Unit 4: Political Geography

To be considered a state, a state must have

  • Determined territory within borders

  • Permanent Population

  • Government

  • Sovereignty: the right of a govt to control and defend its territory and determine what happens within its borders.

  • Recognition from other states

  • Unitary system: a single centralized government

    • Ultimate authority lies with the central government

    • (EX: People’s Republic of China)

    • Advantages: fewer government agencies, especially taxation tend to be less corrupt on the local level laws are in place quickly and fairly

    • Disadvantages: disconnected from the needs of a local area, tend to favor the dominant group slower, slower tending to local issues may fail to distribute goods evenly

  • Federal system: Power is held by regional units, shared power

    • Advantages: between the regions, that differ diversity of opinions, attention to local issues

    • Disadvantages: focuses on regional and local issues that allows leaders to prevent issues that may affect the whole country Cost and benefits may be distributed unevenly

  • Microstates: sovereign states that despite their very small size still hold the same position as much larger states

    • Island states, ports, or city-states, or they sit landlocked with no access to the sea

    • (EX: Andorra is landlocked)

  • Autonomous regions: certain parts of certain nations have been granted freedom from central authority, usually for historical, geographical, religious, or linguistic reasons

    • (EX: the Basque region of northeastern Spain has its own language, Euskara, which is thousands of years old and is unrelated to any of the Romance languages that surround it)

  • Semi-autonomous regions: have the same freedom as autonomous regions, but to a lesser degree

    Boundary Origins

    • Antecedent: Boundary lines that exist from prehistoric times

      • (EX: French-Spanish border along the Pyrenees Relic: Scotland-England border after The Act of Union in 1652)

    • Relic: Former state boundaries that still have political or cultural meaning

    • Subsequent: Lines resulting from conflict or cultural changes, such as war and migration

    • (EX: German-Polish border after 1945; Kaliningrad to the USSR in 1946)

    • Consequent: take into account the difference that exists within a cultural landscape separating groups that have distinct languages, religions, ethnicities or other traits

      • (EX/ Nunavut boundary in Canada)

    • Superimposed: Lines laid down for political reasons over existing cultural boundaries

      • (EX: Sub-Saharan Africa after the Berlin Conference of 1884; Yugoslavia and Iraq after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles)

    • Geometric: Mathematical, typically following the lines of longitude and latitude (US and Canada)

  • Boundary Process

    • When borders are claimed, negotiated, or captured

    • Delimitation process: when borders are put on the map

    • Demarcation process: when markers are placed on the ground to show where borders lie

  • Boundary Types

    • Physical border: natural boundaries such as rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, or deserts

    • Cultural border: estimated boundaries between nations, ethnic groups, or tribes

    • Geometric border: boundaries surveyed mostly along lines of latitude and longitude

  • Border Disputes

    • Definitional dispute: when border treaties are interpreted two different ways by states

      • (EX: Russian-Japanese Kuril Islands under Soviet control in 1945)

    • Locational dispute: when the border moves, like a river changing course or a lake drying up

      • (EX: India-Bangladesh territory along the Ganges-Brahmaputra River Delta)

    • Operational dispute: when borders are agreed on, but passage across the border is a problem

      • (EX: New passport requirements for entry into the United States after September 11, 2001)

    • Allocational dispute: when a resource lies on two sides of a border

      • (EX: Mexico-United States river allocations for irrigation and drinking water on the Colorado River and Rio Grande)

    • Devolution the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration

      • Ethnic separatism occurs when people of a particular ethnicity in a multinational state identify more strongly as an ethnic group than citizens of a state

        EX/ Basque region of spain

      • Ethnic cleansing / Genocide the attack of an ethnic group in attempt to eliminate it through expulsion, imprisonment or killing

      • Irredentism a political movement that is strongly tied to nationalism · the process by which a part of an existing state breaks away and merges with another

      Supranationalism alliance of 3 or more states working together for a common goal on to address an issue they share

      focus on economic, political, military, cultural (or combo)

      • Benefits of supranationalism

        • economic- countries can increase trade and bargaining power .. creating economics of scale reduces trade power

        • military - combined forces carry more military might 1 strength than individual countries NATO

        • environmental, social research conducts research on general topics such as climate change, wild life Resources Ease travel within area (ex: European union)

      • Drawbacks supranationalism

      • involves making commitments that can challenge the sovereignty of member states - can limit economic, political actions of a country

      • Supranational organizations -UN, Arab League, African union, EU, NATO, Mercosur