Chapter 10: Political Geography

Question 1

biopolitics

Answer 1

the extension of state power over the physical and political bod- ies of a population.

Question 2

bioterrorism

Answer 2

deliberate use of microorganisms or toxins from living organisms to induce death or disease.

Question 3

citizenship

Answer 3

a category of belonging to a nation-state that includes civil, political, and social rights.

Question 4

cold war

Answer 4

the state of heightened military and political tension as well as economic competition between the former Soviet Union and its satellite states and the United States and its allies.

Question 5

confederation

Answer 5

a group of states united for a common purpose.

Question 6

corruption

Answer 6

any abuse of a position of trust (in either the public or private sector) gain an unfair advantage.

Question 7

decolonization

Answer 7

the acquisition by colonized peoples of control over their own territory.
deep ecology: approach

Question 8

discourse

Answer 8

institutionalized ways of constituting knowledge.

Question 9

democratic rule

Answer 9

a system in which public policies and officials are directly chosen by popular vote.

Question 10

domino theory

Answer 10

the theory that if one country in a region chooses or is forced to accept a communist political and economic system, then neighboring countries would be irresistibly susceptible to communism.

Question 11

East/West divide

Answer 11

communist and noncommunist countries, respectively.

Question 12

electoral college

Answer 12

a unique political-geographic body that the United States possesses, composed of a specified number of delegates allocated to each state based on that state’s population as of the most recent official.

Question 13

federal state

Answer 13

form of government in which power is allocated to units of local government within the country.

Question 14

geopolitics

Answer 14

state’s power to control space or territory and shape the foreign policy of individual states and international political relations.

Question 15

gerrymandering

Answer 15

practice of redistricting for partisan purposes.

Question 16

global civil society

Answer 16

set of institutions, organizations, and behaviors situated between the state, business world, and family, including voluntary and nonprofit organizations, philanthropic institutions, and social and political movements.

Question 17

governance

Answer 17

refers to the norms, rules and laws that are invoked to regulate a people or a state.

Question 18

government

Answer 18

the body or group of persons who run the administration of a country.

Question 19

human rights

Answer 19

people’s individual rights to justice, freedom, and equality, considered by most societies to belong automatically to all people.

Question 20

international organization

Answer 20

group that includes two or more states seeking
political and/or economic cooperation with each other.

Question 21

international regime

Answer 21

orientation of contemporary politics around the inter- national arena instead of the national.

Question 22

irredentism

Answer 22

assertion by the government of a country that a minority living outside its formal borders belongs to it historically and culturally.

Question 23

nation

Answer 23

group of people often sharing common elements of culture, such as religion or language or a history or political identity.

Question 24

nation-state

Answer 24

ideal form consisting of a homogeneous group of people governed by their own state.

Question 25

nationalism

Answer 25

feeling of belonging to a nation as well as the belief that a nation has a natural right to determine its own affairs.

Question 26

neocolonialism

Answer 26

economic and political strategies by which powerful states in core economies indirectly maintain or extend their influence over other areas or people.

Question 27

new world order

Answer 27

triumph of capitalism over communism, wherein the United States becomes the world’s only superpower and therefore its polic- ing force.

Question 28

North/South divide

Answer 28

differentiation made between the colonizing states of the Northern Hemisphere and the formerly colonized states of the Southern Hemisphere.

Question 29

Orientalism

Answer 29

discourse that positions the West as culturally superior to the East.

Question 30

reapportionment

Answer 30

process of allocating electoral seats to geographical areas.

Question 31

redistricting

Answer 31

defining and redefining of territorial district boundaries

Question 32

regionalism

Answer 32

feeling of collective identity based on a population’s politico- territorial identification within a state or across state boundaries.

Question 33

sectionalism

Answer 33

extreme devotion to local interests and customs.

Question 34

self-determination

Answer 34

right of a group with a distinctive politico-territorial identity to determine its own destiny, at least in part, through the control of its own territory.

Question 35

sovereignity

Answer 35

exercise of state power over people and territory, recognized by other states and codified by international law.

Question 36

state

Answer 36

an independent political units with territorial boundaries that are inter-
nationally recognized by other states.

Question 37

supranational organization

Answer 37

collections of individual states with a common goal that may be economic and/or political in nature.

Question 38

territorial organization

Answer 38

system of government formally structured by area, not by social groups.

Question 39

territory

Answer 39

delimited area over which a state exercises control and which is recognized by other states.

Question 40

terrorism

Answer 40

threat or use of force to bring about political change.

Question 41

unitary state