Who says political geography is not important?

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Who says political geography is not important?
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Political Geography

• Nations, States and Stateless Nations
• Peace of Westphalia
• What is a Nation? What is a state
• Stateless Nations
• 4 Pillars of a state
• Are there any real Nation-States?
• What about states like Arkansas?

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Most modern-day boundaries were drawn by whom?

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Territory

• States cannot exist without territory
• Territorial Morphology geographers study the
  size, shape and relative location of states?
• How does the size and shape of a state give
  advantages or disadvantages?
• 5 types of territorial morphologies

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COMPACTWhat are the advantages disadvantages?
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FRAGMENTEDWhat are the advantages
disadvantages?

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ELONGATEDWhat are the advantages disadvantages?
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PRORUPT or PROTRUDEDWhat are the advantages
disadvantages?

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PERFORATEDWhat are the advantages
disadvantages?
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What territorial morphology is ITALY?
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Exclaves Enclaves

• Exclave bounded (non-island) piece of territory
  that is part of a state but lies separated from
  it by territory of another state.
• Enclave piece of territory that is surrounded
  by another political unit of which it is not a
  part (landlocked within the country which
  surrounds them.
• See page 211 in your text
• To understand, it is all about perspective

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Google Azerbaijan and Armenia maps and look
what you get
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Talk about a strangely shaped states
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Shape is not a constant for political/economic
stability or instability

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Resource richbut with many problems

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Very few natural resourcesbut wealthy and stable
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LANDLOCKED COUNTRIES

• Isolation
• At the mercy of neighbors
• Need communication linkages (highways, airports,
  rivers, etc.)
• Have formed alliances with other countries to
  lessen isolation
• Only Liechtenstein Uzbekistan are landlocked
  surrounded by landlocked countries

                                                
                                                  
                    
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BOUNDARIES

• Obviously mark the land surface
• Turn to page 243-245 in your text
• But, they also extend into airspace and the
  ground
• What about natural resources?
• What about air traffic?
• What about sea traffic?

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Setting BoundariesStage One

• DEFINITION exact location established through
  legal agreement, treaty, etc. Can describe
  terrain feature or be measured by longitude and
  latitude.

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Setting BoundariesStage Two

• DELIMITATION putting the boundary on a map
  officially.

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Setting BoundariesStage Three

• DEMARCATION The final stage. Marking a
  boundary with fences, walls, posts, pillars, or
  other markers. Most of the worlds boundaries
  are not demarcated.

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Four Types of Boundary Disputes

• Definitional center on legal issues
• Locational definitions not disputed the
  interpretation is
• Operational parties differ on how boundary
  should function (how migration should occur)
• Allocational conflict over stuff oil, gas,
  seafloor riches, water

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Former Yugoslavia - pg.237 (is the closest
thing)http//www.montenet.org/home/yugoslav.jpg

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FEDERAL STATES

• Political framework where the central government
  represents its political subunits where they have
  common interests defense, foreign affairs, etc.
  but these subunits retain their own identities,
  laws, policies, customs, etc.
• Accommodates regional differences and enables
  diversity and unity to coexist

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FEDERAL STATES

• Geographer K.W. Robinson said, The federal state
  is the most expressive of all political systems.
• What did he mean by this?

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UNITARY STATES

• State which has a centralized government that
  exercises power equally over all parts of the
  state.
• Highly centralized
• Appeasing minorities maybe not important
• Government frameworks are set up to reinforce the
  central governments power

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Unitary States of the World in blue Federal
States in gray http//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/I
mageUnitary_states.png