Unit 4- Political Geography

Front 1

Boundary

Back 1

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

Front 2

Capitalism

Back 2

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

Front 3

Centrifugal

Back 3

Forces that tend to divide a country—such as internal religious, linguistic, ethnic, or ideological differences.

Front 4

Centripetal

Back 4

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

Front 5

Colonialism

Back 5

Rule by an autonomous power over a subordinate and alien people and place.

Front 6

Commodification

Back 6

The process through which something is given monetary value. 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.

Front 7

Core

Back 7

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

Front 8

Critical geopolitics

Back 8

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

Front 9

Democracy

Back 9

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

Front 10

Deterritorialization

Back 10

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

Front 11

Devolution

Back 11

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

Front 12

Federal

Back 12

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 own identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres.

Front 13

Geometric boundary

Back 13

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

Front 14

Gerrymandering

Back 14

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.

Front 15

Heartland theory

Back 15

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.

Front 16

Majority-minority districts

Back 16

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

Front 17

Mercantilism

Back 17

In a general sense, associated with the promotion of commercialism and trade. More specifically, a protectionist policy of European states during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries that promoted a state’s economic position in the contest with other countries.

Front 18

Multinational state

Back 18

State with more than one nation within its borders.

Front 19

Multistate nation

Back 19

Nation that stretches across borders and across states.

Front 20

Nation

Back 20

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.

Front 21

Nation-state

Back 21

Theoretically, a recognized member of the modern state system possessing formal sovereignty and occupied by a people who see themselves as a single, united nation.

Front 22

Peace of Westphalia

Back 22

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.

Front 23

Periphery

Back 23

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

Front 24

Political geography

Back 24

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.

Front 25

Reapportionment

Back 25

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

Front 26

Reterritorialization

Back 26

The process of a state moving to solidify control over its territory.

Front 27

Scale

Back 27

Representation of a real-world phenomenon at a certain level of reduction or generalization. In cartography, the ratio of map distance to ground distance; indicated on a map as a bar graph, representative fraction, and/or verbal statement.

Front 28

Semi-periphery

Back 28

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

Front 29

Sovereignty

Back 29

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.

Front 30

Splitting

Back 30

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.

Front 31

State

Back 31

A politically organized territory that is administered by a sovereigngovernment and is recognized by a significant portion of the internationalcommunity. It has a defined territory, a permanent population, a government,and is recognized by others.

Front 32

Stateless nation

Back 32

Nation that does not have a state.

Front 33

Supranational organization

Back 33

A venture involving three or more nation states involving formal political, economic, and/or cultural cooperation to promote shared objectives.

Front 34

Territorial integrity

Back 34

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

Front 35

Territorial representation

Back 35

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

Front 36

Territoriality

Back 36

In political geography, a country’s or more local community’s sense of property and attachment toward its territory, as expressed by its determination to keep it inviolable and strongly defended.

Front 37

Territory

Back 37

A system of political units with fixed, distinct boundaries and at least a quasi-independent government.

Front 38

Unilateralism

Back 38

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

Front 39

Unitary

Back 39

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

Front 40

World Systems Theory

Back 40

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