Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes

An identifiable land area.

A population with a single culture, also known as a culture group.

A population under a single government, implying sovereign territory.

A single culture under a single government, sometimes representing a singular contemporary culture.

Full independence from outside control, holding territory, and having international recognition.

Made up of different nations represented by various culture groups.

Derives from an existing culture group desiring political representation or independence.

Culture groups not included or allowed a share in the state political process.

Provide military protection, administer foreign diplomacy, and regulate trade.

A single centralized government with ultimate authority lying with the central government.

Sovereign states with a small size but holding the same position as larger states.

Parts of nations granted freedom from central authority for various reasons.

Have the same freedom as autonomous regions but to a lesser degree.

Two or more sovereign states aligned together for a common purpose.

Formed for trade alliances, military cooperation, and diplomacy.

The expression of political control over space.

The legal identity of a person based on the state where they were born or naturalized.

Expressions of political control that must be definable and clear.

A minority culture group concentrated inside a country dominated by a different, larger culture group.

A fragmented piece of sovereign territory separated by land from the main part of the state's territory.

United Nations Conference on the Law of the Seas, standardizing oceanic boundaries.

Sovereign territory from shore out to the 12-nautical-mile limit.

Exclusive economic rights from shore out to the 200-nautical-mile limit.

Natural boundaries such as rivers, lakes, oceans, mountains, or deserts.

Estimated boundaries between nations, ethnic groups, or tribes.

Boundaries surveyed mostly along lines of latitude and longitude.

Open and undefined territory.

The shape of a country impacting its society and external relations.

Addition of territory as a result of a land purchase or when a territorical claim is extended through incorporation

Seat of government where political power is centered.

Voting rights (which have varied historically from state to state).

Irregularly shaped districts designed to manipulate voting outcomes.

Political economy with aristocracy controlling land and wealth, and peasants working the land.

Supreme aristocrat serving as both head of state and head of government.

A form of government where the supreme aristocrat remains head of state, but the leader of the elected parliament is the head of government.

The leader of the elected parliament who appoints senior members of parliament to be ministers or secretaries of executive-branch departments.

Countries with elected-representative parliamentary systems, commonwealth countries, and other constitutional monarchies or republics that rely upon balancing the relationship between the elected-representative government, its citizens, and business interests.

Governments free of aristocracy or monarchical control and are fully under the control of the "common" people, as opposed to hereditary monarchy.

Where the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government are held by separate groups of people that keep each other in check.

Karl Marx's political-economic theories aimed at creating a class-free society with no inequalities in terms of wealth or power.

A political-economic system where the state owns all land and industry, and the government directs economic productivity, aiming for equal distribution of wealth.

An economy that does not rely on supply and demand like capitalism, but rather the central government calculates the economic needs and sets quotas for production.

The global-scale relationships between sovereign states.

Factors that hold together the social and political fabric of the state.

Factors that tear apart the social and political fabric of the state.

The political landscape going from a larger state to several smaller states.

A contemporary form of colonialism based on economic pressure rather than political control.

A model designed to define the global geopolitical landscape and determine areas of potential future conflict.

Lands that protect hostile countries by creating a surrounding buffer of sympathetic countries.

Planned violent attacks on people and places to provoke fear and cause a change in government policy.

When governments use violence and intimidation to control their own people.

The resource that countries are willing to fight over.

When border treaties are interpreted two different ways by states.

Dispute caused by movement of a natural border.

When borders are agreed on but passage across the border is a problem.

When a dispute is caused by a resource lying directly on the border accessible by both sides.

Boundary created by historical events or cultural factors

Former political border that no longer serves as a boundary due to changes in political or territorial divisions.

Boundary that is established after the settlement of an area, often resulting from political or social changes.

Boundary created by outside forces, often disregarding existing cultural or ethnic divisions.

Borders are put on the map

Markers are placed on the ground to show where borders lie.

Citizens living outside of their borders.

No taxes charged on goods and services flowing between member states.

No border-control between member states.