Europe Flashcards
Why is Europe so warm?
Northern Atlantic Ocean current creates marine west coast. Humid continental, and mediterraninan climates
Dikes
earthen wall
Polders
land reclaimed from the sea
Rotterdam’s importance
- Easy to get to
- At the mouth of the Rhine River (navigable river)
- Rhine river is connected to the Danube river through locks and canals
Energy sources
Geothermal (Iceland) and Coal (Eastern)
Cause of WW1
Reaction to imperialism, militarism, nationalism, alliances, and the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand started it all.
Feudalism
- no huge empires, more of a lull in time, changed when the renaissance happened
- nobles hold power
- similiar to slavery
Renaissance
rebirth in learning (music, art, theatre)
Greek and Roman contributions
- Greeks created first democracy
2. The Roman Empire (1,000 years) created developed roads and spread language (romance)
Language divisions of Europe
Germanic, Slavic, and romance languages
sequent occupance
process of settlement by successive groups of people, each group creating a culture landscape
Cold War
- Communism vs. Democracy (US verse Soviet Union)
- East vs West
- Warsaw Pact vs NATO
- Cold War was fought in small wars
- Communism fails in Eastern Europe (‘89 to ‘91) Berlin Wall goes down
- More devolution, ethnic lines
- Yugoslavia
Satellite States
- States controlled by the Soviet Union
2. mis-developed countries
Divisions/ legacy
the action of separating something into parts, or the process of being separated
U.K political divisions
Most of Britain is protestant, but the north part of Britain known as Northern Ireland is Roman Catholic. This created a lot of violence
constitutional monarchy
King and Queen are the head of the state but a parliament led by the prime minister serves as the law-making branch.
Switzerland’s confederation
group of states joined together for a common purpose. They use this as their government because they want to preserve neutrality and because they are multilingual
Switzerland’s cantons
Switzerland has 26 states
Ethno-nationalism
wanting a country for your ethnicity
Autonomy
self governing country or region
Devolution
Breakdown of country
Balkanization
to divide a region or territory into small, often hostile units
Why was the split of Yugoslavia so violent
Serbian nationalism. Serbia does not like being split up
Czechoslovakia vs Yugoslavia
Czech had a lot of Serbians in the country and the Serbians did not like being split up
micro-states
countries that are very small ex: Monaco and Vatican City
cultural roads
- people constantly crossing through
- In the middle of Africa, Europe, and Asia
Roman Empire- Catholicism
Bzantine Empire- Eastern Orthodox
Ottoman Empire- Islam
Balkan Diversity
Balkan peninsula is a culture cross road
multilingual
country that speaks multiple languages
Switzerland, Belgium, and Netherlands
E. Europe’s Mis-Developed
- Yugoslavia broke into 7 different countries
- Communism collapsed so they had to become a democracy
- people are having less kids bc it’s expensive and they are smart enough to know that
command to market economy was easier for…
countries that were close to Western Europe
who made early progress in the market economy
Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic
who made late progress in the market economy
Bulgaria and Romania
Joined EU in 2004
Why was it so difficult to go from command economy to market economy
- Legacy of Soviets wasn’t good
- Econ Efficiency not emphasized
- Old and Decaying Infrastructure
Why is Europe’s population aging
Europe is becoming developed so people are having less kids and more people are in urban areas and educated
What are the negatives of Europe’ aging population
- Population will continue to decrease
- economy will shrink if young workers can’t fill all the retired workers jobs
- Gov will spend money on the retired
- less workers = less taxes
European Union monetary policy
When Euro became the currency, the monetary was made into one central bank
Why did Europe take on the policy of expansion
- increase in economic power
2. Can become one giant economy
What are the negatives of the EU expansion
- Country could become divided again
- Too powerful
- Upset other countries
- poor countries could drag the EU down
EU’s fiscal policy
controls how much money a gov collects in taxes and how much it spends. A country can only spend as much as they make in taxes. If they use up their money they have to borrow it from other countries.
Each country kept their own fiscal policy
Euro Dept Crisis
1 monetary policy - 28 fiscal policies
When countries didn’t have enough money to pay each other back then it brings down the economies of each individual countries which brings down the EU
Solutions to the aging population
- increase population at a substantial rate
- accept immigrants
- pay people to have kids
