Unit 4

State

A state is an area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government that has control over its internal and foreign affairs. Example: There are currently 196 independent countries or States around the world. Territories of countries or individual parts of a country are not countries in their own right.

Stateless ethnic group/Stateless nation

A stateless nation is a nation without a state. Example: A good example of a stateless nation would be the Kurds who have no country of their own but are split up between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Theocracy

A theocracy is a form of government in which priests rule in the name of a god. Example: The government in Iran. Another example is Saudi Arabia. These two countries are ruled by religious officials who believe the rules of the country come from divine intervention and are modern-day examples of theocracy.

Treaty ports

A treaty port is a port that was created by a treaty. The treaty would allow the port to be open to foreign trade. Example: The first treaty ports in China were British and were established at the conclusion of the First Opium War by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.

Unitary state

A unitary state us an internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials. Example: China is principally a unitary state formed with the central government having direct authority over the provinces and delegating authority to provincial governments.

Benelux

Benelux is a customs union comprising that includes the countries Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Example: The union's name is a word formed from joining the first two or three letters of each country's name - Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg - and was first used to name the customs agreement that started the union, which was signed in 1944. It is now used in a more general way to refer to the geographic, economic and cultural grouping of the three countries.

Berlin Conference

Berlin Conferance was a meeting from 1884-1885 at which representatives of European nations agreed on rules colonization of Africa

Boundary Dispute (Definitional, Locational, Operational, Allocational)

Boundary Disputes are conflicts of the location, size, and extent of borders between nations and states arguing over their boundaries and how they function. Definitional disputes focus on the legal language of the boundary agreement. Example: The Boundary Treaty of 1881 (Spanish: Tratado de Límites de 1881) between Argentina and Chile was signed on the 23 July 1881 in Buenos Aires by Bernardo de Irigoyen, on the part of Argentina, and Francisco de Borja Echeverría, on the part of Chile with the aim to establish a precise and exact borderline between the two countries. Locational disputes focus on the delimitation and possibly the boundary of a specific area. Example: The Saudi-Yemen barrier is a physical barrier constructed by Saudi Arabia along part of its 1,800-kilometer (1,100 mi) border with Yemen. It is a structure made of pipeline three metres (10 ft) high, filled with concrete and supported on posts. Operational disputes focus on neighbors who differ over the way their border should function. Example: The border, separating Mexico and the United States from each other, traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from major urban areas to inhospitable deserts. Allocational disputes focus on boundaries, mainly on the sea floor, while in search of resources. Example: The Iraq-Kuwait border dispute caught the world's attention on 2 August 1990 when Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait. The border dispute would fester over the next five months and ultimately manifest itself in a major war which began on 16 January 1991.

Boundary Process (Definition, Delimintation, Demarcation)

Boundary Process is the process or steps that are needed to create a boundary. Definition phase is the phase in which the exact location of a boundary is legally described and negotiated. Example: The UN Resolution 181 defined the partition of Palestine and the recent creation of Israel in 1947 Delimitation is the process of putting the boundary on the map. Example: Unbalanced or discriminatory delimitation is called "gerrymandering." Demarcation is the actually marking the boundary on the ground with a wall, fence, post, etc. Example: The worst border demarcation disputes has been with Thailand, including several islets in the Mekong river.

Electoral regions

Electoral regions are the different voting districts that make up local, state, and national regions. Example: EXAMPLES Apportionment is generally done on the basis of population. Seats in the United States House of Representatives, for instance, are reapportioned to individual states every 10 years following a census, with some states that have grown in population gaining seats. The United States Senate, by contrast, is apportioned without regard to population; every state gets exactly two senators.

European Union

European union is an international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members. Example: Peace in Europe was concluded for the first time by establishing an alliance of six countries which signed the agreement on joint management of their heavy industries - coal and steel. International security is now one of EU's main issues. With growing threats to a peaceful society, the EU has introduced several measures to combat such problems.

Federal

Federal is a system in which power is divided between the national and state governments Example: An example of a federal system of government is the United States. A federal system is a system in which the powers of the government are divided among the federal government, state and local governments. Another country that has a federal government is Germany.

Mackinder's Heartland Theory

Mackinder's Heartland Theory geopolitical theory that Eurasia was the "world island" and the key to dominating the world. Ruling this world island required controlling eastern Europe; linked to the domino theory.

Majortity/minority districts

Majority-minority districts are districts in which the majority of residents are part of an ethnic minority. Example: Creating majority-black districts necessarily leaves fewer black voters and therefore diminishes black-voter influence in predominantly white districts. On the other hand, the creation of majority-black districts can enhance the influence of black voters.

Manifest destiny

Manifest destiny is the belief that America was destined to expand to the Pacific, and possibly into Canada and Mexico. Example: When Thomas Jefferson authorized the Louisiana Purchase and sent Luis and Clark to explore all the newly begotten territory, that was an example of the manifest destiny. He purchased land that extended to the pacific ocean in an attempt to better america.

Mercantilism

Mercantilism is an economic system to increase a nation's wealth by government regulation of all of the nation's commercial interests.

Microstate/ Ministate

Microstate, also known as a ministate, is a state or territory that is small in population and area. Example: Microstates are distinct from micronations, which are not recognized as sovereign states. Special territories without full sovereignty.

NAFTA

NAFTA is a trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that encourages free trade between these North American countries.

Nanavut

Nanavut is a Canadian province where the majority of the Inuit population is located. Example: In 1999 Nunavut became the largest and newest territory in Canada. Formed from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories, this huge Canadian Arctic territory has just 30,000 residents, about 80 percent of whom are Inuit.

Multistate nation

Nation that stretches across borders and across states. Example: Korea is an example of a multi-state nation. The two states feel that they are the same nationality but they have very different political views and governments. East and West Germany are also an example of a multi-state nation.

National iconography

National iconography is the branch of art history that focuses on the identification, description, and the interpretation of images. Example: The cross has been a religious icon since the second century and represents Christianity. Marking the sign of the cross on someone's forehead or chest was used to ward off demons.

EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)

The EZZ is a sea zone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources. Example: The United States could harvest fish species in its EEZ to a point that is considered unsustainable. No matter what the rest of the world thought, other countries would have no right to intervene. This is how some countries justify whaling.

Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was a series of peace treaties that were signed between May 1648 and October 1648 in Osnabrück and Münster. The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch Republic.

Buffer State

A buffer state is a relatively small country sandwiched between two larger powers that can prevent dangerous conflicts between powerful countries. Example: One of the most famous buffer states in history is that of Afghanistan. During the 1800s, the mountainous nation was positioned between the Russian Empire to the north and a major section of the British Empire, namely the future nations of India and Pakistan to the south.

Multinational state

A multinational state is a state that contains two or more ethnic groups with ideas of self-determinism and agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as district nationalities. Example: The United Kingdom, the Russian Federation and Canada are viewed as present-day examples of multinational states, while Austria-Hungary, the USSR and Yugoslavia are examples of historical.

Nation

A nation is a group that share a common language, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural characteristics. Example: Members of some nations share an ethnicity, almost everyone in South Korea is Korean, for example.

Nation-state

A nation state is a country who's population share a common identity. Example: Nation state implies the two geographically coincide. Examples of nation states include Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Estonia, Hungary, Japan, Lebanon, Poland, and Malta. In these nation states, 95 percent of the population is made up of ethnic groups.

Satellite state

A satellite state is an independent nation under the control of a more powerful nation Example: In times of war or political tension, satellite states sometimes serve as buffers between an enemy country and the nation exerting control over the satellites.

Annexational

Annexational is when a territory is added into a political unit such as a country, state, county, or city. Example: In 1836 the Republic of Texas voted to be annexed by the United States. Despite the fact that Mexico still claimed Texas and Mexican leader Antonio López de Santa Anna warned that this would be "equivalent to a declaration of war against the Mexican Republic," President John Tyler signed a treaty of annexation with Texas in April 1844. After James Polk, a supporter of territorial expansion, won the presidency, but before he took office, Congress approved the annexation of Texas on February 28, 1845. On December 29, 1845, Texas became the 28th state.

Apartheid

Apartheid is a social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against non-whites. Example: The 'White Australia' policy describes Australia's approach to immigration from federation until the later part of the 20th century, which favored applicants from certain countries.The abolition of the policy took place over a period of 25 years. Following the election of a coalition of the Liberal and Country parties in 1949, Immigration Minister Harold Holt allowed 800 non-European refugees to remain in Australia and Japanese war brides to enter Australia. Over the years Australian governments slowly dismantled the policy with the final vestiges being removed in 1973 by the new Labor government.

Balkinization

Balkinization in the process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicity. Example: In January 2011, a referendum was held in Sudan. The question asked was whether South Sudan, which has been the scene of a severe conflict in recent years, would like to gain independence from the rest of the country. This could eventually lead to the braking up of Sudan, a country with a population of 44 million people. Whether this event would be classified as an example of Balkanization remains to be seen, since one cannot predict whether the new states would be 'hostile'.

Boundary origins (Antecedent, Subsequent, Superimposed, Relic)

Boundary origin is meant to establish claims to land and were often smaller historically. Antecedent boundaries existed before human settlement in an area Example: 49th parallel separating the U.S. and Canada. Subsequent boundaries are formed along with cultural landscape. They accommodates religious, cultural and economic differences Example: the border between China and Vietnam is the result of a long term process of adjustment and modification. Superimposed boundaries are political boundaries that ignore cultural organization, placed by higher authority. Example: The division of African countries by the British. Relic boundaries are non-existant anymore, but impact of boundary is still seen. Example: The Berlin Wall between East and West Germany

Boundary type (Natural/physical, Ethnographic/cultural, Geometric)

Boundary types are the different types of boundaries that include, natural/physical, ethnographic/cultural, and geometric boundaries. Natural/physical boundaries are boundaries placed on recognizable natural features. Example: The border between Argentina and Chile is a physical boundary because the Andes Mountains separate the two countries. Ethnographic/cultural boundaries are boundaries that go with differences in ethnicity or culture. Example: Ireland has an ethnographic boundary because the lines were drawn according to different religious groups. India is another example with an ethnographic boundary. The borders were drawn according to religion. Geometric boundaries are boundaries that are defined and put on a map as a straight line or arc. Example: The boundary between the U.S. and Canada west of the Great Lakes is a geometric boundary.

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership and on the investment of money in business ventures in order to make a profit.

Centrifugal/ Centripetal

Centrifugal forces work to pull countries apart. Example: There are over 2,000 languages spoken in the African continent alone, with as many as 8,000 dialects. This acts as a centrifugal force because it creates a rupture in communication. Conflicts can easily begin due to a lack of communication. Centripedal forces work to bind countries together. Example: Language Language acts as a specific centripetal force because it unites people through a common form of communication. English in the U.S, Hindi in India, Bengali in Bangladesh, and Punjabi in Pakistan, eliminate miscommunication.

City-state

City-state is a sovereign state comprising a city and its remote developed area. Example: Greece, in the Bronze Age, also was organized into many small city-states, which are listed in Homer's Iliad: Mycenae, Sparta, Pylos, Athens, Corinth, Ithaca, and so on. These city-states also had kings.

Colonialism

Colonialism is an attempt by one country to start settlements and to enforce its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory. Example: Some examples of colonialism are settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, plantation colonies, surrogate colonialism, and internal colonialism. Some colonies were the Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Madagascar, French Polynesia, British Honduras, and Northern Rhodesia.

Commodification

Commodification is the process though which something is given material worth. Example: An example of commodification is the colors red, black, and green, which are the colors of the African Liberation Army.

Confederation

Confederations are groups that come together for a common purpose. Example: The Iroquois League, historically the Iroquois Confederacy, is a group of Native Americans and First Nations that consists of six nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Seneca and the Tuscarora.

Decolonization

Decolonization is the action of changing from colonial to independent status. Example: Mexico started off as a colony of Spain, but through a series of revolution and independent movements it not only gained its independence but was able to dominate not only its own people but most of central America.

Devolution

Devolution is a process in which political power is given to lower levels of state and government. Example: In the United States favoured diffusing power away from Washington, D.C., toward state and local governments. This trend was also experienced throughout the world.

Domino theory

Domino theory is a theory that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control. Example: Applying this to South-east Asia Eisenhower argued that if South Vietnam was taken by communists, then the other countries in the region such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia, would follow.

Forward capital

Forward capital is a symbolically relocated capital city, moved for economic or strategic reasons. Example: Brussels, the capital of the European Union (which is a government entity but is not a country) can also be considered a forward capital in that it was (at the time) centrally located among the original founding members and is considered a neutral location (not among the largest, most powerful members of France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom).

Frontier

Frontier is a zone separating two states in which neither state have political control. Example: the border area where Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay meet; an active South American center for contraband and drug trafficking and money laundering; a suspected locale for Islamic extremist groups.

Geopolitics

Geopolitics is a foreign policy based on consideration of the strategic locations or products of other lands. Example: Someone studying geopolitics might look at how France's political power has been influenced by the natural features within its borders, compared to say a land-locked country like Switzerland.

Gerrymander

Gerrymandering is the process of redrawing legislative boundaries to benefiting the party in power. Example: Nowadays many districts, with FL-20 being a good example, seem to be the result of computer algorithms with no regard whatsoever for human or natural boundaries. Needless to say, all sense of "community" within a congressional is out the window altogether when it is shaped like this, with jagged tendrils reaching out every which way to gobble up the desired demographic.

Global commons

Global commons are areas and resources that no country is allowed to own or claim as its own. Example: A local spring, grazing lands or natural source of lumber might all be examples. Essentially everybody owns it, and at the same time nobody owns it. Most of the oceans for example are common (the "high seas") as is Outer Space and the Moon, by recognized treaty.

Immigrant states

Immigrant states are a type of receiving state which is the target of many immigrants and are popular because of their economy, political freedom, and opportunity. Example: In 39 states the share of the immigrant population accounted for by the top sending country increased. The decline in diversity was most dramatic in Arkansas, North Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Tennessee, Utah, Nebraska, and Alabama.

Irredentism

Irredentism is the policy of cultural and political expansion into a neighboring state by a state whose nationals live in the neighboring state. Example: Efforts by the Third Reich to expand Germany's borders so as to encompass all German-speaking peoples in Europe

Israel/Palestine conflict

Israel/Palestine conflict the ongoing dispute between the Jewish and Arab populations in the former Ottoman Empire region of Palestine

Landlocked

Landlocked areas are places completely surrounded by land with no direct access to the ocean. Example: There are 31 landlocked developing countries(LLDCs) world-wide: 15 are located in Africa, 12 in Asia, 2 in Latin America and 2 in Central and Eastern Europe. According to the World Bank, LLDCs are paying around 50 percent more in transport costs than coastal countries, and have up to 60 percent lower volumes of trade.

Primate cities

Primate cities are a country's larges city most expressive of the national culture and are usually the capital city. Example: Geographer Mark Jefferson developed the law of the primate city to explain the phenomenon of huge cities that capture such a large proportion of a country's population as well as its economic activity.

Raison d'être

Raison d'être are a reason or justification for existing Example: phrase borrowed from French where it means simply "reason for being"; in English use it also comes to suggest a degree of rationalization, as "The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone".

Ratzel's Organic Theory (geopolitics)

Ratzel's Organic Theory is the theory of environment; that people and the environment have a fundamental organic interaction on a constant basis

Reapportionment

Reapportionment is the rearrangement of representation in a legislative body. Example: The U.S. Congress can pass laws to regulate the process to an extent and has done so on rare occasion - the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is one notable example.

Regionalism

Regionalism is the theory or practice of regional system of administration rather than a central system of administration. Example: Quebec from the rest of canada because quebec chooses to stick to their french heratige while the rest of canada has chosen a more american style of living.

Reunification

Reunification is to bring together to parts of a country under one government. Example: The German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany to form the reunited nation of Germany.

Enclaves/Exclave

See previous list

Enfranchise/suffrage

See previous list

Self-determination

Self-determination is the concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves. Example: Writing an article or speaking in support of Kashmiri, Tamil or Kurdish self-determination could be construed as inviting support for a proscribed organization.

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states. Example: Sovereignty is border inviolability and supremacy of the state under a supreme lawmaking authority. The notion of sovereignty sought to protect a country from being attacked by another country's army. It's for this reason that powerful countries can't just enter another country which isn't threatening them or dictate behaviour, even if they disagree with some of the policies of the sovereign country. For example: Myanmar has imprisoned an innocent woman for political reasons, but other countries can't send armies into the sovereign country of Myanmar to release her. We have to rely on diplomacy.

Spykman's Rimland Theory

Spykman's Rimland Theory is the theory that the domination of the coastal fringes of Eurasia would provide the base for world conquest.

Supranationalism

Supranationalism is a method of making decisions in multinational states where power is relocated or delegated to an authority by governments of member states. Example: The European Union is a primary example of European supranationalism. It is a political entity that holds international elections.

Territorial disputes

Territorial disputes are conflicts between two or more countries about their own territory or another territory. Example: India and Pakistan's territorial conflict over Kashmir is well known, as are the complications that it creates for cartographers.

Territorial morphology (Compact, Fragmented, Elongated, Prorupt, Perforated

Territorial morphology is a state's geographical shape, which can affect its spatial cohesion and political viability. A compact state is a state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly. Example: Uruguay because it is very small and has about the same area from the center. A fragmented state includes several discontinuous pieces of territory. Example: Azerbaijan is fragmented because it has more than one part of it in a different region. An elongated state is a state with a long and narrow shape. Example: Chile is elongated because it has a very long narrow shape. A prorupted state is an otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension. Example: Thailand is proprieties because it has a long projection. A perforated state is a state that completely surrounds another one. Example: South Africa completely surrounds Lesotho.

Territoriality

Territoriality is an area's sense of property and attachment toward its territory. Example: Israel´s expansion since its creation is an example of territoriality. Even though the United Nations partition plan for Palestine divided relatively equally the territory for Israel and Palestine, Israeli people felt they had the right to expand, and they claimed the neighboring regions as part of their country and have defended it for decades.

Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis

Wallerstein's World Systems Analysis depicted the relationship between developed and developing countries as one of "core" or "periphery."

Iron Curtain

The iron curtain is a political barrier that isolated the people of Eastern Europe after WWII. It also restricting their ability to travel outside the region. Example: The first recorded application of the term to Communist Russia is from Vasily Rozanov's 1918 polemic The Apocalypse of Our Times and it is possible that Churchill read it there when the book's English translation was published in 1920.

Median-line principle

The median-line principle is a method of dividing and creating boundaries at the mid-point between two areas. Example: The Great Lakes between Canada and the USA use the Median Line Principle to divide them between Canada and the USA.

Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)

UNCLOS is the law that says the rights and responsibilities concerning the ownership and use of seas and oceans and their resources Example:the treaty would grant the United States worldwide commercial access to undersea communications cables that keep America connected across the globe.