APHG Politics 1

State

a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.

Nation

a politically organized body of people under a single government

Nation-State

A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality

Multi-State Nation

a nation or cultural group that is divided across two or more state borders

Multi-Nation State

a country with multiple nations

Stateless Nation

a group of people with a common political identity who do not have a territorially defined, sovereign country of their own

Autonomous Region

a political unit with limited self-government

Enclave

a distinct region or community enclosed within a larger territory

Exclave

a part of a country that is seperated from the rest of the country and surrounded by foreign territory.

Berlin Conference

A meeting from 1884-1885 at which representatives of European nations agreed on rules colonization of Africa

Decolonization

The collapse of colonial empires. Between 1947 and 1962, practically all former colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence.

Neocolonialism

Economic dominance of a weaker country by a more powerful one, while maintaining the legal independence of the weaker state. In the late nineteenth century, this new form of economic imperialism characterized the relations between the Latin American republics.

Proxy War

A war instigated by a major power that does not itself participate

Cold War

the power struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II

Shatterbelt

a region caught between stronger colliding external cultural-political forces, under persistent stress, and often fragmented by aggressive rivals (e.g., Israel or Kashmir today; Eastern Europe during the Cold War,...).

Sovereignty

Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.

Territoriality

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