Political Geography: States and Sovereignty

• Political geography involves studying the spatial aspects of political systems, including states, boundaries, and cooperation.
• Key areas include boundaries, their impact on nations, the formation and breakup of states, and international agreements.

State Basics

• A state is a politically organized area with a sovereign government, a defined territory, and a permanent population.
• Sovereignty means a state's independence from external interference in its internal affairs.
• Antarctica is the only large landmass not officially belonging to any state due to international treaties.

State Examples

• Korea was divided into North and South Korea after WWII, with both governments aiming for reunification despite current tensions.
• Taiwan is governed by Chinese Nationalists, with most countries recognizing it as a separate state from mainland China, but is not part of the UN.
• The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) has a disputed statehood, with Morocco claiming the territory.

Microstates

• Microstates are sovereign states with very small land areas.
• Monaco is the smallest U.N. state at 0.6 square miles

Development of States

• City-states, comprising a town and surrounding countryside, were the first states to develop, reaching their peak in the Roman Empire.
• Early European states formed after the Roman Empire's fall as nobles consolidated estates into kingdoms

Colonialism

• Colonialism involves establishing settlements and imposing political, economic, and cultural agendas on uninhabited territories.
• The motivations for colonialism are often summarized as "God, gold, and glory".
• Imperialism is establishing control over a territory already organized by an indigenous society
• Colonies are territories legally tied to a sovereign state.
• Few colonies exist today, mostly small islands in the South Pacific or Caribbean.

Boundary Types

• A boundary is an invisible line marking the extent of a state’s territory.
• Physical boundaries include mountains, deserts, and water bodies.

Physical Boundaries

• Mountains are effective if difficult to cross.
• Deserts are effective because they're hard to cross and sparsely settled.
• Water boundaries can be effective for defense, but rivers can shift due to erosion.
• The Law of the Sea (1983) set territorial limits at 12 nautical miles and fishing rights at 200 miles.

Cultural Boundaries

• Geometric boundaries are mathematical lines on a map.
• Religious boundaries rarely used, b/c they normally coincide with state boundaries
• Language boundaries are common in Europe.

Boundary Implementation

• Implemented boundaries are established by a ruling organization.
• Relic boundaries are nonfunctional partitions that still exist.

State Shapes

• Compact states have minimal variation in distance from the center to boundaries.
• Prorupted states are compact with a large projecting extension.
• Elongated states are long and narrow.
• Fragmented states have discontinuous pieces of territory.
• Perforated states completely surround another state.
• Landlocked states lack a direct ocean outlet.
• A frontier is a zone where no state has complete political control.

Government Types

• A unitary state centralizes power in the national government.
• A federal state allocates power to local government units.
• Many states are shifting from unitary to federal systems.

Gerrymandering

• Gerrymandering is redrawing legislative boundaries to benefit the party in power through "packing" and "stacking" strategies.

Cooperation Among States

• The balance of power is a condition of equal strength between opposing alliances.
• States cooperate for political, military, and economic reasons.

United Nations

• The United Nations, founded in 1945, promotes global peace, with 190 member countries as of 2003.
• The U.N. can create peacekeeping forces and request military assistance.

Military and Economic Organizations

• The Organization of American States (OAS) includes all 35 states in the Western Hemisphere.
• The African Union (AU) includes all African states.
• The Commonwealth of Nations includes the U.K. and 53 former colonies.

European Union

• The European Union promotes economic development through cooperation, including farmer subsidies and the Euro.
• Germany dominates the EU.

Terrorism

• Terrorism is the systematic use of violence to intimidate or coerce a government or population.
• Increased radical fundamentalism and the creation of Al-Qaeda have increased terrorist attacks.

Al-Qaeda

• Al-Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden, aims to unite jihad fighters against the United States, which bin Laden calls the "Great Satan".
• The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were Al-Qaeda's apex.

State Support for Terrorism

• Providing sanctuary for terrorists, supplying weapons, and planning attacks defines state support for terrorism.
• Examples include the Taliban in Afghanistan harboring Al-Qaeda.

U.S. Actions Against Terrorism

• The U.S. invaded Afghanistan to hunt Al-Qaeda and overthrew the Taliban.
• The U.S. invaded Iraq to investigate reports of weapons of mass destruction, but little evidence was found.

State Sponsors of Terrorism

• Other states the U.S. considers sponsors of terrorism include Yemen, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, and Iran.

Agriculture

• Agriculture modifies Earth's surface through cultivating plants and rearing animals for sustenance or economic gain.
• Before agriculture, humans relied on hunting and gathering.

Subsistence vs Commercial Agriculture

• Subsistence agriculture produces food mainly for the farmer's family
• Commercial agriculture primarily produces food for sale.

Vegetative and Seed Planting

• Vegetative planting reproduces plants by direct cloning.
• Seed agriculture reproduces plants through annual planting of seeds

Agricultural Origins

• Vegetative planting originated in S.E. Asia, West Africa, and northwest South America.
• Seed agriculture originated in west India, north China, Ethiopia, south Mexico, and north Peru

Differences Between Commercial and Subsistence Agriculture

• Commercial agriculture aims to sell produce, unlike subsistence farming.
• In MDC’s, less than 5% are farmers compared to 55% in LDC’s. Commercial agriculture uses machinery, while subsistence agriculture uses hand tools and animals.
• Commercial farms are larger.
• Commercial farms are part of an agribusiness

Agricultural Practices in LDCs

• The primary types of agriculture in Less Developed Countries are Shifting Cultivation, Pastoral Nomadism, and Intensive Subsistence.

Shifting Cultivation

• Shifting cultivation involves clearing land by slashing vegetation and burning debris, using a field (swidden) for a few years, and then leaving it fallow.
• Practiced commonly in the tropics due to poor soil quality.

Pastoral Nomadism

• A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.
• Primarily practiced in arid and semiarid land that includes north Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Central Asia.

Transhumance

• Some nomads practice transhumance seasonal migration of livestock between mountains and lowland pasture areas.
• Governments increasingly confine nomads to less valuable lands.

Intensive Sustenance

• The form of agriculture used in areas of high density such as East, South, and Southeast Asia.
• Characterized by high efficiency farming practices that yield a large number of crops per small amount of land.

Wet Rice

• Intensive agriculture in Asia is subdivided into “wet rice dominant” and “wet rice not dominant”.
• In some regions, crop rotation may be practiced, as well as double cropping- obtaining two harvests from one field in one year.

Agriculture in MDCs

• The methods of farming typically found in More Developed Countries are Mixed Crop and Livestock farming, Dairy Farming, Grain Farming, Livestock Ranching, Mediterranean, Commercial Gardening and Fruit Farming, and Plantation Farming

Mixed Crop and Livestock.

• Common in the U.S. west of the Appalachians and in much of Europe from France to Russia.
• The most distinctive characteristic of this type of ag is the integration of crops and livestock.

Dairy Farming

• The most important type of commercial ag practiced on farms near the northeast U.S., southeast Canada, and northwest Europe.
• Nearer to market areas because their product spoils quickly.
• Milkshed- the ring surrounding a city from which milk can be supplied without spoiling.

Grain Farming

• Typically done in the Great Plains states of the U.S.
• Within the U.S, grain is grown in three areas, the winter wheat area, the spring wheat belt, and the third important area is in the Palouse region of Washington state.

Livestock Ranching

• Commercial grazing of livestock over an extensive area.
• In MDC’s it is practiced in semiarid lands where the vegetation is too sparse and the soil too poor to support crops.

Mediterranean Agriculture

• Exists mainly in the lands that border the Mediterranean Sea in S. Europe, N. Africa, and W. Asia.
• Most of the food grown in this style of farming is for human consumption and is typically of high value.

Commercial Gardening

• Main farming found in the U.S. southeast.
• Characterized by truck farming- growing many of the fruits and vegetables demanded in more developed societies.

Plantation Farming

• Found in the tropics and subtropics.
• Plantation- a large farm that specializes in one or two crops, typically cash crops.

Farmer Economic Difficulties

• The basic premise of von Thünen’s model is that the more perishable and difficult to ship something, the closer it will be to the market.
• The U.S. government provides farming subsidies and buys excess food to manage overproduction.

Substinence Farms

• Farmers must feed an increasing number of people.

Desertification

• Leave fields fallow for shorter periods of time, effectively turning the land into a desert.
• Because many governments are trying to develop along the international trade model, they are encouraging farmers to grow crops for export rather than food for direct consumption.
• The export crop of choice for many LDC farmers is drug crops.

Increasing Food Supply

• Expand the land area used for agriculture.
• Increase the productivity of land now used (i.e. green revolution)
• Identify new food sources.
• Increase exports from other countries.