Ap Human Geography Political Unit

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Political Geography

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A subdivision of human geography focused on the nature and implications of the evolving spatial organization of political governance and formal political practice on the Earth's surface. It is concerned with why political spaces emerge in the places that they do and with how the character of those spaces affects social, political, economic, and environmental understandings and practices.

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State

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A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereign government and is recognized by a significant portion of the international community. A state had a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, and is recognized by other states.

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Territory

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An area of land under the jurisdiction of a ruler or state

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Sovereignty

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A principle of international relations that holds that final authority over social, economic, and political matters should rest with the legitimate rulers of independent states.

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Territorial Integrity

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The right of a state to defend sovereign territory against incursion from other states.

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Mercantilism

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In a general sense, associated with the promotion of commercialism and trade. More specifically, a protectionist policy of European states during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries that promoted a state's economic position in the contest with other countries. The acquisition of gold and silver and the maintenance of a favorable trade balance (more exports than imports) were central to the policy.

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Peace of Westphalia

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Peace negotiated in 1648 to end the Thirty Years' War, Europe's most destructive internal struggle over religion. The treaties contained new language recognizing statehood and nationhood, clearly defined borders, and guarantees of security.

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Nation

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Legally, a term encompassing all the citizens of a state. Most definitions now tend to refer to a tightly knit group of people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, and other shared cultural attributes. Such homogeneity actually prevails within very few states.

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Democracy

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Government based on the principle that the people are the ultimate sovereign and have the final say over what happens within the state.

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Nation-State

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Theoretically, a recognized member of the modern state system possessing formal sovereignity and occupied by a people who see themselves as a single, united nation. Most nations and states aspire to this form, though it is realized almost nowhere. Nonetheless, in common parlance, nation-state is used as a synonym for country or state.

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Multinational State

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A state with more than one nation within its borders.

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Stateless Nation

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A nation that does not have a state.

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Colonialism

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Rule by an autonomous power over a subordinate and alien people and place. Although often established and maintained through political structures, colonialism also creates unequal cultural and economic relations. Because of the magnitude and impact of the European colonial project of the last few centuries, the term is generally understood to refer to that particular colonial endeavor.

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Scale

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Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization.

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World-Systems Theory

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Theory originated by Immanuel Wallerstein and illuminated by his three-tier structure, propossing that social change in the developing world is inextricably linked to the economic activities of the developed world.

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Capitalism

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Economic model wherein people, corporations, and states produce goods and exchange them on the world market, with the goal of achieving profit.

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Commodification

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The process through which something is given monetary value. Commodification occurs when a good or idea that previously was not regarded as an object to be bought and sold is turned into something that has a particular price and that can be traded in a market economy.

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Core

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Processes that incorporate higher levels of education, higher salaries, and more technology; generate more wealth than perifiary processes in the world-economy.

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Periphiary

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Processes that incorporate lower levels of education, lower salaries, and less technology; and generate less wealth than core processes in the world-economy.

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Semiperiphery

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Places where core and periphiary processes are both occurring; places that are exploited by the core but in turn exploit the periphery.

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Centripetal

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Forces that tend to unify a country - such as widespread commitment to a national culture, shared ideological objectives, and a common faith.

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Centrifugal

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Forces that tend to divide a country - such as internal religious, linguistic, enthnic, or idealogical differences.

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Unitary

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A nation-state that has a centralized government and administration that exercises power equally over all parts of the state.

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Federal

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A political-territorial system wherein a central government represents the various entities within a nation-state where they have common interests - defense, foreign affairs, and the like - yet allows these various entities to retain their w own identities and to aubergine their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres.

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Devolution

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The process whereby regions within a state demand and gain political strength and growing autonomy at the expense of the central government.

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Territorial Representation

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System wherein each representative is elected from a territorially defined district.

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Reappointment

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Process by which representative districts are switched according to population shifts, so that each district encompasses approximately the same number of people.

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Splitting

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In the context of determining representative districts, the process by which the majority and minority populations are spread evenly across each of the districts to be created therein, ensuring control by the majority of each of the districts; as opposed to the result of majority-minority districts.

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Majority-Minority Districts

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In the context of determining representative districts, the process by which a majority of the population is from the minority.

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Gerrymandering

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Redistricting for advantage, or the practice of dividing areas into electoral districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible.

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Boundary

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Vertical plane between states that cuts through the rocks below, and the airspace above the surface.

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Geometry Boundary

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Political boundary defined and delimited (and occasionally demarcated) as a straight line or an arc.

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Physical-Political Boundary

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Political boundary defined and delimited (and occasionally demarcated) by a prominent physical feature in the natural landscape - such as a river or the crest ridges of a mountain range.

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Heartland Theory

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A geopolitical hypothesis, proposed by British geographer Halford Mackinder during the first two decades of the twentieth century, that any political power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain sufficient strength to eventually dominate the world. Mackinder further proposed that since Eastern Europe controlled access to the Eurasian interior, it's rulers would command the vast "heartland" to the east.

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Critical Geopolitics

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Process by which geopoliticions deconstruct and focus on explaining the underlying spatial assumptions and territorial perspectives of politicians.

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Unilateralism

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World order in which one state is in the position of dominance with allies following rather than joining the political decision-making process.

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Supranational Organizations

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A venture involving three or more nation-states involving formal political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives. The European Union is one such organization.

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Deterritorialization

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The movement of economic, social, and cultural processes out of the hands of states

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Reterritorialization

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With respect to popular culture, when people within a place start to produce an aspect of popular culture themselves, doing so in the context of their local culture and making it their own.