Chapter 4: Political Patterns and Processes

British geographer

British geographer

________, Mackinder identified agricultural land as the primary commodity that states were interested in.

Difficulty

________ occurs when uninhabited small islets, exposed reefs, and sandbars above water are claimed by more than one country.

Wealthy businesspeople

________ and corporations have replaced the aristocracy in terms of the control of money, land, and resources.

Operational

________: when borders are agreed on, but passage across the border is a problem.

Creativity

________ and economic productivity stagnated because of a lack of incentive in the system that would motivate people to have better lives.

current form of constitutional monarchy

EX: The ________ in Great Britain has been in place since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215.

Communist Party members

________ made up about 6 percent of the USSR population and enjoyed many perks.

country

an identifiable land area

nation

a population with a single culture

state

a population under a single government

nation-state

a single culture under a single government

sovereignty

means that a state is fully independent from outside control, holds territory, and that it has international recognition from other states or the United Nations

multi-national states

made up of a number of different nations represented by the multitude of culture groups who have migrated and intermixed around the world

nationalism

can derive from an existing culture group that desires political representation or independence, or from a political state that bonds and unifies culture groups

stateless nations

where a culture group is not included or allowed a share in the state political process

(EX

full independence of Kurdistan is limited geopolitically due to Turkish government resistance to their sovereignty, based upon Kurdish Marxist rebels, the PKK, who have been fighting in Turkey for several decades)

federal states & confederations

provides military protection, administers foreign diplomacy, and regulates trade as well as a number of internal administrative (executive branch), legislative, and judicial services across the country

(EX

federal government regulates interstate trade, whereas states can make rules about the sale of goods within each state)

unitary system

a single centralized government

(EX

Peoples Republic of China)

microstates

sovereign states that despite their very small size still hold the same position as much larger states

(EX

Andorra is landlocked)

autonomous regions

certain parts of certain nations have been granted freedom from central authority, usually for historical, geographical, religious, or linguistic reasons

(EX

the Basque region of northeastern Spain has its own language, Euskara, which is thousands of years old and is unrelated to any of the Romance languages that surround it)

semi-autonomous regions

have the same freedom as autonomous regions, but to a lesser degree

supranationalism

the concept of two or more sovereign states aligned together for a common purpose

supranational organizations

organizations formed for the purposes of trade alliances, military cooperation, and diplomacy

EX

European Union (28 members)

Free-trade union

No taxes or tariffs are charged on goods and services that cross the internal borders of the EU

Open-border policy

Between EU member states, there are no longer any border-control stations for immigration or customs inspections

Monetary union

In 2000, the first EU members began converting to the Euro and phasing out their old forms of money

Judicial union

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg provides a legal venue for cases between litigants in separate EU member states

Legislative and regulatory bodies

The 751-seat EU Parliament was established to propose and approve laws within the union

Fortress Europe

describes the concept of sealing EU borders

territoriality

the expression of political control over space

citizenship

the legal identity of a person based on the state where he or she was born or where he or she was naturalized as an immigrant

political boundaries

as expressions of political control, must be definable and clear

finite lines

the borders between political states and political sub-unit areas (counties, parishes, parliamentary districts, and city limits)

expatriate populations

citizens living outside of their borders

enclave

a minority culture group concentrated inside a country that is dominated by a different, larger culture group

(EX

enclaves were formally established within Bosnia to separate warring Serb, Croat, and Muslim communities)

exclave

a fragmented piece of sovereign territory separated by land from the main part of the states territory

(EX

Alaska is an exclave whose controlling state is the United States and is separated by Canada.)

United Nations Conference on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS)

proposal of standard oceanic boundaries for all UN member states that was fully ratified in 1994

(EX

The Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands, are claimed by China, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei

territorial sea

Sovereign territory that includes the area of sea from shore out to the 12-nautical-mile limit

Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

Exclusive economic rights from shore out to the 200-nautical-mile limit

admiralty law

a part of international law that dictates legal procedures on the high seas

the 1986 International Whaling Commission

a moratorium on commercial whale hunts that banned whaling after centuries of hunting dangerously depleted populations

antecedent

Boundary lines that exist from prehistoric times

relic

Former state boundaries that still have political or cultural meaning

subsequent

Lines resulting from conflict or cultural changes, such as war and migration

(EX

German-Polish border after 1945; Kaliningrad to the USSR in 1946)

superimposed

Lines laid down for political reasons over existing cultural boundaries

(EX

Sub-Saharan Africa after the Berlin Conference of 1884; Yugoslavia and Iraq after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles)

delimitation

when borders are put on the map

demarcation

when markers are placed on the ground to show where borders lie

physical

natural boundaries such as rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, or deserts

cultural

estimated boundaries between nations, ethnic groups, or tribes

geometric

boundaries surveyed mostly along lines of latitude and longitude

definitional

when border treaties are interpreted two different ways by states

(EX

Russian-Japanese Kuril Islands under Soviet control in 1945)

locational

when the border moves, like a river changing course or a lake drying up

(EX

India-Bangladesh territory along the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Delta)

operational

when borders are agreed on, but passage across the border is a problem

(EX

New passport requirements for entry into the United States after September 11, 2001)

allocational

when a resource lies on two sides of a border

(EX

Mexico-United States river allocations for irrigation and drinking water on the Colorado River and Rio Grande)

frontier

open and undefined territory

state morphology

the shape of a country that also impacts its society and external relations with other countries

annexation

the addition of territory as a result of a land purchase or when a territorial claim is extended through incorporation

(EX

The United States originally purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867 for $7,000,000 in gold and it became a full state in 1948.)

(EX

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States at a national and federal level.)

planned capital cities

cities located in places where cities did not previously exist

(EX

Sydney was the old capital of Australia

EX

In the U.S., presidential elections are decided through voting by the Electoral College

gerrymandering

the irregularly shaped districts that are highly elongated and prorupt

aristocracy

a peerage of lords, earls, marquis, barons, dukes, princes, kings, and queens

debt peonage

peasants paid rent and had their harvests taxed for the right to live on and work the land, keeping them in a cycle of debt

absolute monarchy

where the supreme aristocrat, a king, prince, or duke, was both

(EX

the French Revolution of 1789 inspired many monarchs to accept power-sharing with commoners to avoid losing control)

constitutional monarchy

where the supreme aristocrat remains head of state, but the leader of the elected parliament is the head of government, with integrated legislative and executive powers

the monarch retains the power to

dismiss parliament; appoints judges, ambassadors, and other officials; is commander and chief of the military; and retains significant land holdings and estates

prime minister (premier)

one who appoints senior members of parliament to be ministers or secretaries of executive-branch departments

EX

The current form of constitutional monarchy in Great Britain has been in place since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215

House of Lords

the upper house of parliament, which also serves as the supreme court

Commonwealth of Nations

independent former parts of the British Empire that retain the British monarch as their head of state

free-market democracies

countries with elected-representative parliamentary systems commonwealth countries, and other constitutional monarchies or republics

republics

governments free of aristocracy or monarchical control and are fully under the control of the "common" people, as opposed to hereditary monarchy

separation of powers

where the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are held by separate groups of people that keep each other in check

Communism

Karl Marxs political-economic theories attempted to right the wrongs of feudalism and inequalities of capitalism in free-market democracies

Marxism

the goal to create a class-free society where there were no inequalities in terms of wealth or power

planned economy

an economy that does not rely on supply and demand like capitalism

Example

The Soviet Union

Five-Year Plans

comprehensive long-term economic plans that dictated all production in minute detail that were developed by the USSR

geopolitics

the global-scale relationships between sovereign states

centripetal forces

factors that hold together the social and political fabric of the state

centrifugal forces

factors that tear apart the social and political fabric of the state

EX

Josip Tito became a centripetal force representing the two largest ethnic groups in the country

balkanization

a situation in which the political landscape goes from a larger state to several smaller states