Unit 4: Political (Patterns & Processes) Flashcards
Apartheid
Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas.
Balkanization
Process by which a state breaks down through conflicts among its ethnicities.
Balkanized
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.
Blockbusting
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.
Centripetal Force
An attitude that tends to unify people and enhance support for a state.
Ethnic Cleansing
Process in which a more powerful ethnic group forcibly removes a less powerful one in order to create an ethnically homogeneous region.
Ethnicity
Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.
Multiethnic State
State that contains more than one ethnicity.
Multinational State
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.
Nationalism
Loyalty and devotion to a particular nationality.
Nationality
Identity with a group of people that share legal attachment and personal allegiance to a particular place as a result of being born there.
Nation-state
A state whose territory corresponds to that occupied by a particular ethnicity that has been transformed into a nationality.
Race
Identity with a group of people descended from a common ancestor.
Racism
Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.
Racist
A person who subscribes to the beliefs of racism.
Self-determination
Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves.
Sharecropper
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.
Triangular Slave Trade
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.
Balance of Power
Condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances in countries.
Boundary
Invisible line that marks the extent of a state’s territory.
City-state
A sovereign state comprising a city and its immediate hinterland.
Colonialism
Attempt by one country to establish settlements and to impose its political, economic, and cultural principles in another territory.
Colony
A territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independant.
Compact State
A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly.
Elongated State
A state with a long, narrow shape.
Federal State
An internal organization of a state that allocated most powers to units of local government.
Fragmented State
A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory.
Frontier
A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control.
Gerrymandering
Process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power.
Imperialism
Control of territory already occupied and organized by an indigenous group.
Landlocked State
A state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea.
Microstate
A state that encompasses a very small land area.
Perforated State
A state that completely surrounds another one.
Prorupted State
An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension.
Sovereignty
Ability of a state to govern its territory free from control of its internal affairs by other states.
State
An area organized into a political unit and ruled by an established government with control over its internal and foreign affairs.
Unitary State
An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials.
