1. Political Geography
Chapter 8

4. How is Space Politically Organized into States and Nations?

5. Political Geography
Political Geography – the study of the political organization of the world.
Accra, Ghana---Statue of Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana

6. State
State – a politically organized territory, administered by a sovereign government, with a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government. To be a state, an entity must be recognized as such by other states. (refers to a country, not a political subdivision like in the United States.)
There are currently 213 states in the world that have claimed sovereignty

7. Territorial Integrity –
Territoriality –
attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area
--Robert Stack, geographer
Sovereignty –
having a recognized right to control a territory, both politically and militarily
Territorial Integrity –
Under international law, a government has the right to keep the borders and territory of a state intact and free from attack.

8. The Modern State Idea The Peace of Westphalia
What defined the European continent as territorially defined states
1648- came out of years of fighting over religion (Thirty Years’ War)
The idea of a state that is tied to a particular territory with defined boundaries came out of Europe and diffused through:
colonialism

9. Nations
Nation – a culturally defined group of people with a shared past and a common future who relate to a territory and have political goals.
People construct nations to make sense of themselves.
Nations are “imagined communities”
-Benedict Anderson
imagined = you will never meet all the people in your nation
community = you see yourself as part of it

10. The nations we perceive as “natural” and “always existing” are relatively recent phenomena.
In 1648, Europe was divided into dozens of small territories.

11. Nation-States
A politically organized area in which nation and state occupy the same space.
- Ethnically homogeneous
Where at least 95% of the population in the state is of one ethnicity.
Examples:
Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland, *Japan*, Lebanon, Lesotho, Maldives, Malta, Mongolia, North and South Korea, Poland (after WWII), Portugal, Swaziland

12. Multistate Nation – when a nation stretches across borders and across states--- (A nation with more than one state.)
Transylvania – homeland for both Romanians and Hungarians. (Pg.227)

13. Multinational State – A state with more than one nation.
- In essence, a state where there is more than one kind of ethnicity comprising the population.
The Former Yugoslavia

14. Stateless Nation – a nation without a state… a group of people without a defined state to live in

17. European Colonialism and the Diffusion of the Nation-State Model
a physical action in which one state takes over control of another, taking over the government and ruling the territory as its own.
Two Waves of European Colonialism:

18. Dominant Colonial Influences, 1550-1950
This map shows the dominant influence, as some places were colonized by more than one power in this time period.

19. Colonization
Due to colonization, many states have adopted forms of mercantilism:
The accumulation of wealth through plunder, colonization, and protection of home industries and foreign markets.

20. Two Waves of Decolonization
First wave – focused on decolonization of the Americas
Second wave – focused on decolonization of Africa and Asia

21. The World Economy Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems Theory:
The world economy has one market and a global division of labor.
Although the world has multiple states, almost everything takes place within the context of the world economy.
The world economy has a three-tier structure.

22. Construction of the World Economy
Capitalism – people, corporations, and states produce goods and services and exchange them in the world market, with the goal of achieving profit. Commodification – the process of placing a price on a good and then buying, selling, and trading the good. Colonialism – brought the world into the world economy, setting up an interdependent global economy.

23. Three Tier Structure Core Periphery Semi-periphery
Processes that incorporate higher levels of education, higher salaries, and more technology
* Generate more wealth in the world economy
Periphery
Processes that incorporate lower levels of education, lower salaries, and less technology
* Generate less wealth in the world economy
Semi-periphery
Places where core and periphery processes are both occurring. Places that are exploited by the core but then exploit the periphery.
* Serves as a buffer between core and periphery

25. How do States Spatially Organize their Governments?

26. 1950’s----Richard Hartshorne (political geographer) described the forces that countries must deal with:
Centrifugal forces- forces that tend to divide a country.
Centripetal forces- forces that tend to unite or bind a country together
Instead of creating a balance of the two, governments attempt to unify the state through nation-building.

27. Two Common Forms of Government
Unitary – highly centralized government where the capital city serves as a focus of power.
Ex: China, Japan, U.K.
Federal – a government where the state is organized into territories, which have control over government policies and funds.
Ex: Mexico, United States, Nigeria
With a federal government comes Democracy- where the people have the ultimate say over what happens in the state.

28. Nigeria’s Federal Government –
Allows states within the state to determine
whether to have Shari’a Laws
Shari’a Laws
Legal systems based on traditional Islamic laws

29. The U.S. Federal Government –
Allows states within the state to determine “moral” laws such as death penalty, access to alcohol, and concealed weapons.
Minnesota’s concealed
weapons law
requires the posting of signs such as this on buildings that do not allow concealed weapons.

30. Devolution
Movement of power from the central government to regional governments within the state.
Many things can cause devolutionary movements:
Ethnocultural reasons: ethnic and/or cultural differences require the state to split into territories
Economic reasons: the state may want to switch their currency and/or let their territories have more power over funds
Spatial reasons: due to too much space and/or being fragmented, a move to being a federal state may be easier

31. Ethnocultural Devolutionary Movements
Eastern Europe
devolutionary forces since the fall of communism
Ethnic and/or cultural reasoning behind the movement of power

32. Economic Devolutionary Movements
Scotland
rise in independence movement is coupled with:
- European Union
- Scotland’s oil resources

33. Economic Devolutionary Movements
Catalonia, Spain
Barcelona is the center of banking and commerce in Spain and the region is much wealthier than the rest of Spain.

34. Spatial Devolutionary Movements
Hawai’i
Because of being so far from the U.S., it is easier for Hawaii to make their own decisions with what the U.S. government gives them instead of D.C. trying to control what goes on there.

35. Electoral Geography
A state’s electoral system is part of its spatial organization of government.
In the United States:
- territorial representation
- reapportionment
- voting rights for minority populations

36. Gerrymandering explained
Gerrymandering – drawing voting districts to benefit one group over another.
Majority-Minority districts drawn so that the majority of the population in the district is from the minority.
Gerrymandering explained

37. How are Boundaries Established, and Why do Boundary Disputes Occur?

38. Boundary – a vertical plane that cuts through the rocks below and the airspace above, dividing one state territory from another.

39. Boundaries often divide resources, such as oil between Kuwait and Iraq

40. Establishing Boundaries
Define—treaty, legal document
Delimit—draw on a map
Demarcate—mark the boundary
Administrate---determine how the boundary will be maintained and how goods and people will cross the boundary

41. Types of Boundaries Geometric boundaries – based on grid systems
eg. Boundary between the US and Canada Oregon Treaty th parallel
Four Corners
Physical-political boundaries – follow an agreed-upon feature in the physical geographic landscape.
eg. Boundary between the US and Mexico
Rio Grande River

42. Utah, Colorado, Arizona,
New Mexico

44. Types of boundaries
Antecedent boundary- established before an area is well populated/before cultural landscape develops
Subsequent boundary—drawn after the cultural landscape is in place
Consequent boundary—drawn to accommodate existing language, religious, or other cultural boundaries

45. Superimposed boundary- forced---ignore cultural and tribal differences across space. Example: much of Africa due to Colonization
Relic (relict) boundary- a former boundary line that is still visible and marked by some cultural landscape. Examples: Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall

46. Boundary Disputes
Definitional—focus on the legal language of the boundary agreement
Locational—center on the delimitation and possibly the demarcation of the boundary
Operational—involve neighbors who differ over the way their border should function
Allocational---disputes over resources

47. Irredentism--- any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. Some of these movements are also called pan-nationalist.
Somalia has many border conflicts with Ethiopia over the rights of Somalis living in Ethiopia

49. The Ocean Frontier
Law of the sea- law establishing state’s rights and responsibilities concerning the ownership and use of the Earth’s seas and oceans and their resources.
-Foreign ships can’t pass within 12 nautical miles of the country’s shore.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) • Exclusive economic rights extend 200 nautical miles from shore • Natural resources, fishing, etc. • Usually beyond continental shelf • Often overlap, generally split halfway, but many areas are under dispute

51. Buffer State
A relatively small country sandwiched between two larger powers.
Can help prevent dangerous conflicts between powerful countries.
First developed during the 1600s when the major European powers began to establish global empires.

52. Examples
Mongolia
Rhineland

53. Sinai Peninsula separating Israel from Egypt

54. Since the end of the World Wars, the concept of a buffer state has been replaced by the idea of a demilitarized zone (DMZ)

55. Cypriot DMZ between the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus

56. Buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea