How do States Spatially Organize their Governments?

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How do States Spatially Organize their
Governments?
Key Question
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Forms of Government

• Unitary highly centralized government where the
  capital city serves as a focus of power.
• Federal a government where the state is
  organized into territories, which have control
  over government policies and funds.

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Organizing the Territory Inside the Boundaries
FEDERAL UNITARY
Legal Some uniformity mixed with diversity among the units Uniform across the state
Size Tend to be larger Likely to be small and homogeneous
Foci Multiple Single
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Types of Federal States

• Mutual Interest Brazil
• Compromise India
• Centralized Former Soviet Union
• Imposed Central African Federation (1943-53)

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Brazil
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Russia a Changing Federation
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Central African Federation (1943-1953) - Imposed
Mining
Agriculture
Industrial/Service
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Nigerias Federal Government Allows states
within the state to determine whether to have
Sharia Laws
Sharia Laws Legal systems based on traditional
Islamic laws
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The U.S. Federal Government Allows states
within the state to determine moral laws such
as death penalty, access to alcohol, and
concealed weapons.
Minnesotas concealed weapons law requires the
posting of signs such as this on buildings that
do not allow concealed weapons.
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Devolution Movement of power from the central
government to regional governments within the
state. What causes devolutionary
movements? Ethnocultural forces Economic
forces Spatial forces
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Ethnocultural Devolutionary Movements

• Eastern Europe
• devolutionary forces since the fall of communism

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Ethnocultural Devolutionary Movements

• Scotland
• rise in independence movement is coupled with
• - European Union
• - Scotlands oil resources

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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.

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Spatial Devolutionary Movements

• Honolulu, Hawaii
• A history apart from the United States, and a
  desire to live apart in order to keep traditions
  alive.

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Electoral Geography

• A states electoral system is part of its spatial
  organization of government.
• In the United States
• - territorial representation
• - reapportionment
• - voting rights for minority populations

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Political Redistricting

• Number of residents or eligible voters or likely
  voters?
• Compactness
• Non-discriminatory

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Federal and State Not the Same Constitutional
Foundation

• US Const Art. 1 Sec. 2 Representativesshall be
  apportioned among the several state according to
  their respective numbers. States equal
  protection clause of the 14th Amendment requires
  state legislative districts substantially equal
  in population. Degree of mathematical equality
  has varied between CDs and state districts.

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• Gerrmandering drawing voting districts to
  benefit one group over another.

Majority-Minority districts drawn so that the
majority of the population in the district is
from the minority.
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How is Redistricting Done?

• Varies by state
• Dominant legislative party usually in control
• Short-term technical staff advise and work with
  political leaders
• Public must be allowed to comment - hearings
• Usually very much an insider operation

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Techniques to Reduce Voting Power of Minorities

• Splitting - dividing populations
• Packing - putting very high proportions in single
  districts
• At-large - dilution of minority voting power

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How are Boundaries Established, and Why do
Boundary Disputes Occur?
Key Question
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Common human tendency of territoriality The
precise marking of borders is a concept
originally unique to Western culture.
Ifugao Phillippines Zones around each village
Ours
Theirs
Home
Western Europe
Neutral
Feudist
Territoriality the attempt by an individual
or group to affect, influence, or control people,
phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and
asserting control over a geographic area.
Robert Sack
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Boundary a vertical plane that cuts through the
rocks below and the airspace above, dividing one
state territory from another.
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Boundaries often divide resources, such as oil
between Kuwait and Iraq
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Establishing Boundaries

• Define
• Delimit
• Demarcate
• Administrate

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Types of Boundaries

• Geometric boundaries based on grid systems
• eg. Boundary between the US and Canada
• Physical-political boundaries follow an
  agreed-upon feature in the physical geographic
  landscape.
• eg. Boundary between the US and Mexico

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Boundaries

• Older boundaries were marchlandsnot clearly
  defined
• Natural follow some feature of the natural
  landscape, e.g. a river or mountain ridge
• Ethnographic culture trait, e.g. language or
  religion
• Relic - no longer exist but leave traces in the
  culture- example Germany
• Modern Boundaries
• Geometric regular or straight lines E.g.
  North America

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How do Geopolitics and Critical Geopolitics Help
us Understand the World?
Key Question
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Geopolitics

• Geopolitics the interplay among geography,
  power, politics, and international relations.

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Classical Geopolitics

• German School
• eg. Ratzels organic state theory
• British / American School
• eg. Mackinders Heartland Theory

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Mackinders Heartland Theory Who rules East
Europe commands the HeartlandWho rules the
Heartland commands the World Island Who rules
the World Island commands the world
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The heartland theory 1. Proposed by
Mackinder 2. Relied on discredited
environmental determinism
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Critical Geopolitics

• The idea that intellectuals of statecraft
  construct ideas about places, these ideas
  influence and reinforce their political behaviors
  and policy choices, and these ideas affect how
  we, the people, process our own notions of places
  and politics.

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Political ecology D. Geopolitics
today 1. the study of how geography is
informed by politics 2. Critical
geopolitics how geopolitics affect our
understanding of human-environment
relations and affects the way we
transformation the environment 3. Debates
concerning global biodiversity
conservation -Roderick Neumann
E. Warfare and environmental destruction 1. Scor
ched earth 2. Bomb testing
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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.

Ive said in the past that nations are either
with us or against us in the war on terror.
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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
Ive 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
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Geopolitical World Order

• Temporary periods of stability in how politics
  are conducted at the global scale.
• bi-polar
• multi-polar
• unilateralism
• Will individual states remain the dominant actors
  in a future geopolitical world order?

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What are Supranational Organizations, and What is
the Future of the State?
Key Question
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Supranational Organizations

• A separate entity composed of three or more
  states that forge an association and form an
  administrative structure for mutual benefit in
  pursuit of shared goals.
• How many supranational organizations
• exist in the world today?

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Global Scale The United Nations
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Supranational political bodies 1. Associations
formed by Countries 2. Numbers grew in the
twentieth century
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Regional Scale The European Union
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How does Supranationalism affect the State?
identities
economics