A World of Nations and States

• The word political refers to the exercise of power, control, and authority.
• Political geography is concerned with how the exercise of political power, identity, and resistance is reflected spatially
  • Understand how construction of political units impact governance, identity, and potential for action

Sovereignty, Legitimacy, and Territorial Political Units

• Political unit
  • Country (state)
    • Most important unit
  • Organization, clearly defined boundaries, form of governance
  • Towns and cities
    • Govern population with limited power
• EU (European Unit)
  • 27 countries with own governance, rules, institutions, and territories
• United Nations
  • 192 members (almost every country in world)
  • Operates as political unit
• 3 guiding principles of political units
  • Sovereignty
    • Government has complete control and jurisdiction over defined area
    • Indicates power
    • Partial sovereignty - government has limited control
      • More common than full sovereignty - most governments are controlled by a higher power (counties - states)
      • Limited by agreements, international law, and powers left to subdivisions
    • NATO
  • Legitimacy
    • Whether the government of the unit is considered to have the standing or right to rule a state’s people and territory
    • A political unit that no one recognizes is not legitimate or real
    • External legitimacy
      • Recognition by all outside states gives government external legitimacy
      • Diplomatic relations
        • An ambassador is sent to sign treaties and establish an embassy
        • Countries will only have diplomatic relationships with other legitimate countries
        • American Revolution
          • US declared itself independent, gaining internal legitimacy
          • Leaders recognized that internal legitimacy was not enough, so they sought external legitimacy through diplomacy with other countries
          • Sent representatives to France
          • Once France recognized legitimacy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium also recognized
    • Internal legitimacy
      • The consent of the people
      • People have a say in how the gov. is constituted, the types of laws and rules passed, and how laws are implemented
      • Can be measured through the nature of the governance
      • May have nothing to do with whether government is legitimate to outside states
    • Democracy
      • Government that rules with consent of the people
      • Internal legitimacy
    • Israel
      • Many but not all people within the country recognize the legitimacy
      • Internally
        • Palestinians do not recognize it
      • Externally
        • 20 countries question Israel as a state
        • To them, Palestine is a state
    • Taiwan
      • Not all of the world recognizes Taiwan as the same thing
      • China and Taiwan do not recognize each other
  • Territoriality
    • Sovereignty occurs within a particular territory
      • Government only has sovereignty inside the territory
    • Borders are able to be clearly defined
      • However, there may always be border disputes
    • Sovereignty can be nested
      • City government -> state government -> federal government
• Certain places have no sovereignty over them
  • The High Seas
    • Areas of the ocean that exceeds any country’s border of territory
  • Antarctica Entire continent is out of state sovereignty despite various bases from countries

History of Political Forms

• Chiefdoms
  • Tribal groups
  • Has organizational structure
  • Inhabited particular places but at the same time were less likely to demarcate rigid boundaries
  • Some tribes were nomadic, following food sources and weather patterns
  • Most simple
• Feudal system
  • Results in a political organization not necessarily ties to complete territorial control.
  • Based on the principles of personal allegiance and vassalage
  • Wealthy and powerful people are the lords
    • Own some land and exert control over land they may not even own
    • Can afford to have a military
  • Vassal
    • Someone who must show fealty and pay some form of tribute to an overlord in return for being able to use the land
    • Sovereignty within this system conducted in a personal way
    • Lines of territorial control often fluid
  • Many feudal states near each other may result in war
    • One thinks their military is far more powerful and seeks new vassals from the other
    • Refusal means war, cooperation means growth which could lead to war
• City state
  • Common form of political territory
  • City centered states
  • Often surrounded by walls
  • Political organization revolved around the city itself, composed of people not engaged in agriculture
  • Hinterlands
    • Made up of all the farmers who provided agricultural products to the city dwellers
    • Outside of the wall
  • Advantages
    • High flexibility
    • Political simplicity
    • Forefront of trade
  • As they became more and more powerful, they may expand into empires
• Empires
  • Made up of several culturally distinct regions that are held together by force, under the control of a single dominant region.
  • Products of coercion as result of expansion of successful state
  • Most ruled autocratically
    • By an emperor and his retinue
  • Favored a dominant culture
    • Metropole
  • Colonies
    • Parts of the empire with little right to self determination
    • Outer areas taken over by the empire
  • British empire was the largest sea based empire, covering a quarter of the world’s surface
    • France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Belgium also controlled large areas
  • All empires eventually realized that colonies are not a desirable form of organization and everyone has a right to self determination

History of States

• Modern state system
  • Modern world is made of territorial states
  • Political units supposedly independent and contain a fair amount of area
  • Largely but not completely defined by borders
  • Came to be over the course of 4 steps

Variations if Modern States

• World made of about 195 states
  • Equally sovereign and legitimate
  • Control over fixed territory with boundaries
• Not all states created equally
  • Different levels of sovereignty and legitimacy
  • Lower control of government over territory
  • Not recognized by others
• Satellite state
  • States with less sovereignty
  • Many countries is E. Europe when the Soviet Union existed
    • No freedom of foreign policy or make internal changes
• Legitimacy varies
  • Some states not recognized by all countries
  • Maps may vary from country to country to country based on their view of legitimacy on other countries
• Size and populations varies
  • Largest states
    • Russia, Canada, US, Brazil, Australia, etc.
  • Largest populations
    • India, Indonesia, Japan
  • Microstates
    • Monaco, San Marino, the Maldives, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Nauru, Vatican city
    • Very small but still considered to have degree of sovereignty, legitimacy, and territory

History of States

• Modern State System
  • Feudal to Modern
    • Treaty of Westphalia
      • 1648
      • World composed of autonomous, clearly bounded, sovereign territorial states
    • Increase in nationalism
      • Feeling of connection to your nation
    • Europe’s influence
      • Increase in the role of Europe in the modern world
      • Before 1490s, Europe did not play a major role in the world
      • Developing model of modern nation state
      • Taking over of more and more of the world
    • Decolonization
      • First there must be colonization
      • European’s colonied all over the world
      • Then they began to decolonize
      • New countries would follow Europe’s model of a modern state
  • Not all modern states are created equal

Variations if Modern States

• World made of about 195 states

  • Equally sovereign and legitimate
  • Control over fixed territory with boundaries

• Not all states created equally

  • Different levels of sovereignty and legitimacy
  • Lower control of government over territory
  • Not recognized by others

• Satellite state

  • States with less sovereignty
  • Many countries is E. Europe when the Soviet Union existed
    • No freedom of foreign policy or make internal changes
  • Post world war 2 era
    • Much of the world seemed to be broken in 2 major camps
    • Capitalism and communism
    • Countries that fell under the influence of communist countries such as Russia were satellite states
      • Russia had such a strong influence over them, they were almost satellites of Russia
      • Poland, East Germany
      • Satellite states of the soviet Union; not an actual part of the SU
  • North Korea in 50s portrayed as satellite state of China

• Legitimacy varies

  • Some states not recognized by all countries
  • Maps may vary from country to country to country based on their view of legitimacy on other countries
  • Israel’s legitimacy is not universal
  • Cyprus
    • Divided between Turkish speaking and Greek speaking

• Size and populations varies

  • Largest states
    • Russia, Canada, US, Brazil, Australia, etc.
  • Largest populations
    • India, Indonesia, Japan
  • Microstates
    • Monaco, San Marino, the Maldives, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Nauru, Vatican city
    • Very small but still considered to have degree of sovereignty, legitimacy, and territory

Four Markers of a Nation

• What is a nation?
  • Represents a group of people who feel that thy belong together as a polity for a number of reasons
  • Can be somewhat amorphous
  • Internal legitimacy is much more important than external
• 4 markers
  • Shared culture and heritage
    • Culture - language, food, religion, etc
    • Heritage - your story
  • Loyalty
    • Where your allegiances are
    • Horizontal loyalty
      • Being loyal to other members of your nation
    • Vertical loyalty
      • Loyalty to the ruler, king, emperor
    • Primary loyalty
      • Loyalty to the nation
      • Expected to be most loyal to the nation first
    • Exclusivity
      • You can’t be a part of more than on nation
      • Part of your identity
  • Homeland
    • National homeland is identified by the people as where the nation is located
    • Does not necessarily with political borders
      • Colonized places
      • Africa has many national homelands defined differently than colonizing European
  • Self determination
    • The people of a nation can choose how they are governed
    • They choose their type of government themselves
    • Nationalism

• Ethnic nation
  • Based on cultural commonalities
  • Japan
    • An island
• Civic Nation
  • Based on shared principles
  • America
• National landscape
  • Where a nation’s territory is expressed
  • Finland’s forests and lakes
  • Mount Rushmore
  • National Mall

The relationship between Nations and States

• Nation-State Ideal
  • Concept that every nation would have its own state and that every state would be a nation
  • If a state is a political entity with S, T, and E, it can be clearly defined
  • A nation is a collection of people who identify with each other
  • Nation and State is not interchangeable
    • There can be multiple nations within a state
    • A nation can be in more than one state
  • It is just an ideal; it is not real
  • No real nation states exist in 2016
  • The closest is Iceland or Japan
• Multinational State
  • Most countries
  • Larger the landmass, higher the likelihood of multinationalism
  • Russia, China, Africa
• Multi-State Nation
  • Kurdistan
    • Do not have a state
    • Have been prosecuted across Turkey, Iraq, and Iran

Citation

Notes taken from: Malinowski, Jon C., and David H. Kaplan. Human Geography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.