Studied by 9 people
Race/Ethnicity
the identity of a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.
Race
the identity of a group of people who share the cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth.
Adaptive Strategy
Describes a society’s system of economic production. Cohen argued that the most important reason for similarities between two (or more) unrelated societies is their possession of a similar ______. In other words, similar economic causes have similar sociocultural effects.
Barrio
a Spanish-speaking quarter in a town or city (especially in the United States). An urban area in a Spanish- speaking country.
Cultural Shatterbelt
a politically unstable region where differing cultural elements come into contact and conflict. Example: Southeast Asia. Malaysia (60% Muslim, 29% Buddhist, 7% Hindu, and 2% indigenous).
Ethnic conflict
a war between ethnic groups often as a result of ethnic nationalism. They are of interest because of the apparent prevalence in the aftermath of the Cold War and because they frequently result in war crimes such as genocide.
Ethnic enclave
a community or population that is essentially trapped within walls and completely surrounded by an unfriendly or different population or government
Ethnocentrism
the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. Entails the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups
Plural society
a society that has many differing ethnic groups / nations within it that have not merged together to see themselves as one cultural group
Triangular slave trade
an efficient triangular trading pattern used to transport trinkets from Europe to Africa, slaves from Africa to the Caribbean, and molasses from the Caribbean to Europe.
Sharecropper
an individual who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.
Racism
the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
Racist
a person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.
White flight
the rapid fleeing of whites from the cities as black families emigrate out of the ghettos, or as the ghetto expands. It was encouraged by blockbusting.
Blockbusting
the real estate practice of scaring whites into selling their homes at low prices by telling them that blacks would soon be moving in and causing property values to fall. The real estate agents then turned around and sold the homes at extremely high prices to blacks that were emigrating from the inner city.
Apartheid
the physical separation of different races into different geographic areas, i.e. South Africa. These laws were repealed in 1991 in South Africa, but many years will be needed to erase the legacy of such racist policies.
Nationality
the identity of a group of people who share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular country.
Self-determination
the concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves.
Nation-state
a state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.
Nationalism
loyalty and devotion to a nationality.
Centripetal force
an attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state
Centrifugal force
an attitude that tends to divide people and create instability, conflict, and violence
Multi-ethnic state
a state that contains more than one ethnicity.
Multinational states
multi-ethnic states that contain two ethnic groups with traditions of self-rule that agree to coexist peacefully.
Ethnic cleansing
the process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region.
Balkanized
used to describe a small geographic area that could not successfully be organized onto one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antagonisms toward each other.
Balkanization
the process by which a state breaks down due to conflicts among its ethnicities.
State
an area organized into a political unit and ruled by a sovereign government. It occupies a defined area on Earth’s surface and has a permanent population.
Nation
a politically organized body of people under a single government
Sovereignty
a state’s independence of internal affairs from other states.
Microstates
states with very small land areas. The smallest U.N. state is Monaco (.6 square miles)
City-state
a sovereign state that comprises a town and the surrounding countryside. These were the first states to develop in ancient times. Reached highest point in the Roman Empire.
Border landscape
Exclusionary is meant to keep people out (border between U.S. and Mexico), and inclusionary is meant to facilitate trade and movement (U.S. and Canada border)
Boundary
an invisible line marking the extent of a state’s territory
Law of the Sea
signed by 117 countries in 1983, established the territorial limits for most countries at 12 nautical miles, and fishing rights at 200 miles
Definitional boundary disputes
dispute over language of the border agreement in a treaty or boundary contract
Locational boundary disputes
dispute over where a boundary is placed
Operational boundary disputes
dispute over management of a boundary
Allocational boundary disputes
who owns the resources
Antecedent boundary
boundary line established before an area is populated
Subsequent boundary
boundary line established after an area has been populated that considered the social and cultural characteristics of the area
Superimposed boundary
boundary that is imposed on the cultural landscape, ignoring pre-existing cultural patterns (typically a colonial boundary (think “scramble for Africa”)
Landlocked state
a state that lacks a direct outlet to the ocean. Especially common in Africa
Frontier
a zone where no state exercises complete political control.
Unitary state
a state that places most of the power in the hands of a central govt
Federal state
a state that allocates strong power to units of local govt. w/in the country.
Buffer State
small neutral state between two rival powers. Since the end of World War II, the concept has been replaced by demilitarized zones (DMZ)
Gerrymandering
the process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power. “Packing” places many voters of one type into a single area, whereas “stacking” arranges the voters to win a majority of the seats.
Annexation
forcible acquisition of a state's territory by another state
Confederation
union of political units for common action in relation to other units
Conference of Berlin (1884)
Regulated trade and colonization in Africa. It formalized the scramble to gain colonies in Africa and set up boundaries for each country's colonies.
Balance of power
a condition of equal strength between opposing alliances.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
area from the shore (usually 370 km) in which a state has rights to explore, exploit, and manage natural resources in the seas.
Domino Theory
foreign policy theory during 1950s – 1980s, promoted at times by the U.S. government, believed that if one country came under influence of communism then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. Suggests that some change, small in itself, will cause similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on.
Devolution
process by which regions in a state demand and gain political strength and autonomy at the expense of the central government
Electoral Regions
different voting districts that make up local, state, and national regions.
Enclave
a small, relatively homogenous group or region surrounded by a larger and different group or region (ex. Part of Armenia surrounded by Azerbaijan), can also mean wholly lying within the boundaries of another country – DIFFERENT from ethnic enclaves like Chinatown or Little Italy
Exclave
bounded territory that is part of a state but separated by the territory of another state, like Alaska
Forward capital
symbolically relocated capital city usually because of either economic or strategic reasons, sometimes used to integrate outlying parts of a country into the state (Brasilia, Washington, D.C.)
Heartland Theory
early 20th cen., said whichever state controlled the resource-rich “heartland” of Eastern Europe could eventually dominate the world. It suggested that not the United Kingdom (an ocean-based empire) but Russia (which was becoming communist at the time), would be in a position to “win” the “heartland.”
Geopolitics
Friedrich Ratzel, organic theory, study that analyzes geography, history, and social science with reference to international politics. States can be seen as living organisms that need to consume other territories to survive. Negative reputation when Hitler and the Nazis embraced it to justify their right for lebensraum (living space) because of their perceived racial superiority
Immigrant State
type of receiving state which is the target of many immigrants, popular because of their economy, political freedom, and opportunity (ex. U.S. (from Mexico and others), and Germany (from Turkey and others)…)
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
religious conflict, difficult to summarize but essentially gains momentum after WWII when more Jewish people wanted their own country, they were given a large part of Palestine, but the Arabs who already lived there didn’t accept the new country, 1948 the two sides go to war and in the end Gaza was controlled by Egypt and the West Bank controlled by Jordan
compact states
the distance from the center to any boundary varies little. Generally found in smaller states.
prorupted states
an otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension. Ex. Congo
elongated states
have a long and narrow shape. Ex. Chile
fragmented states
have several discontinuous pieces of territory. Ex. U.S.A.
perforated states
completely surround another state. Ex. South Africa
Note 
Flashcard (55)