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Political Geography
How humans define and control land and its resources.
Political Geography Basics Political geography is study of human political
organization of the earth at various geographic levels Study spatial layout of political organizations at, above
and below country level Above country level study organizations like the United
Nations At country level, study organization of government and
boundaries Below country level can study voting districts of local
politics
Personal Space Territoriality applies on a personal level as well as a
country level Personal space defined: area we claim as our own territory
into which others may not enter without our permission When someone crosses into your personal space, how do
you respond? Can this be applied to countries?
How big your personal space is depends from person to person Example: people from a small town may have larger
areas of personal space than someone from a larger city like New York. Why is that?
Territorial Dimensions of Politics Territoriality: creating ownership over a defined
space Can be space as small as bedroom to as large as
a country Typically evokes and emotional response Some people think territoriality of humans is
similar to that of animal’s aggressive defense of territory but others argue humans can make allowances that animals can’t Examples: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Germany’s invasion
of Poland in 1939 and passport control
Map of world’s countries
State vs. Nation State: (State with a capital “S”) political unit with a
permanent population, territorial boundaries that are recognized by other states, an effective government, a working economy and sovereignty. Sovereignty defined: internationally recognized
control a state has over the people and territory within its boundaries
State can be used interchangeably with country state (with a small “s”) is like Utah
Nation: a group of people who share a common culture and identify as a cohesive group People are often willing to fight on behalf of their
nationality
More on States and Nations Over 200 states in the world today Is the United States a nation or a state? If the U.S. is a nation, what makes it a nation? Nation-State: a state with only one nation within its borders
Example: Iceland and Japan Stateless-nation: when a nation does not have a territory to
call its own Example: Assyrian Christians or Kurds of Iraq or Ughirs of
western China Multinational states: a state the includes more than one
nation within its borders Example: United States or Russia
Political Systems Organization of government Many different types but main ones are
Theocracy: rule of religious elite Monarchy: rule by one person, usually king or queen Totalitarian: rule using fear, force and media Democratic Republics: rule of the people through
representatives Many types but most common are Presidential and
Parliamentary systems
Federal Governmental Structures Defined: government with a central government
and strong regional governments that share power with the central government
Examples: United States and Germany This type of government works well in
geographically large areas Can create problems if the autonomous region
wants to break away. Opposite of a Unitary system.
Confederate Governmental Structure Defined: where a weak central government
exists with regional governments holding most of the power
Examples: Articles of Confederation and the United States
Usually seen in countries that are afraid of a strong central government
Basic Political Beliefs The “left” vs. the “right” It is not just Republican vs. Democrat Left Ideas
Government is the answer Right Ideas
Less government is the answer
Ethnicity Defined: identity with a group of people who share
cultural traditions of a particular homeland or hearth
Race: identity with a group of people who share a biological ancestor
Ethnicities tend to cluster together sometimes leading to tension and violence between groups Example: African-Americans and Caucasion Americans
Oftimes, ethnic groups give rise to nations creating political systems
Ethno nationalism and Conflict Ethno nationalism: powerful emotional attachment
to one’s nation that is a minority within a state and feels different from the rest of the state’s people
Occurs when minority nations feel they do not have enough self-determination (power to control their own territory and destiny)
Ethno nationalism can lead to great amounts of conflict Examples: Chechnya and Russia
Ethnic Cleansing Defined: process in which a more powerful
ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region
Often a consequence of ethnonationalism Examples: the Former Yugoslavia,
Rwanda, Hitler
Buffer States Defined: independent country located between
two larger countries that are in conflict Created to try and calm two conflicting states or
prevent them from further violence Russia and China have historically fought,
Mongolia has helped reduce direct confrontation between the two countries
Brazil and Argentina historically have fought so country of Uruguay was created
Buffer Zone Defined: two or more countries sit between
two larger countries in conflict Historical example was eastern Europe
Eastern Europe separated Western Europe (NATO States) and Soviet Union (communist country)
Problem was Soviets tried to dominate buffer zone
Satellite States Defined: countries controlled by another, more
powerful state Can happen in buffer zones but it doesn’t have to
be that way Example: Poland was satellite state of the Soviet
Union where Moscow controlled it almost as tightly as a colony
Creation of satellite states in Eastern Europe created what Winston Churchill called the “iron curtain”
Map of USSR satellite states
Shatter Belt Defined: state or group of states that exists within
a sphere of competition between larger states Typically high levels of violence in these areas Often victims of innovations, boundary changes
and poor economic development Historical example: Poland between Germany and
Soviet Union in World War II Current example: Transcaucasia
Boundaries Important because boundaries are often at the root of many
conflicts of varying scales Our lives are shaped by boundaries
Neighbors or your yard City to city State to state
International boundaries: separate states’ territories, extends to define what the state owns above and below the ground
There are many types of political boundaries Geometric, physical, cultural, antecedent, subsequent,
superimposed and relict
Geometric Political Boundaries Defined: straight-line
boundaries that do not relate to the cultural or physical features of the territories involved
Example: North and South Korea, the United States and Canada
Physical (natural) Political Boundaries Defined: territory
separated according to natural features in the landscape like mountains, deserts or rivers
Example: France and Spain, United States and Mexico
Cultural Boundaries
Defined: changes in the cultural landscape-can include things like language or religion Can be more than one type of boundary at the same time
Examples: Pakistan and India, Spain and Portugal
Antecedent Boundaries Existed before human
cultures developed into their current forms-defined and evolved before present human day landscape
Usually the least likely to experience violence or conflict
Examples: Kentucky and Indiana separated by the Ohio River or Malaysia and Indonesia on the island of Borneo
Subsequent Boundaries Defined: divide space as a
result of human interaction and negotiation after significant settlement has occurred-it has changed over history with attempt to deal with cultural differences
Not as typically non-violent as subsequent but still fairly non-confrontational
Example: United States and Canada
Superimposed Boundaries Defined: forcibly put on a
landscape by outsiders, such as invaders or an organization like the United Nations
Most likely to be violent or have conflict
Example: the modern state of Israel
Relict Boundary Defined: no longer
functions as a boundary but only as a reminder of what once was
Examples: North and South United States, Berlin Wall in Germany
Creation of Boundaries Many steps should be followed in the creation of a
boundary into a final form Definition: phase in which the exact location of a
boundary is legally described and negotiated Delimitation: step when a boundary’s definition is
drawn onto a map Demarcation: visible marking of a boundary on the
landscape with a fence, line, sign, wall or other means
Administration: enforcement by a government or people of the boundary that has been created
Ocean Boundaries Oceans are very difficult to define and delineate borders on and in United Nations held the Convention on the Law of the Seas
(UNCLOS) where they paved out the following provisions Coastal states can stake a claim up to 12 nautical miles from
their shorelines but ships from other countries can pass through these waters
Coastal state can claim up to 200 nautical miles of territory beyond its shoreline as an exclusive economic zone where the country can explore and mine natural resources that may be in the waters
When there is not enough water for each country on opposite sides of the sea to have 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone, the two or more countries involved will divide up the water evenly in a rule called the median-line principle
Frontiers Defined: regions where boundaries are very thinly
or weakly developed, zones where territoriality is unclear and not well established
Can create problems because of questionable government control
In modern world, Antarctica is frontier region Local communities can have frontier regions
between neighborhood boundaries Be clear that boundaries clear lines but frontiers
are REGIONS!
Territorial Morphology Defined: the relationship between a state’s
geographic shape, size, relative location and political situation
In 9th grade English, it is how things like shape, size and location affect the political situations facing the people internally and internationally
5 classifications of geographic shapes of states: fragmented, elongated, compact, prorupted (also known as protruded) and perforated
Fragmented States Defined: when a state
geographically exists in several pieces
Can create problems in maintaining unity among constituent parts
Examples: Indonesia, Malaysia
Elongated States Defined: long and thin in
shape Creates problems when
state’s power base, or capital, loses influence over one end of the elongation
Can also pose transportation problems
Example: Chili, Vietnam
Compact State Defined: does not vary
greatly in distance from its center point to any point on its boundary
Can be nearly square or circular in shape
Often seen as the political ideal because no one part feels to far away from the center of control
Examples: Switzerland, Hungary
Prorupted or Protruded State Defined: when a piece
protrudes from the core area, like an arm of a leg jutting off from the main boundary
Often face problems similar to elongated because jutting piece may try to break away or may be invaded
Example: Thailand
Perforated State Defined: has a hole
punched in it by another state-completely surrounds another state
Relationship between perforated state and the perforating state can be difficult and tension filled
Example: Lesotho and South Africa
Microstates Defined: very small state like
Singapore or Monaco Usually more unified than large
states but not always, why? Typically have unitary government
structure where one main decision-making body governs the entire state
In unitary systems, local governments can exist but they will typically be weak and serve only as administrative organs of the unitary government
Unitary governments can be dictatorships
Landlocked countries Defined: without coastal
access to a body of water
Forces a country to depend on their neighbors to get to water sources for trade and navigation
This can be big national security issue
Political Enclave Defined: state or part of a state, completely
surrounded by another state The state surrounding an enclave is a
perforated state What could be the benefits of this? What could be the costs of this? Examples: Lesotho and South Africa or
Berlin during the Cold War
Exclave Defined: a territorial political extension of another
state Example: West Berlin in East Germany or
Kaliningrad and Russia Enclaves and exclaves can cause conflict over
boundaries Example: Azerbaijan has Muslim majority while its
neighbor Armenia has a Christian majority Within Azerbaijan, there is a minority nation of Christian
Armenians
Colonialism By 16th century, Europeans started competing for world
empires Colonialism is control by a state over another area or people
Often state colonizing has a more industrialized economy than the region it is taking over
First period of colonialism was following European exploration that set up mercantilistic system
Mercantilism: when a state acquires colonies that can provide it with raw materials to ship back home and use in making products for the population in the mother country Other motives was colonization, spreading Christianity
and glory of having more land than other states
2nd wave of colonization Happened in late 1800s when when western
European powers were competing to “carve up” Africa
Done to make European gain more land to make them appear more powerful and feed their industrializing economies
England and France occupied 70% of colonial territory in Africa but Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium also colonized Africa
Map of Colonized Africa
Imperialism Defined: process of establishing political, social
and economic dominance over a colonized area Fueled by colonization Europeans acculturated indigenous peoples to
European Christianity and culture, even destroying indigenous landscapes and imposing European architecture that signified dominance
Impact of colonialism and imperialism? There were 70 countries in the world in 1938 and more
than 200 in 2007
What side of the road people drive on
Dependency Theory Defined: the idea that many countries are poor today
because of their colonization by European powers Proponents say former colonies in South America, Africa and
Asia have not been able to heal from the imperial domination established by the European colonizers and are still dependent on them Also argue that Europeans drew political boundaries
according to resources available to the colonizers not according to the cultural groupings of native peoples
When the Europeans left, the populations weren’t unified causing violent ethno national conflicts
Examples: Sudan, Rwanda
Other support of dependency theory Political and economic structures established by the
Europeans benefited colonizers not local people Most colonized areas did not develop a workable
infrastructure that included health care, roads and communication lines
Many colonies were also deeply in debt to their mother countries-many took loans from colonizers to build economies that had arguable been destroyed by the colonizers
This created neocolonialism or postcolonial dependency
World Systems Analysis Developed by Immanuel Wallerstein as a capitalistic
system of interlocking states Theorizes the situation in one country is directly linked
to that country’s role in the greater capitalistic system Neocolonialism and its related dependency is not
necessarily just a result of internal struggles within a poor country but is a consequence of that country’s relationship to a larger system
Argues the world is divided into three categories and that countries shift among these categories over time
Three categories of countries Economic core: consists of industrialized,
developed countries that drive the global economy-developed countries
Economic periphery: consists of countries that are underdeveloped and were, usually once the core’s colonies-developing countries
Economic semi periphery: third region in world system where countries are between the economic core and the periphery-middle income countries
World systems map
Geopolitics Defined: branch of political geography that
analyzes how states behave as political and territorial systems-the study of how states interact and compete in the political landscape
Friedrich Ratzel developed organize theory that says states are living organisms that hunger for land and want to grow larger and larger by acquiring more nourishment in the form of land Hitler used this theory as justification for moving into other
countries
More on Geopolitics Halford J. Mackinder developed heartland theory
Defined: the era of sea power was ending and control over land would be the key power
Believed Eurasia was the “world island” and the key to dominating the world
Ruling the world island necessitated controlling eastern Europe Used in the Cold War with USSR’s expansion and U.S. theory of
capitalism Nicolas Spykman: developed rimland theory
Based on Mackinder’s theory defining the rimland to be all of Eurasia’ periphery, not its core of Russia and Central Asia
Felt it was important to balance power in the rimland to prevent a global power from emerging
This helped to justify Vietnam and Korean wars
Picture of Rimland Territory
Core Areas The State’s Core is where the political and economic
power is concentrated A well-integrated core that functions as a healthy part of
the state helps spread development throughout the country
Countries with more than one core are called multicore states
When a multicore situation exists, it can create competition for control and jeopardize unification Examples: Nigeria and Sudan
Infrastructure can help to unify the government and distribute growth
Capital Cities In most cases, the capital is the political nucleus of a country In some cases, the capital city is a primate city that is defined as
not only the political nucleus but also many times more economically powerful than any other city in the state
Primate cities often exist in less-developed countries and old nation-states Example: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Paris, France or London,
England Forward capital: capital city built by a state to achieve some
national goal Example: St. Petersburg Russia or moving capital back to Berlin
after unification
Gerrymandering Internal political boundaries are often subject of
debate and manipulation Electoral boundaries affect voting patterns and
outcomes Electoral College in the United States
Gerrymandering occurs when electoral boundaries are redrawing to give a political party an advantage
This can dramatically influence the power structure within a state
Map of Gerrymandered Boundaries
Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces Forces that unify a region and people or forces that divide a region
and its people Centrifugal forces: divide a state’s people and regions
Separatism in a region Internal boundary conflicts Deep religious divisions
Centripetal forces: united a state’s people and regions Unifying symbols like flags A national pledge of allegiance Strong identity based on language, religion or other cultural
traits
Devolution Defined: process of transferring some power from the
central government to regional governments-can reduce tensions by giving angry groups more regional power and autonomy
Usually happens when states have centrifugal forces Examples
1990’s England gave more power to Scotland by providing Scotland their own representative in Parliament
Montenegrins vying for increased autonomy, Serbia devolved but Montenegrins still declared independence in 2006
Supranational Defined: growing trend of three or more countries
forming an alliance for cultural, economic or military reasons
Space-time compression is increasing this movement Created so that states can collectively reach a common
goal they may not be able to reach independently Can be effective in cases where one country threatens
another by imposing international sanctions Example: UN and Iraq BEFORE current war
Terrorism Has been around for a really long time but since
9-11 has been “buzz word” in political arenas Defined as the use of violence or threats to
intimidate or coerce, especially for political aims Currently the U.S. is fighting the “war on
terrorism” and concern over “state sponsored terrorism” Iran Afghanistan: the Taliban vs. Al Qaeda Iraq
United Nations Excellent example of supranationalism History of United Nations
After WWI, Wilson asked for international organization to keep peace
Treaty of Versailles set up League of Nations but it was never really successful and U.S. never joined
After WWII, world powers realized they needed a functioning world organization so they created the United Nations
Goals were to create collective security and ensure no global war
The United Nations Formed in 1945 and serves as closest structure to world
government in history Headquarters are in New York except for the International Court of
Justice which is in the Hague Outlines duties and organization in the UN Charter that states the
following goals: Maintain international peace and security Develop friendly relations among nations Cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and
humanitarian problems Promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms Be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining
these ends
Pictures of the United Nations
Structure of the United Nations General Assembly
All member-states send one representative to this parliament-like deliberative body
Each state has one vote, all are equal Palestine and Vatican are not voting members but have permanent
observer status Security Council
Has 15 member-states that make decisions related to war and peace and sending UN “peacekeepers”
Assigns sanctions to punish states of threatening collective security 10 members are rotating, 5 are permanent Permanent members have veto power and all decisions must be
carried out by general membership
U.N Organization, cont. Economic and Social Council
Coordinated antipoverty and prohumanitarian efforts around world as well as promoting cultural awareness and improved global health
International Court of Justice Principal judicial organ that settles all legal disputes submitted
to it by UN member-states in addition to given legal advice to the UN
Composed of 15 judges elected for a 9 year term by the Security Council and General Assembly
Secretariat Executive branch in charge of all administrative issues to keep
UN operating Head is UN secretary general who is appointed by General
Assembly on recommendation of Security Council
The European Union Perhaps the best example of economic supranational Represents growth of European economic community and has been developing
since the 1950s Historical development
Started in Benelux countries before end of WWII These countries benefited from reduced trade barriers to compete with larger
European countries 1958 European Economic Community (sometimes called the Common Market)
created among states wanting economic integration and cooperation 1992 EU born with economic, political, cultural and judicial integration goals Today has common currency, talks for military and political organization and is
growing with fall of communism Impact of supranational organizations
Challenges ideas of state sovereignty Many countries reluctant to give power up to larger organizations
Examples: U.S. not entering League of Nations or Britain not using Euro
Map of EU countries
Other Supranational Organizations ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States): founded in 1975
to create more cooperative economic union among 15 west African states LAIA (Latin American Integration Association): formed in 1980 to promote
free trade OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries): formed to
coordinate petroleum policies among members to secure fair and stable prices-its five founding members in 1960 were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela
Arab League: founded in 1945 in Cairo, combines voluntary member to promote common interests
AU: African Union formed in 1999, similar to EU to create greater efficiency and reduce strains of their colonial roots
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement): created in 1994 between US, Canada and Mexico