Types of Political Entities
A territory with a permanent population, defined borders, and sovereignty (independence).
What is a State?
A political border drawn in a regular, geometric manner, often a straight line, without regard for environmental or cultural patterns
What is a Geometric boundary?
Conflict over the language of the border agreement in a treaty or boundary contract
- "What does the contract say?"
What is a Definitional boundary dispute?
A narrow, strategic passage (usually water) that can be blocked to stop trade (e.g., Strait of Hormuz).
What is a Choke Point?
Regulated trade and colonization in Africa. It formalized the scramble to gain colonies in Africa and set up boundaries for each country's colonies.
What was the Conference of Berlin (1884)?
An independent country dominated by a relatively homogeneous cultural group (e.g., Japan, Iceland).
What is a Nation-State?
A border that no longer functions but is still visible on the landscape (e.g., the Berlin Wall).
What is a Relic boundary?
Territorial dispute along the edge of two neighboring land owners, disagreement over where the line is actually placed on the map or on the ground.
- "You put the fence in the wrong spot!"
What is a Locational boundary dispute?
A region caught between stronger colliding political or cultural forces (e.g., Eastern Europe during the Cold War).
What is a Shatterbelt?
The process of declining from a higher to a lower level of effective power, vitality, or essential quality.
WHICH CAN LEAD TO...
The process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities (named after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s).
What is Devolution?
What is Balkanization?
A nation that does not have its own sovereign state (e.g., Kurds, Palestinians).
What is a Stateless-Nation?
Forced onto a landscape by outside powers (e.g., borders in Africa from the Berlin Conference).
What is a Superimposed boundary?
This is a disagreement over how the boundary should function or be managed.
- "How are we running this border?"
What is a Operational boundary dispute?
When three or more states form an alliance for mutual benefit (e.g., UN, EU, NATO, ASEAN).
What is Supranationalism?
In 1994, Constitution for the Ocean was established to protect its resources
What was the UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea)?
A country that contains more than one nation (e.g., Canada with Quebec, the UK).
What is a Multinational State?
Existed before the cultural landscape emerged and stayed in place while people moved in to occupy the surrounding area (e.g., US-Canada border).
What is an Antecedent boundary?
This is a disagreement over natural resources that lie on or under the boundary.
- "That's my oil/water!"
What is an Allocational boundary dispute?
Historical processes in which European powers controlled foreign territories for resources and power.
What is Colonialism/Imperialism?
The ultimate authority of a state to govern itself and make its own laws without interference from other states.
The concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves. This is the "fuel" for most independence movements.
What is Sovereignty?
What is Self-Determinism?
A nation that stretches across several state borders (e.g., Koreans in North and South Korea).
What is a Multistate Nation?
Developed with the evolution of the cultural landscape and is adjusted as the cultural landscape changes (e.g., much of Europe).
What is a Subsequent boundary?
Before a dispute can happen, a boundary must be created. There are three main phases or steps. (name for each of the three phases AND what it means)
What is Definition: Negotiating the legal terms (the "contract").
What is Delimitation: Drawing the line on a map.
What is Demarcation: Physically marking the land (signs, walls, pillars).
Modern control (often economic rather than military) of developing countries by more powerful states.
What is Neocolonialism?
Electoral Geography (US Specific)
Every 10 years, the US counts its population.
Redetermining how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives based on the Census.
Redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.
What is the Census?
What is Reapportionment?
What is Gerrymandering?