Political Geography
How humans define and control land
and its resources.
Political Geography Basics
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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
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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
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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
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Examples: Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Germany’s invasion
of Poland in 1939 and passport control
Map of world’s countries
State vs. Nation
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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
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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
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Organization of government
Many different types but main ones are
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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
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Many types but most common are Presidential and
Parliamentary systems
Federal Governmental Structures
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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
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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
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The “left” vs. the “right”
It is not just Republican vs. Democrat
Left Ideas
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Government is the answer
Right Ideas
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Less government is the answer
Ethnicity
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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
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Example: African-Americans and Caucasion Americans
Oftimes, ethnic groups give rise to nations
creating political systems
Ethno nationalism and Conflict
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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
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Examples: Chechnya and Russia
Ethnic Cleansing
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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
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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
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Defined: two or more countries sit between
two larger countries in conflict
Historical example was eastern Europe
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Eastern Europe separated Western Europe
(NATO States) and Soviet Union (communist
country)
Problem was Soviets tried to dominate
buffer zone
Satellite States
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Defined: changes in the cultural landscape-can
include things like language or religion
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Can be more than one type of boundary at the same time
Examples: Pakistan and India, Spain and Portugal
Antecedent Boundaries
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Defined: when a state
geographically exists in
several pieces
Can create problems in
maintaining unity among
constituent parts
Examples: Indonesia,
Malaysia
Elongated States
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Example: Azerbaijan has Muslim majority while its
neighbor Armenia has a Christian majority
Within Azerbaijan, there is a minority nation of Christian
Armenians
Colonialism
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Hitler used this theory as justification for moving into other
countries
More on Geopolitics
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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
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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
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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
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Internal political boundaries are often subject of
debate and manipulation
Electoral boundaries affect voting patterns and
outcomes
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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”
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Iran
Afghanistan: the Taliban vs. Al Qaeda
Iraq
United Nations
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Excellent example of supranationalism
History of United Nations
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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