Political Geography
Evolution of the contemporary political pattern
Territoriality – how Earth’s surface should be organized
Debra Troxell, NBCT
19th Cent. GeoPolitics
• Colonization
• Mercantilism
• Imperialism
• White
Man’s Burden
• Manifest
• Monroe
Destiny
Doctrine
Remember
“The White
Man’s
Burden”???
Which one do you think
is more accurate?
• Alfred
T. Mahan – US (1??0-1914) to gain
power must control sea lanes
The German School
• Friedrich
Ratzel (1844-1904) AN ORGANIC
STATE
• “The state resembles a biological organism
whose life cycle extends from birth through
maturity and, ultimately, decline and death.
To prolong its existence, the state requires
nourishment, just as an organism needs food.
Such nourishment is provided by the
acquisition of territories belonging to less
powerful competitors” -lebensraum. (deBlij
245)
• An extreme form of environmental
determinism
• Justified Nazi expansion
GeoPolitiks
• Karl
Haushofer (1869-1946) Germ.
• Ideas
used by Nazi party for Germany’s theories
of race superiority and need for territorial
conquest. Promoting
 A land & sea power
 Lebensraum (living space)
 Autarky (economic self-sufficiency)
 Organic state
• His
student was Rudolf Hess
Heartland Theory
• Halford
Mackinder, Jr.(1861-1947) English
geographer
• Believed
the greatest powers would control the
land, not the seas
• The
greatest land would be in Eurasia, “the world
island” b/c contains largest landmass and
population aka the heartland or the “pivot area”
Heartland Theory
• Mackinder
warned that “Who rules East Europe
commands the Heartland, who rules the
Heartland commands the World-Island, who rules
the World-Island commands the World.”
Fellmann 437
Rimland Theory
• Nicholas
Spykman (1894-1943) agreed
that Eurasia was the likely base for
world domination, but argued that the
coastal fringes were the key areas – the
Rimland Theory – contains dense
population, abundant resources, coastal
access, and access to interior
Effect
• US
equated the Heartland Theory w/the USSR
so adopted containment in reaction to the
Domino Theory
• Creating
alliances in the Rimland:
 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in West Asia
 Southeast Treaty Organization (SEATO)
• Eastern
Europe became a shatterbelt or
shatter zone during the Cold War – countries
located strategically within the spheres of
influence of larger, competing countries.
Common for countries to have economic
problems and political instability
The contemporary political pattern is a “nation-state”…
Concepts of political power and territoriality
• Territoriality
– efforts to control pieces of the
earth’s surface for political and social ends
• Political
Culture – the collection of political
beliefs, values, practices, and institutions that the
government is based on
Boundaries
•
Physical / Natural Boundaries
•
Geometric Boundaries
• Cultural
Boundaries
 Antecedent Boundaries
 Malaysia/Indonesia
 Canada/US
 Consequent Boundaries
 Religious Boundaries
 between Ireland & N. Ireland
 Language Boundaries
 Subsequent Boundaries
 Yugoslavia
 Superimposed Boundaries
 Indonesia/Papua New Guinea
Influences of boundaries on
identity, interaction, and
exchange
• Boundary
disputes
 Positional (definitional) disputes
 Defining the location of the border
 1848 – US and Mexico
 Current – Argentina and Chile (Andes Mtns)
 Territorial disputes
 Issues of annexation & irredentism
 1800s - Texas/Mexico
 WWII – Germany/Czechoslovakia
 Resource (allocational) dispute
 Functional (operational) dispute
Influences of boundaries on
identity, interaction, and
exchange
• Boundary
disputes
 Positional (definitional) disputes
 Territorial disputes
 Resource (allocational) dispute
 Involve natural resources (minerals, oil,
fish) in border areas
 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War
 Functional (operational) dispute
 Disagree over policies that apply in border
areas
 US/Mexico immigration control
Boundaries
• Defined
• Delimited
• Demarcated
• Adminstered
Fortified Boundaries
• Green
Line – Israel
• Green
Line - Cyprus
• Great
Wall of China
• Berlin
Wall
• Morocco/Western
berms
Sahara – earth
5. Electoral Geography
• Redistricting
& Reapportionment
• Gerrymander
• “electoral
districts, municipalities”
Congressional reapportionment
If Party A is in control of redistricting…
• Wasted
• Excess
district
votes: Party B is a minority in every district
votes: almost all of Party B supporters are in one
• Stacked
votes: Party A controls the majority of districts,
yet Party B controls more than 1 – can result in very
strange shaped districts
www.redistrictinggame.org
“Gerrymandering”
Redistricting for
partisan purposes; redrawing legislative districts for
the purpose of benefitting the party in power, ex NC
district 12…
A famous gerrymander
2016: Suggestion based on Federal Court
NC Voter registration
I
205
229
1
Change in Electoral Votes
1980
41
1990
33
2000
31
2010
30
NC
Florida
13
17
14
25
15
27
15
28
Texas
California
26
45
32
54
34
55
37
55
New York
Presidential Elections
2008
2004
2012
2008 Election
2004 Presidential Election
2012 Presidential Election
2012 Presidential Election
2012 Presidential Election
2012 Presidential Election
Patterns of local, regional, and metropolitan
governance
• Federalism
 Divides power between the central government and
“local” governments
 allows strong power to units of local government
within the country (the US), gives local people more
power and representation
 can lead to tension due to regional/local
representatives fighting for their own constituents
Patterns of local, regional, and
metropolitan governance
Unitary
places power in the hands of the central
government officials (Cuba)
the local government cannot make its own
decisions or repairs, must request and wait
for answer from the central government
local people have little voice
Local & Metropolitan Forms of Governance
• Municipalities,
school districts, regional planning
commissions are subnational political units that have
varying degrees of local control
…
• Somali
• Soviet
woman voting
repression
• Catalonia
• the
wants independence
Kurds would like a state