Chapter 8 Notes

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Chapter 8 Notes Door Mind Map: Chapter 8 Notes

1. HOW DOES THE STUDY OF GEOPOLITICS HELP US UNDERSTAND THE WORLD

1.1. geopolitics is the interplay among geography, power, politics, and international relations o Earth’s surface

1.2. classical geopoliticians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries generally fit into two camps: the German school, which sought to explain why certain states are powerful and how to become powerful, and the British American school, which sought to offer strategic advice by identifying parts of Earth's surface that were particulary important for the maintenance an projection of power

1.3. The German School

1.3.1. the first political geographer who studied the issues of why are certain states powerful and how do states become powerful was the German professor Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)

1.3.2. if a state is confined within permanent and static boundaries and deprived of overseas domains, it can atrophy

1.3.3. territory is thus seen as the state's essential, life-giving force

1.4. The British/American School

1.4.1. Sir Halford J. Mackinder was an Oxford University geograhper

1.4.2. in 1904 he published an article titled "The Geographical Pivot of History" in the Royal Geographical Society's Geographical Journal

1.4.3. he concluded that a land-based power, not a sea power, would ultimately rule the world

1.4.4. Mackinder issued a warning: if this pivot area became influential in Europe, a great empire would be formed

1.4.5. Mackinder's ideas were not embraced by many at the time, but within ten years of publication, the US began its containment policy to stop the expansion of the Soviet Union, and the US, Canada, and Western Europe formed an alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

1.5. Influence of Geopoliticians on Politics

1.5.1. geopolitics declined as a formal area of study after World War II

1.5.2. because of the influence Ratzel's theory had on Hitler and because another geopolitican, Karl Haushofer, also influenced Hitler, the term geopolitics acquired a negative connotaion

1.5.3. time, along with more balanced perspectives, has reinstated geopolitics as a significant field of study, encompassing efforts to understand the spatial and territorial dimensions of power relationships past, present, and future

1.6. Critical Geopolitics

1.6.1. many current students of geopolitics focus on revealing and explaining the underlying spatial assumptions and territorial perspectives of international actors

1.6.2. the basic concept behind critical geopolitics is that intellectuals of statecraft construct ideas about geographical circumstances and places, these ideas influence and reinforce their political behaviors and policy choices, and then affect what happens and how most people interpret what happens

1.6.3. several American leaders often spatialize politics into a world of "us" and "them"

1.6.3.1. political leaders can shape how their constituents see places and organize international space in their minds

1.6.3.2. by drawing on American cultural logic and certain representatives of America, O'Tuathail argues that presidents have repeatedly defined an "us" that is pro-democracy, independent, self-sufficient, and free and a "them" that is in some way against all of these things

1.6.4. during the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan coined the term Evil Empire for the Soviet Union and represented the United States as "the shining city on a hill."

1.6.5. September 11, 2001 amplified the idea of a threatening Islamic realm

1.6.6. the US government, concerned about al-Qadeda's influence in the Islamic World, justified military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan

1.7. Geopolitical World Order

1.7.1. political geographers study geopolitical world orders, which are the temporary periods of stability in the way international politics is conducted

1.7.2. during the Cold War, the geopolitical world order was bipolar-the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites versus the United States and its close allies in Western Europe

1.7.3. what emerged was the bipolar world order of the Cold War: the United States and the UK against the USSR

1.7.4. when a United Nations coalition of states led by the US in 1991 drove Iraq out of Kuwait, the framework of a New World Order seemed to be taking shape

1.7.5. the Soviet Union, which a few years befroe was the United States' principal geopolitical antagonist endorsed the operation

1.7.6. Arab as well as non-Arab forces helped repel the invaders

1.7.7. the number of United Nations members increased from 159 in 1990 to 184 by 1993 and 192 as of 2006

1.7.8. the US military budget is as large as all the military budgets of all other states in the world combined

1.7.9. the United States' controversial invasion of Iraq significantly undermined its influence in many parts of the globe

1.7.9.1. Southeast Asian states that had long been oriented toward the US began to turn away

1.7.9.2. a significant rift developed across the Atlantic between the US and some European countries, and anti-Americanism surged around the world

1.7.9.3. the processes of globalization,t he diffusion of nuclear weapons, the emergence of China and India as increasingly significant powers, and the growth of networked groups and organizations, including terrorist groups, also challenged American unilateralism

2. HOW IS SPACE POLITICALLY ORGANIZED INTO STATES AND NATIONS

2.1. political geography is the study of the political organization of the world

2.2. political geographers study the spatial manifestations of political processes at various scales

2.3. a state is a politically organized territory with a permanent population, a defined territory, and a government

2.4. on the conventional political map, a mosaic of colors is used to represent more than 200 countries and territories, a visualization that accentuates the separation of these countries by boundaries

2.5. the political map of the world is the world map most of us learn first

2.6. states and state boundaries are mad, shaped, and refined by people, their actions and their history

2.7. territory is a system of political units came into being with fixed, distinct boundaries

2.8. territoriality is the process by which such units come into being

2.9. territoriality is a key ingredient i the construction of social and political spaces

2.10. territoriality is tied to the concept of sovereignty

2.10.1. sovereignty means having a recognized right to control territory both politically and militarily

2.11. The Modern State Idea

2.11.1. in 1600s, Europeans were not the only ones who behaved territoriality

2.11.2. the idea of the state appeared in a variety of forms across world regions 400 or 500 years ago

2.11.3. in North America, American Indian tribes behaved territorially but not necessarily exclusively

2.11.3.1. plains tribes shared hunting grounds with neighboring tribes who were friendly, and they fought over hunting grounds with neighboring tribes who were unfriendly

2.11.4. in Southeast Asia and in Africa, state-like political entities also existed

2.11.5. in all of these places, and in Europe before the mid-1600s, rulers held sway over a people, but there was no collective agreement among rulers about how territory would be organized or what rulers could do within their respective domains

2.11.6. the European state idea deserves particular attention because it most influenced the development of the modern state system

2.11.7. We can see traces of the state idea more than two millennia ago near the south eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, where distinct kingdoms emerged within discrete territories. Greek philosophy on governance and aspects of ancient Greece and Rome play parts in a modern state idea. Political geography Rhys Jones studied state formation in the United Kingdom during the European Middle Ages. He found the first states in Wales where small in size but had the attributes of the modern state. In the late Middle Ages, powerful rulers constructed more sizable states in what are now the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. We cannot trace a clear evolution in the European state idea, but we can see aspects of the modern state in many places and that many points and European history.

2.11.8. by the early seventeenth century, states including the Republic of Venice, Brandenburg, the Papal States of central Italy, the Kingdom of Hungary, and several minor German states created a complicated patchwork of political entities, many with poorly defined borders

2.11.9. the emerging political state was accompanied by mercantilism, which led to the accumulation of wealth through plunder, colonization, and the protection of home industries and foreign markets

2.11.10. rivalry and competition intensified in Europe as well as abroad

2.11.11. the even in European history that marks the beginning of the modern state system is the Peace of Westphalia, negotiated in 1648 among the princes of the states making up the Holy Roman Empire, as well as a few neighboring states

2.11.12. in previous eras, where a society lived constituted its territory; in the Westphalian system it became the territory that defined the society

2.11.13. territory is treated as a fixed element of political identification, and states define exclusive, nonoverlapping territories

2.11.14. even well after the Peace of Westphalia, absolutist rulers controlled most European states. During the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, the development of an increasingly wealthy middle class proved to be the undoing of absolutism in parts of western Europe. City-based merchants gained money, influence, and prestige, while the power of the nobility declined. The traditional measure of affluence-land-became less important. The merchants had businessmen demand political recognition. In the 1780s, a series of upheavals began that changed the sociopolitical face of the continent, most notably the French Revolution of 1789. The revolution, conducted in the name of the French people, ushered in an era in which the foundations for political authority came to be seen as resting with a state's citizenry, not with a hereditary monarch.

2.12. Nations

2.12.1. the popular media and press often use the words nation, state, and country interchangeable

2.12.2. political geographers use state and country interchangeable (often preferring state), but the world nation is distinct

2.12.3. state is a legal term in international law, and the international political community has some agreement about what this term means

2.12.4. nation, on the other hand, is a culturally defined term, and few people agree on exactly what it means

2.12.5. nation is a group of people who think of themselves as one based on a sense of shared culture and history, who seek some degree of political territorial autonomy

2.12.6. one of the most widely read scholars on nationalism today, Benedict Anderson, defines nation as an "imagined community"- it is imagined because one will never meet all of the people in the nation, and it is a community because one nonetheless sees oneself as part of that nation

2.12.7. all nations are ultimately mixtures of different peoples

2.12.8. the French are often considered to be the classic example of a nation, but the most French-feeling person in France today is the product of a melding together of a wide variety of cultural groups over time, including Celts, Ancient Romans, Franks, Goths, and many more

2.12.9. many countries have multiple nations within their borders

2.12.9.1. for example, in the country of Belgium, two nations, the Flemish and the Walloons, exist within the state borders

2.13. Nation-State

2.13.1. a nation-state is a politically organized area in which nation and state occupy the same space

2.13.2. few (if any) states are nation-states, the importance of the concept of the nation state lies primarily in the idea behind it

2.13.3. the goal of creating nation-states dates to the French Revolution, which sought to replace control by monarchy or colonizer with an imagined cultural-historical community of French people

2.13.4. the Revolution initially promoted democfracy, the idea that the people are the ultime sovereign

2.13.5. we can view nationalism from two vantage points: that of the people and that of the state

2.13.6. when people have a strong sense of nationalism, they have a loyalty to add a belief in the nation itself

2.13.7. a state, in contrast, seeks to promote a sense of nationhood that coincides with its own borders

2.13.8. even though the roots of nationalism lie in earlier centuries, the nineteenth century was the true age of nationalism. in some cases the pursuit of nationalist ambitions produced greater cohesion within long-established states, such as in France or Spain; in other cases nationalism became a rallying cry for bringing together people with some shared historical or cultural elements into a single state, such as in the cases of Italy or Germany. similarly, people who saw themselves as separate nations within other states or empires launched successful separatist movements. Ireland, Norway, and Poland all serve as examples of this phenomenon

2.13.9. European state leaders used the tool of nationalism to strengthen the state

2.13.10. to help people within the borders relate to the dominant national ideal, states provide security, infrastructure, and goods and services for their citizens

2.13.11. states support education, health care, and a military to preserve the state and to create a connection between the people and the state - to build a nation-state

2.14. Multistate Nations, Multinational States, and Stateless Nations

2.14.1. people with a sense of belonging to a particular nation rarely all reside within a single state's borders

2.14.2. nearly every state in the world is a multinational state

2.14.2.1. multinational state - a state with more than one nation inside its borders

2.14.2.2. the people living in the former state of Yugoslavia never achieved a strong sense of Yugoslav nationhood

2.14.2.3. they long identified themselves as Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, or members of other nations or ethnic groups

2.14.3. when a nation stretches across borders and across states, it is called a multistate nation

2.14.3.1. ex: Romania and Hungary and their overlappingnations

2.14.3.2. the Transylvanian region today is populated by Romanians and by Hungarians

2.14.4. territory is as important as "language, religion, or way of life."

2.14.5. some nations do not have a state, these are called stateless nations

2.14.5.1. the Palestinians are an example of a stateless nation

2.14.5.2. the Palestinian Arabs have gained control over the Gaza Strip and fragments of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Golan Heights

2.14.5.2.1. the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees records 4.9 million registered refugees

2.14.5.3. a much larger stateless nation is the Kurds, whose population of between 25 and 30 million live in an area called Kurdistan that covers parts of six states

2.15. European Colonialism and the Diffusion of the Nation-State Model

2.15.1. Europe exported its concepts of state, sovereignty, and the desire for nation-states to much of the rest of the world through two waves of colonialism

2.15.2. in the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal took advantage of an increasingly well-consolidated internal political order and newfound wealth to expand their influence to increasingly far-flung realms during the first wave of colonialism

2.15.3. later joined by Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, the first wave of colonialism established a far reaching political and economic system

2.15.4. after the independence movements in the America during the late 1700s and 1800s, a second wave of colonialism began in the late 1800s

2.15.4.1. the major colonizers were Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Italy

2.15.4.2. the colonization parties met for the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885 and arbitrarily laid out the colonial map of Africa without reference to indigenous cultural or political arrangements

2.15.4.3. driven by motives ranging from economic profit to the desire to bring Christianity to the rest of the world, colonialism projected European power and a European approach to organizing political space into the non-European world

2.15.5. colonialism is rule by an autonomous power over an alien people and place - associated with Europe

2.15.6. the political organization of space and global world economy persist. and while the former colonies are now independent states, their economies are anything but independent. in many cases raw material flows are as great as they were before the colonial era came to an end.

2.15.6.1. for example, today in Gabon, Africa, the railroad goes from the interior forest, which is logged for plywood, to the major port and capital city, Libreville.

2.16. Construction of the Capitalist World Economy

2.16.1. one of the most powerful impacts of colonialism was the construction of a global order characterized by great differences in economic and political power

2.16.2. not all Europeans profited equally from colonialism

2.16.3. in the late seventeenth century, Spain had a large colonial empire, but the empire was economically draining Spain by then

2.16.4. during the period of European colonialism (1500-1950), Russia and the United States expanded over land instead of over seas, profiting from the taking of territory and the subjugation of indigenous peoples

2.16.5. the forces of colonialism played a key role in knitting together the economies widely separated areas, which gave birth to a global economic order called the world economy

2.16.6. wealth is unevenly distributed in the world economy. as can be seen in statistic on per capita gross national income (GNI)

2.16.6.1. Bangladesh's GNI is only $1,340, whereas Norway's is $53,690

2.16.7. to understand why wealth is distributed unevenly we need to see the big picture

2.16.8. think of a pointillist painting. specifically, envision the magnificent work of nineteenth century-French painter Geroges Pierre Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Fatte.if you have the opportunity to see the painting and if you stand close enough, you will see Seurat's post-Impressionist method of painting millions of points or dots-single, tiny brush strokes, each a single color, but when you step back again, you gain a saense of how each dot fits into the picture as a whole

2.16.9. building on the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, proponents of world-systems theory view the world as much more than the sum total of the world's states

2.16.10. the three basic tenets of world-systems theory, as Wallerstein defines them

2.16.10.1. 1. the world economy has one market and a global division of labor

2.16.10.2. 2. although the world has multiple states, almost everything takes place within the context of the world economy

2.16.10.3. 3. the world economy has a three-tier structure

2.16.11. according to Wallerstein, the development of a world economy began with capitalist exchange around 1450 and encompassed the globe by 1900

2.16.12. capitalism means that in the world economy, individuals, corporations, and states produce good and services that are exchanged for profit

2.16.13. to generate profit, producers seek the cheapest production and costs. since labor (including salaries and benefits) is now often the most expensive of these production costs, corporations often seek to move production of a good from, for example, North Carolina to Mexico and then to China, simply to take advantage of cheaper labor

2.16.14. commodification is the process of placing a price on a good, or idea and then buying, selling, and trading that item

2.16.15. colonialism played a major role in establishing this system by exporting the European state idea and facilitating the construction of an interdependent global economy

2.16.16. world-systems theorists see the world economy as a three-tiered structure: the core, periphery, and the semiperiphery

2.16.16.1. the core and the periphery are not just places but the sites where particular processes take

2.16.16.2. the core is where one is most likely to find higher levels of education, higher salaries, and more technology-core processes that generate more wealth in the world economy

2.16.16.3. the periphery more commonly has lower levels of education, lower salaries, and less technology-peripheral processes associated with a more marginal position in the world economy

2.16.16.4. semiperiphery are places where core and periphery processes are both occurring-places that are exploited by the core but in turn exploit the periphery

2.16.17. world-systems theory helps explain how colonial powers were able to amass great concentrations of wealth

2.17. World-Systems and Political Power

2.17.1. economic power means wealth, and political power means the ability to influence others to achieve your goals

2.17.2. not all states have the same ability to influence others or achieve their political goals

2.17.3. having wealth helps leaders amass political power

2.17.3.1. for instance, a wealthy country can establish a mighty military

2.18. The Enduring Impact of the Nation-State Idea

2.18.1. the idea of meshing the nation and state into a nation-state was not confined to nineteenth-century Europe or twentieth-century Africa

3. FIELD NOTE

3.1. Kwame Nkrumah is Ghana's first president

3.1.1. his statue was dressed in a hospital gown and bandages on his head

3.2. Ghana is the first Subsaharan African colony to become independent

3.3. Kwame Nkrumah was elected in 1960, overthrown by military in 1966 and died in exile in 1972

4. HOW ARE BOUNDARIES ESTABLISHED, AND WHY DO BOUNDARY DISPUTES OCCUR

4.1. a boundary between states is actually a vertical plane that cuts through the rocks below (called the subsoil) and the air space above, dividing one state from another

4.2. Europe's coal reserves extend from Belgium, underneath the Netherlands and on into the Ruhr area of Germany

4.3. soon after mining began in the mid-nineteenth century, these three neighbors began to accuse each other of mining coal that did not lie directly below their own national territories

4.4. during the 1950s-1960s, Germany and the Netherlands argued over a gas reserve that lies in the subsoil across their boundary

4.4.1. the Germans claimed that the Dutch were withdrawing so much natural gas that the gas flowing from beneath German land to the Dutch side of the boundary

4.4.2. the Germans wanted compensation for the gas they felt they lost

4.5. a major issue between Iraq and Kuwait, which in part led to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, was the oil in the Rumaylah reserve that lies underneath the desert and crosses the border between the two states

4.6. the Iraqs asserted that the Kuwaitis were drilling too many wells and draining the reserve too quickly; they also alleged that the Kuwaitis were drilling oblique boreholes to penetrate the vertical plane extending downward along the boundary

4.7. at the time the Iraq-Kuwait boundary was established, however, no one knew that this giant oil reserve lay in the subsoil or that it would contribute to an international crisis

4.8. Establishing Boundaries

4.8.1. states typically define the boundary in a treaty-like legal document in which actual points in the landscape or points of latitude and longitude are described

4.8.2. cartographers delimit the boundary by drawing on a map

4.8.3. if either or both of the states so desire, they can demarcate the boundary by using steal posts, concrete pillars, fences, walls, or some other visible means to mark the boundary on the ground

4.8.4. to administrate borders is to determine how the boundaries will be maintained and to determine which goods and people may cross them

4.9. Types of Boundaries

4.9.1. geometric boundaries are boundaries that are drawn using grid systems such as latitude and longitude

4.9.1.1. the United States and Canada used a single line of latitude west of the Great Lakes to define their boundary

4.9.2. Physical-political boundaries are boundaries that follow an agreed-upon feature in the natural landscape

4.9.2.1. the Rio Grande is an important physical-political boundary between the United States and Mexico

4.9.3. many states have entered territorial conflicts over borders based on physical features

4.9.3.1. Chile and Argentina

4.10. Boundary Disputes

4.10.1. boundary disputes take four principal forms: definitional, locational, operational, and allocational

4.10.2. definitional boundary disputes focus on the legal language of the boundary agreement

4.10.2.1. for example, a boundary definition may stipulate that the median line of a river will mark the boundary

4.10.3. locational boundary disputes center on the delimitation and possibly the demarcation of the boundary

4.10.3.1. sometimes the language of boundary treaties is vague enough to allow mapmakers to delimit the line in various ways

4.10.3.2. for example, when the colonial powers defined their empires in Africa and Asia, they specified their international boundaries rather carefully

4.10.4. operational boundary disputes involve neighbors who differ over the way their border should function

4.10.4.1. if one state wants to limit migration while the other does not, a dispute may rise

4.10.4.2. similarly efforts to prevent smuggling across borders sometimes lead to operational disputes when one state's efforts are not matched (or possibly even sabotaged) by its neighbor

4.10.5. allocational boundary disputes are becoming more common as the search for resources intensifies

4.10.5.1. for example the Netherlands and Germany over natural gas and Iraq and Kuwait over oil

4.10.5.2. today many such disputes involve international boundaries at sea

5. HOW DO STATES SPATIALLY ORGANIZE THEIR GOVERNMENT

5.1. Richard Hartshorne described the forces within the state that unify the people as centripetal and the forces that divide them as centrifugal

5.2. governance does not take place in a vacuum

5.3. Form of Government

5.3.1. most states in the world are either unitary of federal states

5.3.2. until the end of World War II, many European states, including multinational states, were highly centralized, with the capital city serving as the focus of power

5.3.3. political geographers call these highly centralized states unitary governments

5.3.4. the administrative framework of a unitary government is designed to ensure the central government's authority over all parts of the state

5.3.5. a federal system which is organizing state territory into regions, substates (which we refer to as States), provinces, or cantons

5.3.6. in a strong federal system, the regions have much control over government policies and funds, and in a weak federal system, the central government retains a significant measure of power

5.3.7. federalism functions differently depending on the context

5.3.7.1. in Nigeria, the 36 constituent States choose their own judicial system

5.3.7.2. in the Muslim north, twelve States have Shari'a laws (legal systems based on traditional Islamic laws), and in the Christian and animist south, the States do not

5.3.8. the Australian geographer K. W. Robinson described a federation as "the most geographically expressive of all political systems, based as it is on the existence and accommodation of regional differences... federation does not create unity out of diversity; rather, it enable the two to coexist

5.4. Devolution

5.4.1. devolution is the movement of power from the central governement to regional governments within the state

5.4.2. Ethnocultural Revolutionary Movements

5.4.2.1. many of Europe's devolutionary movements came from nations within a state that define themselves as being ethnically, linguistically, or religiously distinct

5.4.2.2. the capacity of ethnocultural forces to stimulate devolutionary processes has been evident, for example, in eastern Europe

5.4.2.3. parts of the eastern European map have changed quite drastically over the past two decades, and two countries, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, succumbed to devolutionary pressures

5.4.2.3.1. in the case of Czechoslovakia the process was peaceful: Czechs and Slovaks divided their country, creating a new international border

5.4.2.4. compared to the constituent units of the former Yugoslavia, other countries shown have dealt with devolutionary pressures more peacefully

5.4.2.4.1. among these are Lithuania and Ukraine

5.4.2.5. ethnocultural fragmentation has produced costly wars

5.4.2.5.1. for example, ethno-cultural differences were at the heart of civil war that wracked Sri Lanka (South Asia) between 1980s and 2009, with the Sinhalese (Buddhist) majority ultimately suppressing the drive by the Tamil (Hindu) minority for an independent state

5.4.2.5.2. in the UK, Scotland voted in 1997 to establish its own parliament, which had last met in 1707

5.4.2.5.3. devolutionary pressures can create demands for new states, such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, or for greater autonomy within a state, like Scotland in the UK

5.4.3. Economic Devolutionary Forces

5.4.3.1. in Catalonia, ethnocultural differences play a significant role, but Catalonians also cite economics; with about 6 percent of Spain's territory and just 15 percent of its population, Catalonia produces some 25 percent of all Spanish exports by value and 40 percent of its industrial exports

5.4.3.2. Pro-independence groups in Catalonia held a referendum in April 2011 seeking a vote for independence

5.4.3.3. the vote failed, but devolutionary forces continue to argue that Catalonia's economy pays more into the Spanish government than it receives from the state of Spain

5.4.3.4. economic forces play an even more prominent role in Italy and France. in Italy, demands for autonomy for Sardinia are deeply rooted in the island's economic circumstances, with accusations of neglect by the government in Rome high on the list of grievances

5.4.3.5. Italy also faces serious ddevolutinary forces on its mainland peninsula

5.4.3.6. the wealthier north stands in sharp contrast to the poorer south

5.4.3.7. Brazil provides another example of the interconnections between devolutionary movements and economics

5.4.3.8. as in northern Italy, a separatist movement emerged in the 1990s in a better-off region i nthe south that includes the three southernmost States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catrina, and Parana

5.4.3.9. southerners complained that the government was misspending their tax money on assistance to Amazonia in northern Brazil

5.4.4. Territorial Influences on Devolution

5.4.4.1. devolutionary events have at least one feature in common: they most often occur on the margins of states

5.4.4.2. note that every one of the devolution affected areas lies on a coast or on a border

5.4.4.3. distance, remoteness, and marginal location frequently strengthen devolutionary tendencies

5.4.4.4. the regions most likely to seek devolution are those far from the national capital

5.4.4.5. many islands are subject to devolutionary processes: Corsica (France), Sardinia (Italy), Taiwan (China), Singapore (Malaysia), Zanzibar (Tanzania), Jolo (Philippines), Puerto Rico (United States), Mayotte (Comoros), and East Timor (Indonesia) are notable examples

5.4.4.6. the United States faces its most serious devolutionary pressures on the islands of Hawai'i

5.4.4.7. the year 1993 marked the hundred0year anniversary of the United States' annexation of Hawai'i

5.4.4.8. territorial characteristics can play a significant role in starting and sustaining devolutionary processes

5.5. Electoral Geography

5.5.1. electoral geographers examine how the spatial configuration of electoral districts and the voting patterns that emerge in particular elections reflect and influence social and political affairs

5.5.2. various countries use different voting systems to elect their governments

5.5.2.1. for example, in the 994 South African election, government leaders introduced a system of majority rule while awarding some power to each of nine newly formed regions

5.5.3. political geographers study church affiliation income level, ethnic background, education attainment, and numerous other social and economic factors to gain an understanding of why voters in a certain region might have voted the way they did

5.5.4. the United States Constitution establishes a system of territorial representation

5.5.5. in the Senate, each major territorial unite (State) gets two representatives, and in the House of Representatives, members are elected from territoriality defined districts based on population

5.5.6. reapportionment is the process by which districts are moved according to population shifts

5.5.6.1. for example, after the 2010 census, several States in the Rust Belt, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan lost representatives and the Sun Belt of Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida along with the southwestern States of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah gained representatives

5.5.7. majority-minority districts are packed districts in which a majority of the population is from the minority

6. WHAT ARE SUPRANATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, AND WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF THE STATE

6.1. a supranational organization is an entity composed of three or more states that forge an association and form an administrative structure for mutual benefit and in pursuit of shared goals

6.2. states have formed over 60 major supranational organizations (such as NATO and NAFTA)

6.3. From League of Nations to United Nations

6.3.1. the modern beginnings of the supranational movement can be traced to conferences following World War I

6.3.2. Woodrow Wilson, president of the US, proposed an international organization that would include all the states of the world (fewer than 75 states existed at that point), leading to the creation of the League of Nations in 1919

6.3.3. even though it was the idea of an American president, the united States among the countries that did not join this organization because isolationists in the US Senate opposed joining

6.3.4. in all, 63 states participated in the League although the total membership at any single time never reached that number

6.3.5. Costa Rica and Brazil left the League even before 1930

6.3.6. Germany departed in 1933, shortly before the Soviet Union joined in 1934

6.3.7. The League later expelled the Soviet Union in 1939 for invading Finland

6.3.8. the League was born of a world wide desire to prevent future aggression, but the failure of the US to join dealt the organization a severe blow

6.3.9. in the mid-1930s, the League had a major opportunity when Ethiopia's Haile Selassie made a dramatic appeal for help in the face of an invasion by Italy, a member state until 1937

6.3.10. The League failed to take action, and in the chaos of the beginning of World War II the organization collapsed

6.3.11. after WWII, states formed a new organization to foster international security and cooperation: the United Nations (UN)

6.3.12. a handful of states still do not belong to the UN, but with the most recent additions in 2006, t now has 192 member states

6.3.13. the UN organization includes numerous less visible but nonetheless significant subsidiaries, including the FAO, UNESCO, and WHO

6.4. Regional Supranational Organizations

6.4.1. States organize supranational organizations at the regional scale to position themselves more strongly economically, politically, and even militarily

6.4.2. the United States gave Europe about $12 billion under the Marshall Plan

6.5. The European Union

6.5.1. European states' involvement in the Marshall Plan came the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC)

6.5.2. soon after Europe established the OEEC, France proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)

6.5.3. France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries entered the ECSC enlarged their sphere of cooperation to include reductions and even eliminations of certain tariffs and a freer flow of labor

6.5.4. in 1958 the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) was formed

6.5.5. the success of the EEC induced other countries to apply for membership

6.5.5.1. Denmark, Ireland, and the UK joined in 1973, Greece in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986

6.5.5.2. by the late 1980s it had 12 members

6.5.5.2.1. the three giants (Germany, France, and the UK); the four southern countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece); and fiver smaller states (the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Ireland)

6.5.6. these 12 members initiated a program of cooperation and unification that led to the formal establishment of a European Union (EU) in 1992

6.5.7. the Union is a patchwork of states with many different ethnic traditions and histories of conflict and competition, and some in Europe express concern over losing traditional state powers

6.5.8. some western Europeans would like to see Turkey join the EU, thereby widening the organization's reach

6.5.9. the government of Turkey has long sought to join, but many Greeks are hesitant to support Turkish membership because of the long-standing dispute between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and a number of islands off the Turkish coast

6.6. How Does Supranationalism Affect the State?

6.6.1. supranationalism is a worldwide phenomenon

6.6.2. Europeans in some regions are feeling a greater attachment to their region and to the European Union than to their own state

6.6.3. nuclear weapons give even small states the ability to inflict massive damage on larger and distant adversaries

6.6.4. in 1981, when reports of Iraq's nuclear program reach Israel, the Israelis attacked Iraq

6.6.5. in 2011, when unrest broke out in Egyp, activists used Facebook to garner support

6.6.6. the spread of popular culture in ways that make national borders virtually meaningless

6.6.7. Katy Perry is listened to from Iceland to Australia; fashions developed in northern Italy are hot items among Japanese tourists visiting South Korea

6.6.8. violence by extremists challenges the state-whether undertaken by individuals at the local scale or by widely diffused groups spread across major world realms

6.6.9. the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the downing of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that followed, moved terrorism to the geopolitical center stage