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APHG Review Unit 4 : Political Geography. Key Terms. Antecedent Boundaries. A boundary line established before an area is populated. Balkanization. The contentious political process by which a state may break up into smaller countries. Buffer State.
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Antecedent Boundaries • A boundary line established before an area is populated.
Balkanization • The contentious political process by which a state may break up into smaller countries.
Buffer State • A relatively small country sandwiched between two larger powers. The existence of buffer states may help to prevent dangerous conflicts between powerful countries.
Centrifugal Forces • Forces that tend to divide a country.
Centripetal Forces • Forces that tend to unite or bind a country together.
Colonialism • The expansion and perpetuation of an empire.
Commonwealth of Independent States • Confederacy of independent states of the former Soviet Union that have united because of their common economic and administrative needs.
Compact State • A state that possesses a roughly circular, oval, or rectangular territory in which the distance from the geometric center is relatively equal in all directions.
Confederation • A form of an international organization that brings several autonomous states together for a common purpose.
Democratization • The process of establishing representative and accountable forms of government led by popularly elected officials.
Devolution • The delegation of legal authority from a central government to lower levels of political organization, such as a state or country.
Domino Theory • The idea that political destabilization in one country can lead to collapse of political stability in neighboring countries, starting a chain reaction of collapse.
East/West Divide • Geographic separation between the largely democratic and free-market countries of Western Europe and the Americas from the communist and socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Electoral College • A certain number of electors from each state proportional to and seemingly representative of that state’s population.
Electoral Vote • The decision of a particular state elector that represents the dominant views of that elector’s state.
Elongated State • A state whose territory is long and narrow in shape.
Enclaves • Any small and relatively homogeneous group or region surrounded by another larger and different group or region.
European Union • International organization comprised of Western European countries to promote free trade among members.
Exclave • A bounded territory that is part of a particular state but is separated from it by the territory of a different state.
Federalism • A system of government in which power is distributed among certain geographical territories rather than concentrated within a central government.
Fragmented State • A state that is not a contiguous whole but rather separated parts.
Frontier • An area where borders are shifting and weak and where peoples of different cultures or nationalities meet and lay claim to the land.
Geometric Boundary • Political boundaries that are defined and delimited by straight lines.
Geopolitics • The study of the interplay between political relations and the territorial context in which they occur.
Gerrymandering • The designation of voting districts so as to favor a particular political party or candidate.
Heartland Theory • Hypothesis proposed by Halford Mackinder that held that any political power based in the heart of Eurasia could gain enough strength to eventually dominate the world.
Imperialism • The perpetuation of a colonial empire even after if is no longer politically sovereign.
International Organization • An alliance of two or more countries seeking cooperation with each other without giving up either’s autonomy of self-determination.
Landlocked State • A state that is completely surrounded by the land of other states, which gives it a disadvantage in terms of accessibility to and from international trade routes.
Law of the Sea • Law establishing states’ rights and responsibilities concerning the ownership and use of the earth’s seas and oceans and their resources.
Lebensraum • Hitler’s expansionist theory based on a drive to acquire “living space” for the German people.
Microstate • A state or territory that is small in both population and area.
Nation • Tightly knit group of individuals sharing a common language, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural attributes.
Nationalism • A sense of national pride to such an extent of exalting one nation above all others.
Nation-state • A country whose population possesses a substantial degree of cultural homogeneity.
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) • Agreement signed on January 1, 1994, that allows the opening of borders between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) • An international organization that has joined together for military purposes.
North/South Divide • The economic division between the wealthy countries of Europe and North America, Japan, and Australia and the generally poorer countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Organic Theory • The view that states resemble biological organisms with life cycles that include stages of youth, maturity, and old age.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) • An international economic organization whose member countries all produce and export oil.
Perforated State • A state whose territory completely surrounds that of another state.
Physical Boundary • Political boundaries that correspond with prominent physical features such as mountain ranges or rivers.
Political Geography • The spatial analysis of political phenomena and processes.
Popular Vote • The tally of each individual’s vote within a given geographic area.
Prorupted State • A state that exhibits a narrow, elongated land extension leading away from the main territory.
Reapportionment • The process of a reallocation of electoral seats to defined territories.
Redistricting • The drawing of new electoral district boundary lines in response to population changes.
Relic Boundaries • Old political boundaries that no longer exist as international borders, but that have left and enduring mark on the local cultural or environmental geography.
