unit 4: ch.8 political geography

State

A politicaly organized territory with a defined boundary, a permanent population, a government and sovereignty (independent control over its internal and external affairs)

• A country

• Defined territory and government

Sovereignty

The core principle that a state has supreme, independent authority to govern its own territory and people, making its own laws and policies without external interference

• Japan

• US states (state sovereignty)

• Native Americans(tribal sovereignty)

Microstate

A sovereign country that is extremely small in land and population

• Monaco

• Vatican City

• Tuvalu

Frontier

A geographic zone or area (not a line) where no state excercises power. It’s a neutral power zone

NO ONE OWNS IT

• Antarctica

Colonialism

States taking over territories across the world and rule them for their benefit

• Eastern seabird of North America was colonized by England

1st wave colonialism

16th century European expansion primarily Spain and Portugal explored and eventually colonized the americas, Britain, France and the Netherlands joined the 1st wave

• north, central, and South America were the main targets than the Caribbean and the coast of Africa

2nd wave colonialism

Late 19th century, early 20th century; major colonizers were Britain, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Italy they met for the Berlin conference in 1884-1885. And arbitrarily divided Africa into colonies without reference to indigenous cultural patterns and political relationships

Boundary

More than a line on the ground the lines are actually markers of a vertical plane that cuts through the rocks below and the air space above dividing one state from another

• natural, geometric, religious, superimposed, relic, subsequent boundary

Territorially

People or groups connecting with, claiming and exerting control over specific geographic areas, asserting ownership and influencing people/resources within those spaces

• chinas claim over Taiwan due to historical ties

• Russias actions in Ukraine driven by a belief that territory belongs to them

Landlocked state

A country completely surrounded by other countries, lacking direct cues to an ocean or sea

• rely on neighboring countries

• Higher transport cost

  ex: - Nepal - Switzerland

Compact state

A country with a roughly circular or oval shape where the distance from the center to any boundary is relatively equal

• “ideal shape”

  ex: Poland, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Hungary

Prorupted state

A country with a compact main body but a long narrow extension projecting from it, often to gain access to to resources like water

ex: Namibia, Thailand, DRC, Italy

Elongated state

A country with a long narrow shape

Ex: chile, Vietnam, Norway, Italy

Fragmented state

A country with several discontinuous pieces of territory often separated by water

Ex: Indonesia, Philippines, japan

Perforated state

A country that completely surrounds another country, like a hole in a doughnut, creating an enclave within its borders

• South Africa: Lesotho, eswatini

• Italy: San Marino and Vatican City

Unitary state

A country where the central govt holds the most or all governing power, making laws for the entire nation with local government having little independent authority often resulting in uniform policies but less control

• France: government in Paris holds control

• Japan, UK, china

Federal system

A political structure where power is divided and shared between a strong central government and small regional or local governments (states), allowing for both national unity and local autonomy

• USA, Mexico, Venezuela

Gerrymandering

The political practice of manipulating voting district boundaries to favor one party or group, creating oddly shaped districts to concentrate or spread out voters to ensure electoral success

• North Carolinas 12th congressional district, known for its bizarre, highway hugging shape to pack minority voters (African Americans into one district creating a majority-minority district)

Supranational organization

A group of three or more countries that join forces, giving up some individual sovereignty to create a body with authority to make decisions and enforce policies for the collective benefit

• EU(economic)

• WTO(economic)

• UN (political)

• NATO (security)

Devolution

The transfer of political power and authority from a central government to regional or local governments, giving them more control over their own affairs like education or healthcare

• UK- Scotland, wales, Northern Ireland

• Spain- Catalonia, basque

Enclave state

A territory that is completely surrounded by land of another larger country

• Vatican City

• Lesotho

Exclave state

A portion of a country’s territory that is geographically separated from the main part of the state by the land of another country

• Alaska

• Kaliningrad: Russia

Heartland theory (Mackinder) 1904

Posits that control over the vast resource-rich interior of Eurasia (the heartland) is the key to global domination asserting that whoever rules this region commands the world

• geopolitical concept

• Who rules east Europe commands the heartland —> who commands the heartland commands the world island—> who rules the world island commands the world

Relic boundary

Old boundaries that are no longer used between countries but its impact is still felt and seen on the landscape

• the Berlin Wall - old boundary between east and west Germany

• Great Wall of china built during the 3rd century

Nation state

A sovereign political entity (stat) where the boundaries of a government perfectly align with the cultural boundaries of a cohesive group of people (nation)

• Japan, Ireland, Denmark, South Korea

• No modern state is perfectly homogenous diversity exists everywhere

Stateless nation

Nations that don’t have a state

• The Kurds - a group of 25-35 million people living in an area called Kurdistan that cover part of 6 states

Nation

Refers to a group of people with a sense of cultural connection and a shared identity that is attached to a territory but not necessarily a state. Share a political goal, can be grouped of people.

• the Kurds, Palestinians, and indigenous people

• “Imagined community”

Deterritorialization

Grand characterized by structures of power that are less tied to the traditional; territorial state

• the global spread of McDonald’s where its cultural meaning (fast American food detaches from its U.s orgin spreading globally while simultaneously creating reterritorialization

Reterritirialization

Initiatives that enhance the power of traditional political territorial arrangement

• initiatives that enhance th power of traditional political territorial arrangements

• When people adapt global popular culture to their social context making it their own like gangsta rap emerging from American inner cities

Mercantilism

Economic theory (16th-18th century)where a nations wealth and power are increased by maximizing exports, minimizing imports and acquiring colonies for raw materials

• Britain’s navigation gets forcing colonies to trade only with England

Peace of Westphalia (1648)

Signifies the birth of the modern nation-state system, establishing state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non interference in internal affairs, ending the 30 year war and redefining europe’s political map

• establishing state sovereignty

• Ending religious wars

• Recognized independent nations

• (Created the nation-state system)_

Democracy

A system where political power rests with the people, who rule either directly or throughly freely elected representatives

• Democracy relates to how power is distributed geographically, forms of states

• Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Iceland, and Canada

Multinational state

A sovereign country contains 2 or more distinct nationalities or ethnic groups, each with its own traditions, languages etc. that agree to coexist within one political identity

• UK, Canada, Russia, Yugoslavia, India, Nigeria, USA

Multistate nation

A single cultural group (nation) that shares a common identity but lives across the borders of multiple independent states

• the Kurds, a nation spread across turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria, Koreans (north and south)

World system theory (economics)

View the world as much more than the sum total of the world’s states. They argue that to understand any state, we must also understand its position within the global economy

(Core, semiperiphany, periphany)

• explains the global inequality by dividing the world into core, semi periphery, and periphery countries

Core

Production methods include higher level of education, higher salaries and more technology-processes that generate wealth in the world economy

• dominant, wealthy and highly developed regions or countries contrasting with less developed peripheries

• Economic core: New York, Tokyo

• Global core: Germany, USA, japan

Periphery

Product methods incorporate lower levels of education, lower salaries, and less sophisticated technology

-process dissociated with a more marginal position in the world economy

• less developed countries (LDC’s) in the world system theory

• Sub-Saharan Africa

• Core and periphery coexist shaped by relationship with eachother

Semi periphery

Places where core and periphery processes are both occurring. The semi-periphery acts as a buffer between the core and periphery preventing the polarization of the world into two extremes

• countries with developing economies positioned between core wealthy and peripheral (poor) nations, showing characteristics of both

• Ex:Brazil, India, Russia

Centripetal force

Factory that unify people and strengthen the states cohesion Pulling them toward the center

• shared language

• Common national identity

• Strong sense of nationalism

Centrifugal force

Factors that divide people and weaken the states cohesion, pushing them a way from the center

• ethnic conflict

• Religious differences

• Political unrest

EEZ’s (exclusive economic zone)

Starts at the end of its coastline and can also extend around each island a sea area extending up to 200NM from a coastlines baseline, where the nation has special rights for exploring using, and managing marine resources like fish, oil, gas

• US has one of the largest (due to territories)

Reapportionment

The process by when districts are changed occurring to population shifts

• after the 2010 census, several states in the so-called rust bet including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, lost representatives, as a result of population decline.

Splitting

A Gerrymandering tactic where a political party divided a concentrated group of voters like racial or ethnic minority across multiple districts, diluting their voting power so they become a minority in each, preventing them from electing their preferred candidates and thus ensuring the dominant party wins more seats.

• an 1982, the U.S congress amended the 1965 voting rights act by outlawing districts that result in weakened minority voting power

Law of the sea (UNCLOS)

• United Nations convention of the law of the sea

• “Constitution of the oceans” international treaty that sets legal framework for all marine and maritime activities

• (1) states have the complete sovereign control over territorial seas that extend out 12 Nautical miles (NM) from their coastline. (2) states have the right to control fiscal transactions, immigration and sanitation in the contagious 2 one that extends an additional 12NM beyond their territorial seas. (3) states have control over all resources found in the exclusive EEZ that extended 200 NM from their coastline. (4) states have complete control over resources found in their continental shelves defined by distance instead of geology.(5) international waters, which are considered the common heritage of human kind, to be used by all.

superimposed boundary (forced)

A political boundary that ignores the existing cultural organization on the landscape. It’s imposed or forced by an outside force treaty. Usually placed by a higher authority such as a superpower to satisfy that authority need rather than the needs of an area. May no reflect existing cultural landscape.

• Korea- a demilitarized zone was placed along the 38th parallel to resolve conflict between the communists to the north, and U.S forces in the south

Geometric boundary

Are drawn using grid systems such as longitude and latitude or township and range.

• Can be antecedent or superimposed

• The U.S and Canada used a single line of latitude west of the Great Lakes to define their boundary

• 38th parallel Korea

Antecedent boundary (physical)

Placed before the cultural landscape developed (very early an areas settlement history)

• Pyrenees Mts.

• Desert, water, Mts

Consequent boundary (cultural)

Drawn to accommodate existing

• religion -India/pakistan -Europeans drew these lines to prevent Hindus and Muslims from killing each other

• Language (Europe)

• Ethnic - the balkans after Yugoslavia balkanized. Those borders are drawn around those ethnic nations

Subsequent boundary

Drawn after the cultural landscape is in place. Set after the settlements of different cultures are established

• opposite of antecedents boundaries

• Border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. As the cultural landscape developed the border was drawn to accommodate religious, cultural, and economic differences

• USA and Canada

Unilateralism

A foreign policy where a country acts alone to achieve its goals, prioritizing its won interests over cooperation, without seeking agreement from other nations

• the U.S with drawing from the Paris climate accord or invading Iraq without UN approval

Shatterbelt

A religion caught between stronger colliding cultural political forces, experiencing persistent stress, fragmentation, and conflict, often as a proxy for anger power struggles

• Eastern European (balkans)

• Middle East

Definitional boundary dispute

A conflict arising from disagreements over the legal language or interpretation of a boundary agreement like a treaty where countries argue about the specific wording that defines the borders location, not its physical placement

• a conflict over the legal wording or interpretation of a treaty that established a boundary, not the hysical location

• Ex: chile-Argentina border

Locational boundary dispute

A conflict over the physical placement or exact location of a boundary

• disagreement on where the line goes

• Accept the definition but argue about its real world placement

• Dispute between the U.S and Mexico along the rio grande where the rivers movement caused confusion over the boundaries location

Operational boundary dispute

Conflict between neighboring countries over how a political boundary’s should function or be administered, not its physical location or legal definition, often concerning issues like migration control, security, or resource management

• how the border operates

• Managing illegal immigration flow

• Fishing lights: lake Edward between DRC and uganda

Allocational boundary dispute

Conflict over who gets to use or extract natural resources located in border region especially hen the resource straddles or lies beneath the boundary. Line, leading to disagreements over fair shares

-Iraq-Kuwait dispute over oil and conflicts over water from share drivers

• Netherlands/ Germany: over coal and natural gas deposits

Superimposed dispute

Political border forced onto a region by an outside power, ignoring existing, cultural, ethnic, or social patterns, often causing conflict by dividing communities or forcing rival groups together

• boundaries drawn in Africa by European colonizers

• Typically created by colonized powers or external forces

• Disregard for culture

Irredentism

2nationalist movement where a country seeks to reclaim territory from a neighboring state because people in that are share the claimant country’s ethnic ethnic, language or culture often fueled by historical claims and a desire to unite “lost” populations leading to political tension.

• nazi germany claims on Czechoslovakia

• Russia claims and actions in eastern ukraine

• Morocco claims over Western Sahara

Balkanization

The process where country breaks down into smaller, often hostile states due to deep ethnic, religious, or cultural conflicts, leading to fragmentation and instability

• Yugoslavia breaking into multiple nations

• Soviet Union

Median line principal

A rule for setting maritime boundaries, espicially for EEZ’s by drawing an imaginary line exactly halfway between the coasts of 2 neighboring states, ensuring an equitable division of sea resources like fish oil, and gas when their waters overlap

Used under UNCLOS

• Cuba and the U.S using the principe dive de their waters, driving each 45NM of EEZ