Transcript 02 Political Geography PPT - Elizabeth School District C-1

GEOPOLITICS
State’s power to control
territory, shape international policy
and other states’ foreign policy
Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Pierre Seurat
The Capitalist World-Economy
The World-Economy
is more than the sum of its parts. It is composed
of “dots” but we must also understand the
“whole.”
SCALE
Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems Theory:
1. The world economy has one market and a
global division of labor.
2. Although the world has multiple states, almost
everything takes place within the context of the
world economy.
3. The world economy has a three-tier structure.
Construction of the World Economy
Capitalism – people, corporations, and states produce
goods and services and exchange them in the world
market, with the goal of achieving profit.
Commodification – the process of placing a price on a
good and then buying, selling, and trading the good.
Colonialism – brought the world into the world economy,
setting up an interdependent global economy.
Three Tier Structure
Core
Periphery
Processes that incorporate higher
levels of education, higher
salaries, and more technology
* Generate more wealth in the world
economy
Processes that incorporate lower
levels of education, lower
salaries, and less technology
* Generate less wealth in the world
economy
Semi-periphery
Places where core and periphery
processes are both occurring.
Places that are exploited by the
core but then exploit the
periphery.
* Serves as a buffer between core
and periphery
African
colonies
Decolonization, 1940s-1990s
How did “nationalism” affect
Europe in the 19th-century?
• Following the defeat of Napoleon, the
Congress of Vienna met to create a peace
settlement in Europe.
Battle of Waterloo
• The Congress’s purpose was to establish a
balance of power in Europe and return
monarchs to power.
Prince Klemens von
Metternich
Congress of Vienna (1814 – 1815)
• However, the French Revolution had
inspired the rise of nationalistic movements
in many European countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTw
bKryrhks
• Nationalism is the loyalty of a people to
their values, traditions, and geography.
• Nationalism develops in an area that has
common customs, language, and history.
Nationalistic Movements:
• The unification of Germany was led by Otto
von Bismarck.
• The unification of Italy was led by Giuseppe
Garibaldi and Camillo di Cavour.
Camillo di Cavour
Giuseppe Garibaldi
• The unification of Italy and of Germany
resulted in upsetting the balance of power
in Europe
At your table your have 8 minutes:
Imagine you are the leader of a newly
independent state in Africa or Asia.
Determine what your government can do to build
a nation that corresponds with the borders of
your state.
The next slide will contain the criteria for your
country.
You need to assign a:
Recorder, Time Keeper, Reporter
- You have 10 different ethnic groups, 2 of which are multistate-nations; 7 different languages are spoken in your
country.
- The north of the country is Muslim and the South is
Christian with traditional tribal influences.
- The North is more wealthy than the south
- More natural resources are found in the south.
Consider the roles of: Education, Government, Military, and
Culture
Key Question:
How do States Spatially
Organize their Governments?
Forms of Government
• Unitary – highly centralized government where
the capital city serves as a focus of power.
– Designed to ensure the central government’s
authority over all parts of the state
• Federal – a government where the state is
organized into territories, which have control over
government policies and funds.
– Accommodates regional interests by vesting primary
power in provinces, States, or other regional units
over all matters except those explicitly given to the
central government
Cores
• Core Area – contains a states most
developed economic areas, densest
population, largest cities, most highly
developed transportation systems
– Paris, France
– London, England
– Moscow, Russia
Nigeria: Multi-core state
Capital
• Seat of central authority, high population
concentration, important economic hub, often
the largest city
– Forward-Thrust Capital City – deliberately located in a
state’s interior to signal the government’s awareness
of regions away from an off-center core and its
interest in encouraging more uniform development.
– Primate City – dominates the structure of the entire
country
• Paris, Mexico City, London
Types of States
• Unitary States – highly centralized
governments, little cultural diversity, strong
national identity, clearly defined borders
Nigeria’s Federal Government –
Allows states within the state to determine
whether to have Shari’a Laws
Shari’a Laws
Legal systems
based on
traditional
Islamic laws
The U.S. Federal Government –
Allows states within the state to determine “moral” laws such as
death penalty, access to alcohol, and concealed weapons.
Minnesota’s
concealed
weapons law
requires the posting
of signs such as this
on buildings that do
not allow concealed
weapons.
Devolution:
Movement of power from the central government to
regional governments within the state.
- Does not always result in groups seeking independence, it can
help calm tensions by giving constituent groups within a state a
sense of control over their own affairs
- Scottish Parliament in 1997
What causes devolutionary movements?
- Ethnocultural forces
- Economic forces
- Spatial forces
Ethnocultural Devolutionary Movements
Eastern Europe
devolutionary forces
since the fall of
communism
Ethnocultural Devolutionary Movements
Scotland
rise in independence
movement is coupled
with:
- European Union
- Scotland’s oil
resources
Economic
Devolutionary
Movements
Catalonia, Spain
Barcelona is the center of
banking and commerce in
Spain and the region is much
wealthier than the rest of Spain.
8% of Spain's territory, 16% of
population,35% of all exports
Territorial Devolutionary Movements
Honolulu, Hawai’i
A history apart from the
United States, and a
desire to live apart in
order to keep traditions
alive.
Typically occur on the
margins of the state
- Distance, remoteness
and marginal location
strengthen
devolutionary
tendencies
Electoral Geography
• What do political geographers take into
account?
– Church affiliation, income level, ethnic
background, education level
Electoral Geography in the U.S.
• Territorial Representation – each state gets 2
senators and 435 House members are elected
from territorially defined districts that have
similar population numbers
– Geographical size does not matter
• Reapportionment – process by which districts are
moved according to population shifts, so that
each district encompasses approximately the
same number of people
– Each state follows its own system
What the Supreme Court looks for
• Each district needs the same approximate
number of people
• Compact and contiguous districts which keep
political units in tact
• Equal representation of racial and linguistic
minorities
Unintended Consequences
• Majority-minority Districts – packed districts in
which a majority of the population is from
minority groups
• Gerrymandering – redistricting to gain a political
advantage
– Practice of drawing the boundaries of electoral
districts as to give particular candidates or classes of
candidates an electoral advantage beyond the share
of the electorate that supports them
Analyze the following quote
•“…it is at the local level that most of us
find our most intimate and immediate
contact with government and its
influence on the administration of our
affairs.”
The 50 states are partitioned into more than
3,000 counties, most of which are further
subdivided into townships, each with a still
lower level of governing power.
Key Question:
How do Geopolitics and Critical
Geopolitics Help us Understand
the World?
What does INTERNATIONAL mean?
Geopolitics
• Geopolitics – the interplay among geography,
power, politics, and international relations.
– Helps us to understand the spatial power arrangements
that shape international relations
Classical Geopolitics – 2 Schools of
Thought
What is a “school of thought”?
A particular way of thinking about a subject
• German School
Why and how certain states became powerful
• British / American School
Offer strategic advice by identifying parts of Earth’s
surface that were/are important for the maintenance
and projection of power
German School
• Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)
• Influenced by Charles Darwin and theory of
evolution
• The state is a living (biological) organism that
goes through the life cycle
– Birth-Maturity-Decline-Death
• State requires nourishment
– Provided through the acquisition of territories
– Allows space for dominant nation to thrive
– Territory is the essential life-giving force
British School
• Sir Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947)
• At the heart of Eurasia was a resource-rich “pivot
area” from Eastern Europe to Eastern Siberia
– If the “”pivot area” become unified a great empire
would emerge
– Re-names the “pivot area” to the HEARTLAND
Mackinder’s Heartland Theory:
“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland
Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island
Who rules the World Island commands the World”
Growth of Russian Empire
East versus West: View of Communist “Red Bloc” during Cold War
Lumping failed to recognize
differences among Communists,
or local causes of conflict
Enlargement of
Soviet bloc after
World War II
Berlin
Wall,
1961-89
The Rimland Theory
American Nichols Spyman creates theory in
reaction to Mackinder’s Heartland theory
– Eurasia’s rimland, the coastal areas, is the key to
controlling the World Island.
– The rimland encircles the Heartland.
– Control of the rimland, would eventually control the
World Island.
Changes in Europe, 1990-93
The Domino Theory
• If one region within the rimlamd succumbed to
communism, then the surrounding regions would
follow in domino effect.
– Communist takeover of 3 Southeast Asian countries
in 1975; South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Critical Geopolitics
• Idea that intellectuals of statecraft (managing
state affairs) construct ideas about places; ideas
influence and reinforce political behaviors and
policy choices; affect how we, the people,
process our own notions of places and politics.
Us versus Them
Terrorists “come from diverse
places but share a hatred
for democracy, a fanatical
glorification of violence,
and a horrible distortion of
their religion, to justify the
murder of innocents. They
have made the United
States their adversary
precisely because of what
we stand for and what we
stand against.”
“They [the terrorists] stand
against us because we
stand in their way.”
“I’ve said in the past that
nations are either with us
or against us in the war on
terror.”
Us versus Them
Terrorists “come from diverse
places but share a hatred
for democracy, a fanatical
glorification of violence,
and a horrible distortion of
their religion, to justify the
murder of innocents. They
have made the United
States their adversary
precisely because of what
we stand for and what we
stand against.”
“They [the terrorists] stand
against us because we
stand in their way.”
President George W. Bush
“I’ve said in the past that
nations are either with us
or against us in the war on
terror.”
President George W. Bush
President William J. Clinton
Geopolitical World Order
Temporary periods of stability in how politics are
conducted at the global scale.
• Bi-polar
– 2 states with economic, military and cultural
influence globally
• Multi-polar
– More than 4 states have military, economic and
cultural global influence
• Unilateralism
– Only 1 state has ultimate military, economic and
cultural global influence
What are Supranational
Organizations, and what is the
future of the state?
Supranational Organization
• Entity composed of three or more states that
creates an association; forms an administrative
structure for mutual benefit in pursuit of shared
goals
– NAFTA
– NATO
– UN
– EU
Currently there are 60 in the world