Chapter 8: Political Geography

Question 1

City-state

Answer 1

a city that forms an independent state with the surrounding territory

Question 2

What is colonialism?

Answer 2

effort by one country to establish settlements in a territory and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles on the territory.

Question 3

Microstate

Answer 3

states with very small land areas

Question 4

Nation

Answer 4

group of people who share common traits; tightly knit group of people possessing bonds of language, ethnicity, religion, or other shared cultural attributes

Question 5

Sovereignty

Answer 5

independence from any outside control of internal affairs; autonomy of a country

Question 6

A state is…
An area organized in a _______ unit and ruled b an established _______ that has control over its ______ and _____ affairs.

Answer 6

Political
Government
Internal and
Foreign

Question 7

Why is the sovereignty of Western Sahara disputed?

Answer 7

Morocco claims Western Sahara, but most countries in Africa consider Western Sahara sovereign

Question 8

Describe the relationship between China and Taiwan.

Answer 8

China’s government considers Taiwan a part of China, but most other countries consider China and Taiwan as separate nations.

Question 9

Colony

Answer 9

territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than being completely independent

Question 10

What is a state territory that mainly corresponds to a particular ethnicity?
Examples?

Answer 10

Nation State

Japan, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia

Question 11

What is a multinational state?

Example?

Answer 11

country that contains more than one ethnicity (opposite of a nation state)
Russia recognizes 39 ethnic groups

Question 12

How many remaining colonies are there? Examples?

Answer 12

about 60

Puerto Rico

Question 13

When was the UN created and why?

Answer 13

At the end of WWII

To function as a facilitator for discussion regarding international problems

Question 14

Identify some challenges the UN has in carrying out missions.

Answer 14

Limited power, lacks troops, lacks authority, tries to maintain neutrality

Question 15

Why has the world become more democratic?

Answer 15

1. Govt regulations in exchange for broadening individual rights and liberties
2. Widening of participation of policy making
3. Diffusion of democratic govt from North America to other regions

Question 16

What are the 12 indicators that calculate Fragile State Index?

Answer 16

• based on sum of scores for 12 indicators
  1. security apparatus
  2. factionalized elites
  3. group grievance
  4. economic decline
  5. uneven economic development
  6. human flight & brain drain
  7. state legitimacy
  8. public services
  9. human rights & rule of law
  10. demographic pressures
  11. refugees & IDP
  12. external intervention

Question 17

Describe the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Which countries signed?
Which countries are suspect states?

Answer 17

• prevent spread of nuclear weapons & weapons technology, promote cooperation, & achieve nuclear disarmament
• US, Russia, UK, France, & China
• India, Pakistan, North Korea, & Israel

Question 18

Distinctive characteristics of terrorism…

1. Trying to achieve objectives through ____?
2. Viewing ______ as a means of bringing widespread publicity to their cause.
3. Believing in a cause so strongly they are willing to _____ for it.

Answer 18

1. Organized acts of terror
2. Violence
3. Die

Question 19

Describe the world’s major terrorist organization.

Answer 19

• Al Qaeda means “the base” or “the foundation”

- Duty to wage a holy war against US bc of US involvement in Saudi Arabia and Israel

Question 20

What are the three types of physical boundaries?

Answer 20

Desert
Mountain
Water

Question 21

What makes a desert boundary effective?

Answer 21

Deserts are hard to cross and sparsely inhabited

Question 22

What makes mountains effective?

Answer 22

must be hard to cross; sometimes isolate nationalities on either side

Question 23

What makes water effective?

Answer 23

most common physical boundary

visible on a map, relatively unchanging, & offer good protection

Question 24

What are two cultural boundaries?

Answer 24

Geometric

Ethnic

Question 25

Describe geometric boundary & give an example.

Answer 25

Straight lines drawn on a map, usually correspond to a line of latitude
US & Canadian border along 49 North

Question 26

Describe an ethnic boundary & give an example.

Answer 26

Coincides with differences in ethnicity (language and religion)
Language - Europe
Religion - when Britain partitioned India due to predominantly Muslim areas in the West (present-day Pakistan)

Question 27

What are five state shapes?

Answer 27

Compact
Prorupted 
Elongated
Perforated
Fragmented

Question 28

Compact State

Answer 28

• distance from center of state to any boundary does not vary significantly
• Benefits: ease of communication & easy to defend
• Downfalls: small in size, scarce in resources, lack population needed for labor
  Example: Poland

Question 29

Prorupted State

Answer 29

-Otherwise compact state with large projections created for two reasons:
1. provide state with access to resource (i.e. water)
2. Separate 2 states that otherwise would share a boundary
-Downfalls: difficult to govern & protect prorupted regions
Example: Thailand

Question 30

Elongated State

Answer 30

Benefits: less land to protect (maybe) & access to more resources from different regions
Downfalls: poor internal communication (maybe), difficult to protect, & regions may be isolated from capital
Example: Chile, Italy

Question 31

Fragmented States

Answer 31

Benefits: local ethnicities/nationalities maintain large degree of independence
Downfalls: difficult to protect, difficult to mandate national level laws, political conflict if separated by another state, communication hindered, & transportation of goods difficult
Examples: Japan, Indonesia, India

Question 32

Perforated states

Answer 32

A state that completely surrounds another one
Downfalls: unrest in surrounding state can carry into surrounded state, inside state must rely on outside state for imports/exports
Example: South Africa bc it surrounds Lesotho and Swaziland

Question 33

What is gerrymandering?

Provide an example of an alternate way of designing legislative districts.

Answer 33

• practice of drawing boundaries of legislative districts so as to unfairly favor one political party over another
• Bipartisan commissions:

Question 34

What is the Fragile State Index?

What region has the most fragile states?

Answer 34

• Annual report published by the US assessing UN member states on vulnerability of collapse or conflict
• middle east/eastern/northern africa (Yemen, Somalia, Syria, South Sudan)