Unit 4: Political (Patterns & Processes)

Question 1

Apartheid

Answer 1

Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.

Question 2

Balkanization

Answer 2

Process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities.

Question 3

Balkanized

Answer 3

Descriptive of a small geographic area that could not successfully be organized into one or more stable states because it was inhabited by many ethnicities with complex, long-standing antagonisms toward each other.

Question 4

Blockbusting

Answer 4

A process by which real estate agents convince white property owners to sell their houses at low prices because of fear that persons of color will soon move into the neighborhood.

Question 5

Centripetal Force

Answer 5

An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state.

Question 6

Ethnic Cleansing

Answer 6

Process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region.

Question 7

Ethnicity

Answer 7

Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.

Question 8

Multiethnic State

Answer 8

State that contains more than one ethnicity.

Question 9

Multinational State

Answer 9

State that contains two or more ethnic groups with traditions of self-determination that agree to coexist peacefully by recognizing each other as distinct nationalities.

Question 10

Nationalism

Answer 10

Loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality.

Question 11

Nationality

Answer 11

Identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there.

Question 12

Nation-state

Answer 12

A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.

Question 13

Race

Answer 13

Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor.

Question 14

Racism

Answer 14

Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Question 15

Racist

Answer 15

A person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.

Question 16

Self-determination

Answer 16

Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves.

Question 17

Sharecropper

Answer 17

A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.

Question 18

Triangular Slave Trade

Answer 18

A practice, primarily during the eighteenth century, in which European ships transported slaves from Africa to Caribbean islands, molasses from the Caribbean to Europe, and trade goods from Europe to Africa.

Question 19

Balance of Power

Answer 19

Condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances in countries.

Question 20

Boundary

Answer 20

Invisible line that marks the extent of a state’s territory.

Question 21

City-state

Answer 21

A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate hinterland.

Question 22

Colonialism

Answer 22

Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory.

Question 23

Colony

Answer 23

A territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independant.

Question 24

Compact State

Answer 24

A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly.

Question 25

Elongated State

Answer 25

A state with a long, narrow shape.

Question 26

Federal State

Answer 26

An internal organization of a state that allocated most powers to units of local government.

Question 27

Fragmented State

Answer 27

A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory.

Question 28

Frontier

Answer 28

A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control.

Question 29

Gerrymandering

Answer 29

Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.

Question 30

Imperialism

Answer 30

Control of territory already occupied and organized by an indigenous group.

Question 31

Landlocked State

Answer 31

A state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea.

Question 32

Microstate

Answer 32

A state that encompasses a very small land area.

Question 33

Perforated State

Answer 33

A state that completely surrounds another one.

Question 34

Prorupted State

Answer 34

An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension.

Question 35

Sovereignty

Answer 35

Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.

Question 36

State

Answer 36

An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government with control over its internal and foreign affairs.

Question 37

Unitary State

Answer 37

An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials.