[terms + definitions + examples]

• political geography: study of patterns and methods humans have used to organize claims to portions of the Earth’s surface

• country: an identifiable land area

• nation: population with a single culture

  • same as culture group

• nation-state: single culture under single gov.

• state: population under a single government, sovereign territory

• sovereignty: fully independent from outside control, holds territory, and that it has international recognition

• sovereignty disputes: when two or more states claim and area which often result in diplomatic tensions

• territory: under the jurisdiction of a state but how not yet gained full rights of being part of the state

• frontier: zone where no state exercises political control. unexplored or unsurveyed

• boundaries: limit the jurisdiction and authority of one entity in favor of another

• political borders: represent the spatial limits of a political organization

• boundary demarcation: clear markings of boundaries

• supra-national scale: organizations that transcend boundaries of multiple countries

• state scale: political division of the Earth’s surface among diff. countries

• intrastate: further division of a state into smaller entities

• physical boundaries: uses natural landforms to create separation

• geometric borders: ignores physical borders (generally), unrelated to culture; straight lines. alogn lines of latitude and longitude

• ethnic borders: attempt to reflect the cultural diff. of the people living in a particular area

• religious/language borders: divide diff. religous groups or language families

• antecedent boundary: boundary already existed then people settled, created cultural landscape without regard of the boundaries

• subsequent boundary: boundary established after a settlement settles there; attempts to accommodate cultural differences. It’s adjusted as cultural landscape changes

• relict boundary: former state boundaries that still have political or cultural meaning

• superimposed boundary: political boundary placed by powerful outsiders on developed human landscape

• definition (borders): boundary agreed upon and set

• delimitation (borders): drawn on map

• demarcated (borders): when markers place on the troground to show where borders lie. wall, sign, etc.

• fortified boundary: creation of walls/barriers to either prevent foreigners from getting in, por its citizens from getting out

• maritime boundaries: division of diff. claims to the oceans around the shores of the country

• definitional border disputes: border treaties are interpreted two diff. ways by states

• locational border disputes: when border moves, like a river changing course or a lake drying up

• operational border disputes: borders are agreed on, but passage across border is a problem

• allocational border disputes: resource lies on two sides of border. who gets what?

• enclave: territories completely surrounded by another country that are ethnically/culturally diff.

  • ex. ethnic neighborhoods, Quebec, etc.

• exclave: regions that are geographically separated from the rest of the country but not wholly surrounded by one state

  • ex. alaska

• compact: shape without irregularity

  • ex. colorado

• fragmented: broken into pieces, archipelagos

  • ex. philippines

• elongated: appreads stretched out, long

  • ex. chile

• prorupt: has panhandle or peninsula

  • ex. italy

• perforated: has a hold(s) (country, lrage lake)

  • ex. utah

• landlocked: has no sea or ocean borders

  • ex. switzerland

• gerrymandering: changes and redistributes the representative count for each state. This is done to influence more power on the elections.

• supra-national organizations: organizations that extend beyond the borders of three of more states that seeks to promote economic, political, or cultural unity between members

• collective security union: members who work together to provide mutual defense for one another against outside aggresors

• hyper-nationalism: extreme nationalism, the belief in the superiority of one’s nation and of the paramount importance of advancing it

• supernationalism: concept of two ore more sovereign states aligned together for a common purpose

• genocide: Intended killing a group of people, especially those of specific ethnic group or nation. term phrased in 1944 as a way to describe German actions against Jews in World War II.

• ethnic cleansing: when a people group commits mass expulsion or mass killing of a particular ethnic group whom they do not want to exist either in a particular region or in the world as a whole.

• self-determination: their ight or desire for a nation, or group of people, to govern themselves

• multinational state: state that has more than one nation within its borders

• multistate nation: nation that is spread across multiple sovereign states

• stateless nation: a nation that has a history of self-determination but does not have a recognized state

  • ex. kurds, basques, etc

• autonomous regions: certain parts of certain nations (same culture, no sovereignty) have freedom from central authority.

  • ex. basque region has governs themselves

• semi-autonomous regions: geographic area that is controlled by another state, but only has a moderate degree of self governance.

• colonialism: practice of acquiring territories and settling there to exert political, economic, and social control over the area

• imperialism: idea of growing a state or empire by exerting force over other nations to gain economic and political power without establishing settlements

• devolution: transfer of power from a national govt. to regional govt.

• territoriality: expression of political control over a space

• neocolonialism: contemporary form of colonialism, based on economic control

• shatterbelts: areas where they are in between conflict of other countries

• chockpoint: strategic narrow route providing passage through or to another region

• cracking: process of spreading like-minded voters out across multiple districts

• packing: process of stacking like-minded voters into just a few districts to reduce the impact of their vote in other districts

• unitary state: power is located in the central or national ogvt.

• federal state: power is shared BETWEEN national govt. and regional govt.

• devolution: transfer of power from a national govt. to regional govt.

• irredentism: a movement by a nation to unite other parts of its nation that are located in another state

• democratization: process through which a political regime becomes more democratic

• hotelling model: theory that describes competition with market when they located themselves right by eachother

• ratzel’s organic theory: nations behave like living organisms and seek to expand their territories in order to ensure their survival

• expatriate: citizens living outside of their borders

• aristocracy: royals having power

• absolute monarchy: head of state and head of government. meaning has full power.

• constitutional monarchy: supreme aristocrat remains head of state, leaders of elected parliament is head of gov., with integrated legislative and executive powers.

• free market economy: elected representative systems. democracy. people have a say.

• republics: free of aristocracy or monarchal control. full under the control of the common people

• separation of powers: legislative, executive, judicial power

• centripetal forces: factors that hold together the social and political fabric of a state

• centrifugal forces: factors that tear apart social and political fabric of state

• buffer states: lands that would protect them by creating a surrounding bugger of sympathetic countries

• satellite states: controlled independent states by other huge power in the times of conflicts

• terrorism: planned violent attacks on peple and palces to proke fear and cause a change in gov. policy

• state terrorism: when govs. use violence and intimidation to control their own peole

[topic info. + examples]

intro. to political geography

• state = country’s land

• nation = culture

• soverienty ex. ‘Murica, Britain

• subsequent boundary ex. Europe boundaries and how they sort of reflect diff. nations

• antecendant boundary ex. Canada & America 49th Parallel Boundary

• unitary state: national govt → regional govts.

  • CHINA

• federal state: decisions are made at both local and national level

  • AMERICA

FEDERAL GOVT

gaining statehood - stateless nations

• have a defined territory with permanent population and functional govt.

• declare and effectively gain independence

• gain recognition from established states as sovereign state

• join the UN General Assembly

• ex. Palestine isn’t a state because they aren’t able to checkpoint own borders

• nation-state ex. Japan, North Korea, China

• multinational state ex. Canada

• multistate nation ex. Kurdish Population, Basques

• authonomous regions ex. Native American Reservations

• semi-autonomous regions ex. Hong Kong & China

• neocolonialism ex. China being an investor of Africa for power

• sovereignty disputes ex. South China Sea & other countries like Philippines fighting over ocean territory

forming borders

• political borders can often…

  • cause conflict between states

  • clear cultural structures

• state scale ex. countries

• intrastate scale ex. provinces in Canada

process of boundaries

1. defined - boundary agreed upon and set

2. delimited - drawn on map

3. demarcated - wall, sign, etc.

Gerrymandering

• cracking - distributing them

• packing - like minded voters into a few districts

water borders

• united nations conference on the law of seas (unclos): proposed standard oceanic boundaires for UN states

border system

• territorial sea: area of sea from shore out to 12-nautircal miles all laws of the country applies

• exclusive economic zone (EEZ): exclusive economic rights from shore out to 200 nautical miles a sate controls all aspects of natural resource exploration and extraction. only applies to natural resources, not all laws of country

• high seas: international seas. outside 12 mile limit. admiralty law is applied.

  • admiralty law: part of international law that dictates egal procedures on high seas.

• beyond 200 mile limit, international fishing fleets can hook or catch whatever ocean life they choose and is unregulated

• international whaling commission: whale hunts banned

border disputes

• UN abitration (negotiation) board setlles disputes regarding boundraies at sea

• ex. South China Sea dispute and their claiming of islands even tho countries like Vietname, Indonesia, Philippies, Malaysia, and Bruei claim them too

supra-national organizations

The UN (United Nations)

• allows member states to discuss and fix world problems

• organizations of UN

  • World Trade Organization: trying to eliminate trade barriers worldwide + trade disputes

    • not rlly effective

  • World Bank: provides loans to developing nations for capital improvements

  • UN Peacekeeprs: responsible for dividing opposing forces and providing peace and stability until a peace treaty can be made

• economic union removes trade barriers like currency, tariffs, etc.

OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)

• coordination of oil production to ensure the stability of the market

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

• originally meant to counter threat of Soviet union and Warsaw Pact. Now a counter threat to Russia and China

EU (European Union)

purposes

• free trade union: no taxes or tariffs are charged on goods and services in the countries of EU

• open-border policy: no longer any border control stations for immigrants or inspections in EU states

  • began with schengen plan: west germany, france, belgium, luexembourg, and netherlands opened their borders to one another

• monetary union: united by the Euro. eliminated costs of currency exchange fees.

  • but because of the financial crisis in 2008, some states question if the Euro is stable

• judicial union: european court of justice provides legal venue for cases between lawsuits within the union

• legislative and regulatory bodies: EU parliament was established to propose and approve laws within the union

downsides

• cost of EU governance made significant increase of the cost of many items in Europe

  • known as value-added tax (VAT): increase of the cost of goods and services (term in EU)

european union constitution

• proposed for ratification in 2004

• unclear common foreign policies

• political leftists saw this to be too pro-business

• right-wing sentiment against turkey in the EU also resulted in no

• concerned about continued loss of sovereignty for member-state govs.

Genocide & Ethnic Cleansing

• hyper-nationalism is often an excuse for ethnic cleansing

genocide historic examples:

1. Armenian Genocide: undertaken by Ottoman govt. during WW1 in 195

2. Cambodian Genocide: tried to make a classless society by killing anything different. 1.5mil wealthy people died.

3. Rwandan Genocide: Tutsi and Hulu

• the result of superiposed boundaries (boundaries set from outside powers) that weren’t in line with the cultural landscape along with the tratement of both tribes resulted in ethnic cleansing and genocide.

1. Bosnia: In 1992, Bosnia separated from Yugoslavia. Ethnic cleansing, NATO stepped in.

2. Kosovo: Slobodan M. ordered Serbian military in against Ethnic Albanians

3. Darfur: struggle between African Darfuri and Arabic Sudanese Govt.

political economy + gov. systems

feudalism

• aristocracy: royals having power

• this system made peasants (poor farmers and laborers) in a cycle of debt

• absolute monarchy: head of state and head of government. meaning has full power.

  • ex. saudi arabia, brunei, morocco

decline of feudalism

• constitutional monarchy: supreme aristocrat remains head of state, leaders of elected parliament is head of gov., with integrated legislative and executive powers.

• commonwelath of nations: independent former parts of bitish empire retain british cmonarch as their head state. these govs have own parliaments and head of gov

  • ex. canada, jamaica, new zealand, fiji, bahamas, etc.

free-market democracy

• def: elected representative systems. democracy. people have a say.

• republics: free of aristocracy or monarchal control. full under the control of the common people

• separation of powers: legislative, executive, judicial power

problems w republics

• wealthy businesspeople and crops have replaced the monarch in terms of control of money, land, and resources. creates uneven power relations

marxist-socialism

• karl marx

• marxism: class-free society where there were no inequalities in wealth or power. the state would own all the land and industry, gov would direct economic productivity, and everyone would earn same amt of money.

• planned economy: didn’t rely on supply and demand. a planned economy

• quotas: government sending “assignments” to agricultural or manufacturing production to met needs of the country

• good in theory, not in practice

• pros: everyone had the right to healthcare and infrastructure programs. this influenced free market economies. pulled countries out of poverty

geopolitics

balkanization: situation in which political landscape goes from larger state to several smaller states

irredentism: when a minority ethnic group desires to break away from multiethnic state and form its own nation-state, or breakaway and align itself with a culturally similar state

• ex. russia where groups are seeking independence or annexation by neighboring sovereign state that’s cuturally similar

reunification

• ex. east & west germany

neocolonialism: contemporary form of colonialism, based on economic control

• ex. China building new ports and roads in Africa for Chinese political and economic power over them. creates debt to China, creating control.

models & theories

heartland-rimland model

• define global geopolitical landscape and determine areas of potential future conflcit

• primary commodity is agricultural land

• he was accurate

heartland

• area that had lots of resources

• easter european steppe: very productive area of grain cultivation

  • mostly controlled by russian empire then

• has mineral and timber-rich region

rimland

• area that potentially invade heartland

• ex. german empire, romania, etc.

shatterbelt theory

• he was accurate

• pivot area: place of comodity

• inner crescent: invaders

• outer crescent: rest of the world (ex. US)

• cold war conflicts would likely occur within the inner crescent

• inner crescent areas of geopolitical weakness are shatterbelts

  • shatterbelts: areas where they are in between conflict of other countries

containment theory

• strategic policy that the US and its allies would attempt to build a containment wall around the core communist states

• anytime USSR or China attempted to expand communist influence, forces of NATO and other democratic state allies should be deployed to stop them

• this was successful at first, but didn’t work.

• buffer states: lands that would protect them by creating a surrounding bugger of sympathetic countries

  • what China was doing to protect them

• satellite states: controlled independent states by other huge power in the times of conflicts

long term success

• communism was limited

• devastating impact on Soviet Union’s economy

• public’s reaction to the morters of the Red Army soldiers killed in the War in Afghanistan sparked centrifugal force

• all of this led to USSR’s gov to fall