms that choose to expand in territory in order to fulfill their “destinies” as nation-states.

Centrifugal forces

Factors that make it difficult to bind an area together as an effective state, such as cultural divisions within the state.

Centripetal forces

Factor that pull an area together into a single unit to create a relatively stable state.

Federalism

A form of government in which power and authority are divided between central and regional governments.

Irredentism

The view and assertion by one country that a minority population living outsides its formal borders rightfully belongs to it culturally.

Secessionist

The act of a group formally withdrawing from a federation or political state

Core-periphery

The idea that states and regions are often unequally divided between powerful cores and dependent peripheries.

Devolution

A process of transferring power from central to regional or local levels of government

Monarchy

The institution of rule over a state by the hereditary head of family.

Oligarchy

Rule by an elite group of people, typically the wealthy

Dictatorship

An authoritarian, oppressive, and anti-democratic form of government in which the leader is often backed by the military.

Fascism

A political philosophy that places nationality above the rights of the individual and that supports a centralized government headed by a dictatorial leader

Anarchism

A political philosophy that rejects the state and argues that social order is possible without state.

Gerrymandering

The realignment of electoral boundaries with the specific intent to benefit a particular political party.

Mal-apportionment

A form of gerrymandering, involving the creation of electoral districts of differing population sizes to the benefit of a particular political party.