Political Geography
• Study of human political organization of the earth at various geographic levels.

Territoriality
• Control over a space and the assumption of ownership to that space.

Sovereignty
• Internationally recognized control of a state over the people and territory within its boundaries.

State
• Political unit with a permanent population, territorial boundaries recognized by other states, an effective government, a working economy, and sovereignty.

Nation
• Group of people who share a common culture and identify as a cohesive group.

Stateless Nation
• Nation without territory to call its own

Nation-state
• State containing one nation, a cohesive group of people linked to their territory through a shared government and common goals.

Satellite State
• Country controlled by a more powerful state.

Centripetal Force
• Force that unifies a state’s people and regions.

Centrifugal Force
• Force that divides a state’s people and regions.

Federal Government Structure
• Organizational structure with a central government that shares power with strong regional governments.

Unitary Governmental
Structure
• Organizational structure in which one main governmental decision-making body exists for the entire state. Regions within the country may have their own local governments, but they are weak and usually serve only as administrative organs of the primary government based in the country’s capital.

Gerrymandering
• Redrawing electoral boundaries to give one political party an advantage over others.

Physical (or natural) political boundary
• Political boundary that separates territories according to natural features in the landscape, such as mountains, deserts, or rivers.

Superimposed Boundary
• Boundary forcibly put on a landscape by outsiders.

Relict Boundary
• Boundary that no longer functions as a boundary but only as a reminder of a line that once divided space.

LOOK AT PG. 180 IN YOUR
TEST PREP BOOK

SOUTH AFRICA-PERFORATED

RWANDA-COMPACT

THAILAND-PRORUPTED

CHILE-ELONGATED

INDONESIA-FRAGMENTED

Colonialism
• Control by a developed state over an underdeveloped area.

Imperialism
• The process of establishing political, social, and economic dominance over a colonized area

Supranationalism
• Growing trend of three or more countries forming an alliance for cultural, economic, and political situation.

EXAMPLES OF SUPRANATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS
• United Nations
• NATO
• Warsaw Pact
• European Union
• NAFTA

Devolution
• Process of transferring some power from the central government to regional governments.

Balkanization
• Division of a region or state into smaller units, usually along ethnic lines.

Dependency Theory
• According to this theory, former colonies in South America, Africa, and Asia have not been able to heal from imperial domination and are still dependent on their former European colonizers.

Mackinder’s Heartland Theory
• Geopolitical theory that Eurasia was the “world island” and the key to dominating the world. Ruling this world island required controlling eastern Europe; linked to the domino theory.

Rimland Theory
• Nicolas Spykman’s theory defining the rimland to be all of Eurasia’s periphery, not its core of Russia and
Central Asia. This rimland was the key to controlling the world island.