Unit 4: Political Vocabulary List Flashcards
Antecedent Boundary
A boundary that was identified before an area was settled.
Ex: boundary between USA and Canada
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
A regional intergovernmental organization compromising 10 countries in Southeast Asia to promote intergovernmental cooperation and facilitate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region.
Ex: Vietnam
Autonomous region
A subdivision or dependent territory a country that has a degree of self-goverment, or autonomy, in its decision making.
Ex: Tibet (china)
Boundary
A clearly demarcated line that marks both of the limits of a territory and divisions between territories; often called a boarder at the global scale.
Ex: North and South Korea boarder
Buffer State
A politically and economically weak independent country that lies between the boarders of two powers.
Ex: Poland
Choke point
A narrow passage that restricts traffic to another region.
Ex: Bosporus strait
Consequent Boundary
A boundary that is drawn to accommodate existing cultural differences.
Ex: US Mexican boarder
Cracking
Gerrymandering a voting district by dividing opposition votes into many districts, thus diluting the opposition’s vote to ensure it does not form a majority in any districts.
Ex: Wisconsin
Delimited
Describing how boundaries are fixed or defined to identify their limits.
Ex: border between Alaska and Canada
Demarcated
Describing how boundaries are set apart to distinguish their limits.
Ex: 38th parallel border between North and South Korea
Demilitarized Zone(DMZ)
An area in which treaties or agreements between nations, military powers, or contending groups forbid military installations, activities, or personnel; usually lies along an established frontier or boundary between two or more military powers or alliances.
Ex: on Korea peninsule between North and South Korea.
Devolution
The movement of power from the central goverment to regional goverment within the state.
Ex: United Kingdom forming Northern Ireland Assembly
Domestic terrorism
Acts by individuals or groups against the citizens or goverment of their own country.
Ex: 1995 Oklahoma City bombing
Economies of scale
Cost advantages that can come with a larger scale of operations.
Ex: countries forming a regional trading block → achieve economies of scale
Enclave
A territory surrounded by a country but not ruled by it.
Ex: Lesotho → enclave within boarders of South Africa
Electoral College
A body of 538 electors in the US, a majority of 270 electoral votes isrequired to elect the president; a States number of electors equals the number of members in its congressional delegation cone for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for its senators).
Equitable infrastructure
The construction and improvement of foundational services such as access to energy resources throughout the country.
Ex: access to electricity extremely important to a country’s infrastructure.
Escarpments
Abrupt slopes that break up the general continuity of the terrain.
Ethnonationalism
A form of nationalism in which the nation is defined in terms of ethnic identity.
Ex: January 1,1993 former Czechoslovakia
European Union (EU)
A political, economic, and social union of 28 independent European countries that promotes the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital among it’s members.
Exclave
part of a national territory separated from the main body of the country to which it belongs.
Ex: Kaliningrad (Russias Baltic Seaport).
Exclusive economic zone (EEZ)
Zone that extends 200 nautical miles from shoreline in which coastal states have the sole right to exploit, develop, manage, and conserve all water resources lying beyond the land.
Failed state
A state whose political or economic system has become weak that the government is no longer in control.
Ex: Venezuela
Federal State
An independent country that disperses significant authority among subnational units.
Ex: Australia
Frontier
A region at the margins of state control and settlement.
Geometric boundary
A boundary that has regular, of ten perfectly straight, lines drawn without regard for an area’s physical or cultural features.
Ex: the U.S-Canada border west of the Lake of woods, Minnesota
Gerrymandering
The manipulation of voting district boundaries to favor a particular political party, group, or election.
Ex: Gill V Whitford
Independent state
A state that rules itself and is not subject to the authority of another state.
Ex: Mexico
International terriorism
Terrorism that transcends national boundaries and is intended to intimidate people in other countries.
Ex: September 11,2001
Irredentism
The political claim to territory in another country based on ethnic and historic boarders.
Ex: in 2014, Russia seized the Crimean peninsula.
Median line principle
An approach to dividing and creating boundaries at the midpoint between two places.
Ex: Cuba and the US have to share water because they’re 90 miles from each other.
Multinational state
A country containing multiple national, ethnic, and religious groups within its boundaries.
Ex: South Africa
Multistate nation
Ethnic groups territorially divided by one or more international boundaries.
Ex: the Kurds
Nation
A Community of people bound to a homeland and processing a common identity based on shared cultural traits such as language, ethnicity, and religion.
Ex: Navajo nation
Nationalism
Sense of belonging to and self-identifying with a national culture.
Ex: “build that wall”
Nation-state
The ideal political geographic unit; one in which the nation’s geographic boundaries (a people and its culture) exactly match the state’s territorial boundaries (governance and authority.)
Ex: Japan
Neocolonialism
The l set of economic and political strategies by which wealthy and powerful countries indirectly maintain or extend their influence over less wealthy areas.
Ex: ”now that we destroyed your country, you can pay us to rebuild it, we accept natural resources.”
NAFTA/USMCA
A 1994 trade agreement between Canada,the US, and Mexico; revised as the United States - Mexico- Canada agreement in 2020.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
An integovermental military alliance among29 North American and European countries with the purpose of guaranteeing the freedom and security of its members.
Packing
Gerrymandering a voting district by concentrating all of the opposition party into one district, there by creating a large majority of that party in the district while ensuring that it cannot win any election.
Ex: Louisiana
Reapportionment
The process by which the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives are divided proportionately by population among the 50 states following every US census.
Ex: 2010 census, lost population 2000-2010
Redistricting
The process of drawing new boundaries for US congressional districts to reflect the population changes since theprevious US census.
Ex: Uniform Congressional District, Act 1967
Regional trading bloc
A multi-country agreement that reduces o eliminates taxes to promote the free flow of goods and services across international borders.
Ex: NAFTA
Relic boundary
A foundry that no longer functions as an international, boarder.
Ex: Hadrian’s wall
Satellite state
A normal independent country that ispullitically, militarily, and economically controlled by a more powerful state.
Ex: Russia, until 18th century
Self-determination
A nation’s ability to determine its own statehood and form its own allegiance and Goverment; the freedom of culturally distinct groups to govern themselves in their own territory and form their own states.
Ex: Latin America
Semi Autonomous region
A subdivision or dependent territory of a country that has some degree of, but not complete, self-goverment.
Ex: Catalonia, Spain
Shatterbelt
Region of continuing and persistent fragmentation due to devolution and centrifugal forces.
Ex: The Balkans region of southeastern Europe
Sovereign state
A state that possesses the sole authority over the land and people within its boundaries.
Ex: Belgium
State or country
An independent political unit with a centralized authority that makes claim to sole legal, political, and economic jurisdiction over a region with defined boundaries.
Ex: USA
Stateless nation
An ethnic group or nation that does not possess its own state and is not the majority population in any nation-state.
Ex: The Kurds
Strait
A narrow body of water connecting two larger bodies of water.
Ex: Strait of Messina
Subsequent boundary
A political boundary that developed with the cultural landscape.
Ex: The Green Line (Israel-Palestine)
Superimposed boundary
A boundary that is placed on an area without regard to existing boundaries.
Ex: The 49th Parallel US-Canada Border
Supernational organization
International political body that nation-states establish in cooperation with their neighbors for mutual political, military, economic, or cultural gain.
Ex: The World Bank
Supernationalism
Occurs when a collection of nation-state and their citizens relinquish some sovereign rights to a larger-scale body that exercises authority over its member states.
Ex: the World Trade Organization (WTO)
Terrorism
The calculated use of violent acts against civilians and symbolic targets to publicize a cause, intimidates or coerce a civilian population, or affect the conduct of government.
Ex: The Munich Olympics, 1972
Unitary State
An independent state that concentrates power in the central goverment and grants little or no authority to its subnational units.
Ex: the Republic of France
United Nations (U.N)
International organization that is responsible for maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international cooperation, and harmonizing the actions of nations.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS)
Conference organized to define territorial boundaries and rights to the sea.
Voting district
A territorial division for casting votes in public elections; generally, only those who live in the voting district are permitted to cast their votes there.
