Keywords: buffer state, centrifugal force, centripetal force, cleavage model, colonialism, core area, electoral geography, enclave, ethnographic boundaries, European Union, exclave, ethnographic boundaries, European Union, exclave, federal, folk fortress, geometric boundaries, geopolitics, gerrymandering, heartland, heartland theory, nation-state, nationalism, natural boundaries, political geography, regional trading blocs, relic boundaries, rimland, satellite state, sovereignty, states, supranational organization, territoriality, unitary
Tools: gerrymandering
Concepts:gerrymandering, cleavage model, heartland theory,
Preface: This summary is an adjunct to your readings, and is not intended as a replacement. It does not cover all relevant definitions. It has neither covered all applications nor all examples. In your studies, I recommend reading this before and after reading the text. Please use this summary, your outlined text, your notes, and my powerpoints to reinforce your knowledge of this chapter and overcome the learning decay curve.
Over time, groups cooperate for defense and economic reasons, to protect their food supplies and possessions, people and trade routes. As cultures aggregate, so do their political institutions. Towns become city states, which vie with one another for control of land, people, and resources. Their varying political institutions cooperate and/or compete in commerce and war. This chapter focuses on the spatial aspects of politics.
States have sovereignty, and territories without sovereignty are either colonies or protectorates. Colonialism is practiced to expand power, gain economically, and/or to expand their culture. Past imperial states, such as the Spanish, British, Ottoman and Japanese empires, colonized for all three reasons [Jordan, 2010].
It is easier to control a state when it is compact. When it is fragmented or elongated, it is harder to govern. Both exclaves and enclaves are often major problems for the weaker state. This can be critical for defense [Jordan, 2010].
States often follow natural boundaries, which are often more defensible. Sometimes, weaker buffer states, such as Belgium, are formed between conflicting states to avoid further warfare. Other states form along ethnographic borders, such as religious or linguistic differences, which divide peoples. Other times, these boundaries are not considered, and treaties use geometric boundariesto separate nations. Boundaries may be reinforced by walls and fortifications (e.g. Berlin Wall, Hadrian’s Wall) which form relic boundaries when the borders shift [Jordan, 2010].
Governance can also vary spatially. Unitary states, such as France and China, concentrate state power in one government, while federal systems, such as the US and Switzerland, allocate some government functions to regional political entities. Nation states, states with one dominant sense of nationalism, benefit from this identification with a national culture, while multi-national states have divided national affiliations and loyalties. Multinational, multi-religious, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual states have centrifugal forces which tend to disrupt state unity. The opposite, centripetal forces, such as only one religion, ethnicity, language, or nationality, help bind the state together. These forces often affect state actions, including forms of governance and laws. Switzerland holds its ethnicities together using a federal governance system, and many states require universal education of one language to help bind their people together [Jordan, 2010].
States may form supranational organizations to gain economic advantage through regional trading blocs (e.g. NAFTA), military protection (e.g. NATO), or political stability (e.g. the U.N.) Common supranationalism has formed powerful entities such as the European Union (EU) and European Economic Union (EEU) [Jordan, 2010].
The opposite of this political unity, political competition to control a nation, is a driving force for gerrymandering, which is used by one political side to enhance political power by marginalizing the competition using electoral redistricting. This often occurs after censuses and special election measures are passed. California recently passed an initiative to reduce gerrymandering in the state [Jordan, 2010].
Many states begin from a core area, such as Moscow or Paris, expanding both their territorial control and sense of territoriality. If the periphery is incorporated into the nationality of the core, the state increases its centrifical force. When colonies remain separate, and the same political innovations spread from the core (ethnicity transforming to nationality, the right to self-governance, the rule of law, etc.) spread, these former colonies eventually became their own sovereign states. This can also divide states, as seen in the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Both peaceful and violent changes of states based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, and other cultural factorscan lead to migration [Jordan, 2010].
Political ecology has many theories. Some focus on a chain of explanation, a search for ultimate causes beginning with the actions of individuals, such as farmers or ranchers. Others attach to the heartland theory, which considers control of the Eurasian interior central to world conquest. Heartlands are sizeable landmasses protecting the core from maritime rimlands and other countries by barriers such as mountains. Environmental destructionin wars can be collateral damage, but it has been used as a means of denying resources to the enemy. Scorched earth policies and oil production / transfer destruction are particularly destructive tools of war, particularly total war. The risk of nuclear winter and mutually assured destruction were used as tools of defense [Jordan, 2010].
A state with only one politically unified ethnicity is the extreme case of a nation-state. Most states are multi-national, with several ethnicities desiring political dominance. Self-determination may be satisfied using federal systems. Without this and other methods, ethnic separatism can tear apart states, and has torn apart Yugoslavia and Sudan. The cleavage model explains the desire for separatism in terms of political conflicts among regions, ethnicities, religions, political sides, economic classes, and other different cultural factors (e.g. ranchers vs. vineyard owners, or liberal students vs. conservative homeowners in California). Ethnicities spread across multiple countries, such as the Kurds and Basques, are disenfranchised by this division. Political borders can also reinforce cultural differences by isolation, or by differences in laws [Jordan, 2010].
The barriers between states, (e.g. walls and clearings), land ownership patterns (e.g. township and range), zoning, street pattern, and construction requirements (e.g. height, construction, street and edge offsets) are all imprints of political systems upon the landscape. Some, such as road and rail systems, can be a part of the defense infrastructure. Likewise, icons such as the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, and the WorldTradeCenter, can support a sense of nationalism [Jordan, 2010].
Looking at political institutions in different ways enhances your understanding of these systems that profoundly affect your life. Please read the text after reading this summary, to attach more meaning to these topics. This is a summary, not a complete explanation, not covering all aspects of the chapter, and not showing all examples explored by the text. I covered aspects of political region, diffusion, ecology, interaction, and landscape, five geography centric ways of viewing political institutions. I recommend using such methods in real life to see the world you live in more clearly.
References:
Jordan-Bychkov, Terry J., Mona Domosh, Roderick P. Neumann, Patricia L. Price. 2010. Fundamentals of the Human Mosaic. W. H. Freeman and Company. 357 pages.
Merriam Webster Online. online. Accessed 10/21/2011.