AP Human Geography - Political Geography Notes

Political Geography

• The study of the human political organization of the Earth.

• Examines political organization at three scales:

  • Supranational

  • National (country)

  • Subnational (local)

Territoriality

• Creating ownership over a defined space.

• Can range in scale from a backyard to an entire country.

State

• A political unit characterized by:

  • A permanent population.

  • Defined territorial boundaries recognized by other states.

  • An effective government.

  • A working economy.

  • Sovereignty.

• Note: "State" (country) is different from "state" (sub-state division).

Sovereignty

• A recognized right to control a territory, both politically and militarily.

• Under international law, states are sovereign.

Qualifications for Statehood

A state must possess the following qualifications:

• Defined space or territory with recognized boundaries.

• A permanent population.

• Economic activity and an organized economy that regulates foreign and domestic trade and issues money.

• The power of social engineering, such as education.

• A transportation system.

• A government providing public services and police power.

• Sovereignty, meaning no other state exercises control over the territory.

• External recognition by other states.

Microstate

• A very small state, such as Singapore.

Sealand

• Principality of Sealand is considered as a micronation.

• History:

  • Established by Britain during WWII to guard the Thames estuary.

  • Well-equipped military installation with 200 men.

  • Abandoned after the war.

  • 1966: A British family took possession and restored the platform.

  • 1967: Declared itself a nation.

  • Has gained international recognition; European states have given it de facto recognition.

Territorial Integrity

• The right of a state to defend its sovereign territory against incursion from other states.

State Characteristics

• Politically organized.

• Permanent population.

• Defined territory.

• Organized government.

• Recognized by other states.

Empires

• What existed before states.

• Examples:

  • Roman Empire

  • Ottoman Empire

  • Han Dynasty

  • Mayan Empire

  • Kingdom of France

Why Empires Are Not States

• Territory is not clearly defined; boundaries were not set or recognized.

• Included a large number of ethnic and cultural groups.

Peace of Westphalia

• Marks the beginning of the modern state system.

• A treaty between princes of the states making up the Holy Roman Empire.

• Ended a destructive religious war (The Thirty Years' War).

• Recognized the rights of rulers within defined territories.

• Fundamental shift: Territory defined the society, whereas previously, the society defined its territory.

Political Divisions

• States.

• Nations.

• Nation-States.

Nation

• A group of people who think of themselves as one based on shared culture and history.

• May share religion, language, ethnicity, etc.

• Culturally defined, not defined by territory.

• "An Imagined Community."

• Examples: The French, Native Americans.

Nation-State

• A politically organized area in which a nation and state occupy the same space.

• An attempt to marry the concepts of nation and state into one territory.

• Dates to the French Revolution.

• Created to inspire nationalism within a state.

• Largely an ideal rather than fact.

• Can unify groups but also destroy the state.

Multinational State

• A state that contains more than one nation within its borders.

Multistate Nation

• A nation that stretches across borders and across states.

Stateless Nation

• A nation that does not have a territory to call its own.

• Examples:

  • Assyrian Christians of Iraq

  • Kurds in the Middle East

  • Uighurs in Western China

Boundary

• A vertical plane that cuts through the airspace and ground to determine ownership.

Geometric Boundary

• Boundaries drawn based on a grid system, such as lines of latitude or longitude.

Physical Political Boundary

• Boundaries that follow an agreed-upon feature in the natural landscape.

Boundary Creation

• Defining: Boundaries are normally created in a treaty-like legal document.

• Delimiting: The drawing of a boundary on a map.

• Demarcating: Creating visible means to mark a boundary, such as steel posts, fences, walls, etc.

Median Line Principle

• Waters will be divided evenly between two or more countries.

Antecedent Boundaries

• Boundary lines that existed before human cultures developed into their current form.

• Many physical boundaries grew from antecedent boundaries.

• Example: Kentucky and Indiana grew as distinct cultures around the Ohio River, an already existing divider.

Subsequent Boundaries

• Divided space resulted from human interaction and negotiation after settlement.

Superimposed Boundaries

• Boundaries forcibly put on the landscape by outside parties, such as invaders or supranational organizations.

• Example: The UN created borders of Israel.

Relict Boundary

• Boundary that no longer functions as a border.

• Example: The Berlin Wall.

Definitional Boundary Disputes

• Dispute based on the legal language of a boundary.

• Example: Japan and Russia have not agreed to the definition of the boundaries surrounding islands north of Japan.

Locational Boundary Disputes

• Countries agree on the definition but not on where the boundary exists on the Earth or on a map.

• Example: Saudi Arabia and Yemen have agreed to a border, but not to exactly where that border is located.

Operational Boundary Disputes

• Disputes over how a border should be operated or controlled.

• Example: The US/Mexican border in regards to immigration and transport of goods.

Allocational Boundary Disputes

• Disputes over natural resources (mineral deposits, fertile farmland, or rich fishing groups) that lie in the border area.

• Example: The US and Canada have fought over fishing grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.

Territorial Morphology

• The relationship between a state's geographic shape, size, relative location, and its political situation.

Fragmented States

• Geographically exists in several pieces.

• Example: Indonesia is fragmented into over 16,000 islands.

Elongated States

• State that is long and thin in shape.

Compact States

• State that does not vary greatly in distance from its center to any point on its border.

Prorupt States

• State that has a piece that protrudes from its core area (like an arm or leg jutting out).

Perforated States

• State that has a hole punched in them by another state.

• A perforated state completely surrounds another state.

Landlocked States

• Countries that have no access to a coastal area or large body of water.

Political Enclave

• A state or part of a state surrounded completely by another state.

Political Exclave

• A part of a state almost completely separated from the rest of the country.

Buffer State

• An independent country located between two larger countries that are in conflict.

Satellite States

• A country controlled by another, more powerful state.

Shatterbelt

• A state or group of states that exist within a sphere of competition between larger states and is often culturally, economically, and politically fragmented.

Frontiers

• Regions where boundaries are weakly developed, territoriality is unclear and not well established.

Colonialism

• Establishing a new territory by a group of people who keep their ties to their home government.

• The control of one state over another place.

• Often, the colonizer has a more industrialized economy.

• A major factor in colonialism was the industrial revolution.

Age of European Colonialism

• Lasted from the 16th century until the end of WWII.

• Two Major Periods:

  • First: After European explorers discovered land in the western hemisphere (15th century).

  • Second: Late 1800s when European powers competed to carve up Africa. France and England controlled 70% of Africa.

Mercantilism

• An economic system where a state acquires colonies that provide it with the raw materials to ship back home and use in making products for the population of the mother country.

Imperialism

• The process of establishing political, social, and economic dominance over a colonized area.

Mercantilism vs. Colonialism vs. Imperialism

• Mercantilism: Economic system - make money by establishing colonies and using the resources to make products and goods back home.

• Colonialism: The act of establishing the territory.

• Imperialism: The act of dominating the territory.

Scramble for Africa

• Period between 1880 and 1914 when European countries competed to claim territory in Africa.

Berlin Conference (1884)

• Called together all the European powers to lay down rules for the division of Africa.

• Agreed that any European power could claim land in Africa by notifying other nations of their claims and showing they could control the area.

European Motives for Imperialism

• Motive #1 - Industry and Technology

  • To improve their economies, they needed new markets and raw materials.

  • Technological advances led to the Europeans' ability to dominate (maxim guns, steamboats, quinine).

• Motive #2 - Nationalism

  • Pride in one’s country led to a heated competition among the European nations.

  • The more lands you controlled showed how strong you were as a country.

• Motive #3 - Racism and Social Darwinism

  • Social Darwinism: Idea that one race is better than another.

  • Survival of the fittest: Those who are the fittest would enjoy wealth and success. If others suffered or were exterminated, that was nature.

• Motive #4 - Civilizing Mission

  • Missionaries wanted to Christianize and "civilize" the peoples of non-European societies.

Unitary State

• A form of government organization.

• The state has a strong centralized government.

• Exercises power equally over all parts of the country.

Federal State

• Organizes the state into regions (provinces, cantons, states).

• The central government tends to control areas of common interest, such as defense and foreign affairs.

• Regional governments have the power to create their own laws and policies.

Democracy

• The idea that the people are the ultimate sovereign.

• The people are the nation and have ultimate power over what happens in the state.

Territorial Representation

• System where each representative is elected from a territorially defined district.

Reapportionment

• Process where representative districts are switched according to population shifts, so that each district has approximately the same number of people.

Gerrymandering

• Redistricting to create an advantage for one political party.

• Divides districts to give one party a majority in most districts.

Splitting

• Process where the majority and minority populations are spread evenly across districts, ensuring control of the majority.

Majority-Minority Districts

• Drawing districts so that a majority of the population in that district is actually from the minority.

Centripetal Forces

• The forces within a state that unify the people.

• Examples: Communication, Transportation, Nationalism, Church and Religion, Flags, Symbols, Holidays, Schools, and Education.

Centrifugal Forces

• Forces within a state that divide the people.

• Examples: Opposing Institutions, Oppositional Nationalism, Separatist Movements, Peripheral Locations, Ethnic Forces, Economic Forces.

Ethnonationalism

• A powerful emotional attachment to one’s nation.

• Occurs when a minority nation within a state feels different from the rest of the state’s people.

Irredentism

• A movement by a nation to reunite its parts when they have been spread across borders.

Devolution

• Process where regions within a state demand and gain political strength and autonomy at the expense of the central government.

Balkanization

• The process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions.

Deterritorialization

• The movement of social, political, and economic out of the hands of states.

• Modern trade, communication, and travel have lessened the effects of boundaries.

• Example: Schengen Area - 26 European countries that have abolished passport and any other type of border control at their common borders.

Reterritorialization

• Actions taken by a state to solidify control over its territory.

• Example: US building a fence along the Mexican border.

Geopolitics

• International relations, as influenced by geographical factors.

Classical Geopolitics

• School of geopolitics which focused on how to become powerful and strategies for maintaining power.

Ratzel’s Organic Theory

• States are like living organisms.

• They hunger for land and want to grow larger and larger.

• To a state, land = food.

• Hitler believed in and acted on this theory.

Heartland Theory

• Halford Mackinder.

• The era of sea power was ending, and control over land would be the key to power.

• Controlling Eurasia would be the key to dominating the world.

Rimland Theory

• Nicholas Spykman.

• The theory that the rimland of Euroasia was the key to power.

• Rimland was the periphery – extending from Western Europe, Southeast, South and East Asia.

• Important to balance power in the rimland to prevent a global power from emerging.

Critical Geopolitics

• School of geopolitics that focuses on explaining the geographical assumptions and perspectives of international actors.

• Analyzes why countries act; used to predict what will happen in a region and how governments should respond.

• Determines a country's foreign policy decisions.

The Domino Theory

• Cold War theory.

• Democratic allies must protect lands from falling to the communists, because if one country (domino) fell under the power of communism, others in the region would also fall.

• Believed that this would result in communist domination of the world.

• Led to the Vietnam War.

Unilateralism

• World order in which one dominant state makes political decisions and its allies follow.

• Allies have no say in the decision-making process.

• Example: US decided to invade Iraq – expected allies to support and even join in the invasion.

Supranational Organization

• An entity composed of three or more states that forge an association and form an administrative structure for mutual benefit and to pursue shared goals.

Global Commons

• Resources or areas that lie outside of the political reach of any one nation-state.

• International law identifies four global commons:

  • The High Seas

  • The Atmosphere

  • Antarctica

  • Outer Space

Law of the Sea

• A collection of international laws and treaties that set rules for how states will use the oceans.

UNCLOS – UN Convention on the Law of the Sea

• Coastal states have a claim to the sea up to 12 nautical miles from the shoreline.

• Must allow commercial ships from other countries to pass through these waters.

• Coastal state can claim up to 200 nautical miles as an exclusive economic zone, over which it has control of resources (oil, fish, etc.).

• If there is not 200 nautical miles between two or more countries then the median line principle will be used.