Unit 4 Vocabulary

State - Area organized into a political unit and ruled by a government, has a permanent population, occupies a defined territory, Ex: largest - Russia, smallest - Monaco. 

Sovereignty - The inner affairs of a region are independent of control by other states. 

Nation - A group with a common culture. 

Nation-state - The population of a country is homogeneous, Ex: Denmark, Slovenia, Japan, Iceland. 

Stateless nation - Ethnic group without a state, Ex: Kurds in the Middle East. 

Microstate - Sovereign state with a small population and land, Ex: Monaco. 

- China - Conflict between whether Taiwan is independent from China or not. 

- Western Sahara - Morocco claims the Sahrawi Republic while most surrounding states consider it independent. 

- Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK all claim the South Pole. 

City-state - First states, made of towns and surrounding countryside, walls made to show boundaries, some with military power take over such as the Roman empire, the first one arose in Mesopotamia. 

Self-determination - The concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves. 

Satellite states - Dominated by another state politically and economically. 

Multi-state nation - Nation stretches across borders of states, Ex: North and South Korea. 

Multi-ethnic state - State with more than one ethnicity, Ex: US. 

Multinational state - A country with more than one ethnicity with self-determination, Ex: Russia’s Caucasus region between the black and Caspian seas with the Azeris, Armenians, and Georgians. 

Decolonization - Colonial settlements become independent nations, Ex: 13 colonies. 

Colony - Territory legally tied to state rather than being independent, Ex: Puerto Rico, not a part of Congress but is home to US citizens. 

Colonialism - A country establishes a settlement to impose its politics, economy, and culture on that territory. 

Imperialism - Control of territory already occupied by another society. 

Ethnonationalism - Ethnicity wants its sovereignty. 

Morphology - A state's geographical shape affects spatial cohesion and political viability, Ex: Chile skinny. 

Berlin conference - 1884-85, European nations claimed Africa and created superimposed borders. 

Versailles peace conference - Leaders after WW1 redraw the map of Europe. 

Apartheid - Domination over a certain race, black in South and Southwest Africa, now Namibia, 1948-90. 

Cold War - Diplomatic, political, and military rivalry between US and Soviets, 1945-1991. 

The organic theory is that states are born and need nourishment and living space to survive. 

Heartland theory - Mackinder, in the early 1900s, the best base for world domination is the Eurasian heartland. 

Rimland theory - Spykman, 1944, the best base for global domination is Eurasian rimland. 

Choke point - A geographical land feature such as a valley or waterway narrowing causing a decrease in forces making their way through. 

Centripetal forces - Bind or hold together, ex: strong leadership, external threat, education, democracy, Russian language for the Soviet Union. 

Centrifugal forces - Divide or tear state, devolutionary forces, ex: culture/religious/linguistic differences. 

State - Formal name for the country, defined borders, sovereign gov, recognized, permanent population. 

Democracy - Citizens elect leaders and can run for office. 

Autocracy - Country run by ruler’s interests. 

Anocracy - Not fully democratic, mix of two. 

Unitary system - Centralized control, no local power, works best in nation-states with less cultural differences, smaller states, ex: France, European countries, North Korea, Kenya, Rwanda, and China. 

Confederal systems - Less central power, lots of power to states, confederate states 

Federal systems - Between unitary and confederal, ex: United States, Canada, Brazil, India, Belgium. 

Reapportionment - Assigning representation based on population every census. 

Redistricting - Redrawing district boundaries so each district contains the same amount of people. 

Frontier - Zone no state exercises complete political control, rather than boundaries separating. 

Border conflicts - Positional, territorial, resource, functional. 

Shatterbelt - Distress bc of cultural/ethnic conflict, ex: Israel, Kashmir, and East Europe during the Cold War. 

Physical Boundaries - Desert (Sahara desert), mountain (Himalayas India), water (Rio Grande R.). 

Cultural boundaries - Geometric (a straight line drawn on the map, Canada and US border), religious, language, ethnic (England, France, Portugal, Spain boundaries, bc of language or religion), Ex: Pakistan and India. 

Delimited boundary - States disagree about the interpretation of documents that define a boundary, Ex: Argentina and Chile's borders on the Andes mountains, drawn on the map to show limits of space. 

Antecedent boundary - Result of the area becoming population and gaining value, existed before the present settlement occurred and the culture arrived, Ex: US and Canada, Ohio R. 

Subsequent boundary - Developed with the evolution of cultural change, Ex: Irish catholic and protestant northern Ireland, velvet divorce in Czechoslovakia. 

Open boundary - Boundary people can cross w/o obstacles, Ex: the EU allows people to travel between member states. 

Natural boundary - Based on physical geography, Ex: rivers like the Rio Grande. 

Militarized boundary - Heavily fortified boundaries, discouraged crossing of people, good, info. 

Superimposed boundary - Political, dividing the ethnically similar population by a more powerful country, causing loss of culture, creation of new culture, migration, government change, ineffective governance, multi-state nation, multinational state Ex: Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Africa in the Berlin Conference. 

Relic boundary - Historic boundary, no longer used/nonfunctional, Ex: Berlin Wall Germany, Great Wall China. 

Defined boundary - Established by a legal document, divides two entities, an invisible line. 

Demarcated boundary - Identified on physical landscape, sign, or complex system, ex: DMZ, berlin wall. 

Geometric boundary - Straight line, doesn’t follow physical features, large-Egypt and Libya, small-suburbs. 

Irredentism - A country wants to annex a similar ethnic portion of another country, Ex: Hitler invading Czechoslovakia, Somalia - Ethiopia conflict over Somalis, Serbians in Bosnia, Kashmir region in India, Reich trying to connect all German-speaking people in Europe. 

Allocational dispute - Disagree over resources at borders, Ex: Iraq and Kuwait over the Rumaila oil field. 

Functional disputes - Disagree over policies applied along the boundary, immigration, Ex: Mexico border. 

Definitional boundary dispute - Two or more parties disagree on the interpretation of a legal doc or map, Ex: Chile and Argentina. 

Locational boundary dispute - Conflict over location or place of boundary, Ex: Egypt and Sudan 

Operational boundary dispute - Conflict over the operation, Ex: is migration allowed? US and Mexico. 

Enclaves - Country or part of a country surrounded by the territory of another, Ex: Lesotho. 

Exclaves - Part of the country is separated from the rest. 

Forward capital - A capital city positioned near the international border, confirms the state’s determination to maintain presence. 

- Capitals that moved somewhere after 1950: Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan. 

Geopolitics - Study of interplay between international political relations and environmental context. 

Supranationalism - 3 or more countries form unions for economic, political, or cultural reasons. 

Terrorism - Systematic use of violence to intimidate populations, Ex: 9-11, Afghanistan and Pakistan harbor al-Qaeda terrorists.