1. • Political Geography-the study of political
activity in a spatial context.
• Over 200 countries and territories in the world
• Greatly Diverse
– inequality of size, relative location, population,
resources and potential
– landlocked or have little coastline
– surrounded by hostile nations

2. Rise in New States
• Over last 30
empires have
collapsed
– has added to
the number of
independent
states.
– Many newly
independent
nations have
problems

3. Political Culture
• Some state systems separate church & state
while others are theocracies-governments led by
religious leaders.
• Land ownership
– communal ownership va individual ownership.
(Africa-imperialism, Indians of N. America).
• Challenges to political territory provides a
strong motivation for warfare.

4. Theory of human
territoriality

5. Assignment
• Find and example of Human Territoriality
in action.
• Take a Photo
• Print the photo or send it to Ms Anderson in
an e-mail along with a description of WHY
this is human territoriality.

6. State
State – a politically organized territory with a permanent
population, a defined territory, and a government. To be
a state, an entity must be recognized as such by other
states.
How many states
do you see?

7. The State
• A state provides services for
its citizens.
• It demands taxes
• It demands adherence to the
laws.
• It demands military service
• Periods of adversity can
increase a sense of
nationalism-but can backfire
• A state is possible only if a
national attitude or emotional
attachment to the state
develops.

8. Geographic Characteristics of States
• States vary greatly in Size-some huge like Russia 6.6 m.
sq. miles, others large with 3 m. sq. miles like US, China,
Brazil, Canada-some are microstates-Vatican, Monaco,
Andorra, Grenada.
• Shape-some are compact while other are elongated or
fragmented.
• Demography-some have huge populations like China’s
1.3 billion or tiny like Iceland with 250,000.
• Organization-monarchy, democratic, dictatorship,
theocratic.
• Resources-natural and skilled population
• Development-subsistence to tertiary
• Power-both economic and military

9. Nations
• Nation – a culturally
defined group of people
with a shared past and a
common future who relate
to a territory and have
political goals.
• People construct nations
to make sense of
themselves.
• Nations are “imagined
communities”

10. Stateless Nations
• Sovereignty-complete control
over a territory’s political &
military affairs. Some nations
do not have their own state-this
can lead to conflict.
• Palestinians are the most well
known example-a stateless
nation in conflict with Israel
over territory.
• Kurds-about 20 million people
live in Kurdistan-which covers
6 states-since the 1991 Iraq
War-Kurdish Security Zone has
been virtually independent.

11. Defining the Nation-State
• A Nation should have • A Nation-State has:
– A single language – Clearly delineated
– A common history territory
– A similar ethnic – Substantial population
background
– Well-organized
– Unity from a common
government
political system.
– Shared political and
• Cultural homogeneity
cultural history
not as important as
– Emotional ties to
“national spirit” or
emotional commitment institutions or political
systems or an ideology.
to the state.

12. Nation State Examples
Ethnic groups make up more than
95% of the population:
• Lesotho.
• Albania
• Maldives
• Bangladesh • Malta
• Egypt • Mongolia
• Estonia11] • North Korea
• Hungary • Poland
• Iceland • Portugal
• Japan • San Marino
• Lebanon • Swaziland

13. Ethnicity, Geography, Politics
and Tension…
• Case study of how Rwanda was impacted by these
forces.

14. European Colonialism & the
Diffusion of the Nation-State Model
• Colonialism -
a physical action in which one state takes over control of
another, taking over the government and ruling the territory
as its own.
Two Waves of
European
Colonialism:
1500 - 1825
1825 - 1975

15. Colonialism
“We must find new lands
from which we can easily
obtain raw materials and
at the same time exploit
the cheap slave labor that
is available form the
natives of the colonies. The
colonies would also
provide a dumping ground
for the surplus goods
produced in our
factories.”– Cecil Rhodes,
British colonialist, southern Africa

16. Take the case of Africa…

17. End of the Colonial Era
• 1950’s – 1980’s
– End of Industrial Revolution in the West
– End of Cold War Pressures/Proxy Wars
• Power Vacuum left by Colonial
Governments

18. Devolution –
Movement of power from the central government to
regional governments within the state.
What causes devolutionary movements?
Ethnocultural forces
Economic forces
Spatial forces

19. The Forces of Devolution-Cultural Forces
• Yugoslavia
– Civil War in the 1990s
– Thrown together after WW I
• 7 major, 17 minor ethnic groups, 3 religions & 2 alphabets
• North-Croats & Slovenes-Catholic
• South-Serbs are Orthodox, Muslim enclaves
• Rwanda
– Belgian Colonialism
– Historic ethnic tension between tribes
• Hutu & Tutsi – capitalized on by Belgian colonialists
– Post-Colonial Devolution
• Power sharing in government fails

20. The Forces of Devolution-Cultural Forces
• Quebec and Parti Quebecois
in Canada
• Sudan-Muslim north &
Christian south
• Sri Lanka-Tamils, a Hindu
minority fight for
independence from the
Sinhalese a Buddhist majority

21. Genocide
• Genos, greek for tribe or
family, -cide from Latin to
kill.
• Last 100 years over 50
million people were
murdered due to race,
ethnicity, religion or
political persuasion.
– Mao Zedong-30 m.
Chinese
– Stalin-20 m. Soviets
– Nazis-11.4 m. Jews, Slavs,
etc.
– Japan 10 m. Chinese, etc.