Chapter 8: Political Geography
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JaleahCooke on August 24, 2010
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70 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Balance of Power | Condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries. |
| Boundary | Invisible line that marks the extent of a state's territory. |
| City-state | A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate hinterland. |
| Colonialism | Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory. |
| Colony | A territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independent. |
| Compact State | A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly. |
| Elongated State | A state with a long, narrow shape. |
| Federal State | An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government. |
| Fragmented State | A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory. |
| Frontier | A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control. |
| Gerrymandering | Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power. |
| Imperialism | Control of territory already occupied and organized by an indigenous society. |
| Landlocked State | A state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea. |
| Microstate | A state that encompasses a very small land area. |
| Perforated State | A state that completely surrounds another one. |
| Prorupted State | An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension. |
| Sovereignty | Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states. |
| State | An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government with control over its internal and foreign affairs. |
| Unitary State | An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials. |
| Geopolitics | The study of the political and strategic significance of geography- the location, size, and resources of places |
| Organic Theory (Fredrich Ratzel) | Concieved of a state as a living organism that must acquire new territories into order to thrive (coined phrase "lebensraum" (living space)) |
| Sea Power (Alfred T. Mahan) | A US naval officer and historian, Mahan argued that naval power was the key to success in international politics; the nation that controlled the seas held the decisive factor in modern welfare. Mahan's work appeared at a time when the nations of Europe and Japan were engaged in a fiercely competitive arms race. His books were quickly translated into several languages and were widely read by political leaders, especially in Germany, where they were used as a justification for a naval buildup. In the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and other proponents of a big navy and overaseas expansion were much influenced by Mahan's writings. |
| Heartland Theory (Halford Mackinder) | Argument that the control of the Eurasian continent was the key to world conquest: "Who rules Eastern Europe commands and the Heartland; [Eurasia] Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island' [Europe-Asia-Africa] Who rules the World-Island commands the World" |
| Rimland Theory (Nicholas Spykman) | Argument that the coastal rim of Eurasia held the key to global power (a counterthesis to Mackinder's heartland thesis): "Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia; Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world." |
| Domino Theory | 20th century American justification for limiting the spread of communism; argued that if one country were allowed to fall to communists, other adjacent ares would likely follow. |
| Territory | A non-sovereign geographic area which has come under the authority of another government; which has not been granted the powers of self-government normally devolved to secondary territorial divisions; or both. |
| Nation | The government of a sovereign state. |
| State | An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government with control over its internal and foreign affairs. |
| Nation-state | A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality. |
| Multi-ethnic State | A state that contains more than one ethnicity |
| Multinational State | State that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities. |
| Race | Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor. |
| Sovereignity | Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states |
| Nationalism | Loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality. |
| Centripetal Forces | An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state |
| Centrifugal Forces | Forces that divide a state - internal religious, political, economic, linguistic, or ethnic differences |
| Ethnicity | Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions. |
| Federal State | An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government. |
| Unitary State | An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials |
| Confederation | A joining of several groups for a common purpose |
| Decolonization | The action of changing from colonial to independent status |
| International Organization | An alliance of two or more countries seeking cooperation with each other without giving up either's autonomy or self-determination |
| Supranational Organization | Alliance of three or more states for the mutual benefits of all involved. |
| Self-determination | Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves |
| Devolution | The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government |
| Gerrymandering | Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power. |
| Microstate/Ministate | An imprecise term for a territory, extremely small in both area and population. |
| Compact State | A state posessing a roughly circular, oval, or rectangular territory in whch the distance from the geometric center to any point on the boundary exhibits little variance. |
| Fragmented State | A state whose territory consists of several separated parts, not a contiguous whole. The individual parts may be isolated from each other by the land area of other states or by international waters. |
| Elongated State | A state whose territory is decidedly long and narrow in that its length is at least six times greater than its average width. |
| Prorupted State | A state exhibiting a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main body of territory. |
| Perforated State | A state whose territory completely surrounds that of another state. |
| Landlocked State | A state without access to the sea. |
| Exclave | A bounded (non-island) piece of territory that is part of a particular state but lies separated from it by territory of another state. |
| Enclave | A piece of territory that is surrounded by another political unit of which it is not a part. |
| Geometric Boundary | A political boundary defined and delimited as a straight line or an arc. |
| Physical-Political (Natural-Political Boundary) | A natural boundary is just like rivers, mountains, or forest that separate nations by geographic objects. A political boundary is the limiting lines of jurisdictional authority for the various levels of government. |
| Cultural-Political Boundary | Straight lines that serve as political boundaries that are unrelated to physical and /or cultural differences |
| Antecedent Boundary | Boundary that was created before the present day cultural landscape developed |
| Subsequent Boundary | Boundary evolved as the cultural landscape of an area took shape. |
| Superimposed Boundary | Boundary that is forcibly drawn across a unified cultural landscape. |
| Relict Boundary | A border that has ceased to function but whose imprints are still evident on the cultural landscape. |
| Frontier | A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control. |
| Forward Capital | Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state's determination to maintain its presence in the region in contention. |
| Irredentism | A policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a country aimed at a group of its nationals living in a neighboring country |
| Forward Capital | Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state's determination to maintain its presence in the region in contention. |
| Shatterbelt | A large, strategically located region that is occupied by a number of conflicting states and is caught between the conflicting interests of adjoining Great Powers; a zone of chronic political splintering and facturing. |
| Balkanization | Breaking up of an area into smaller (and often hostile) units |
| Apartheid | Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas. |
| Ethnic Cleansing | Forcible ouster of entire populations from their homelands by a stronger power. |
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