Political Patterns and Processes Part 1 Flashcards
(39 cards)
Autonomous Region
An area of a country that has degree of autonomy , or has freedom from an external authority.
Multinational State
A country with multiple culture groups or multiple ethnic groups under a single government.
Multistate Nation
When a nation stretches across borders and across states.
Nation
A group of people with common cultural characteristics.
Nation-State
A country whose political boundaries correspond with its cultural boundaries.
Semiautonomous Region
An area where a group has some type of political autonomy. Semi-autonomous regions, like Kurdistan, has a degree of power and self-determination, but not fully like the autonomous regions of Russia in the North Caucasus region.
Sovereignty
The political authority of a state to govern itself.
State
A politically bound area controlled by an established government that has authority over its internal affairs and foreign policy.
Stateless Nation
A nation of people without a state that it considers home.
Berlin Conference
This conference of 1884-1885 regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the period known as New Imperialism. The political boundaries established at the conference had no regard for the existing cultural patterns between African ethnic groups.
Centrifugal Force
Centrifugal forces, in contrast to centripetal forces, are forces or attitudes that tend to divide a state. Centrifugal forces originate in the same dimensions as centripetal forces, but the forces pull the population apart instead of bringing it together.
Centripetal Force
An attitude that unifies people and enhances support for a state. In other words, centripetal forces from within a state unite it and keep the country together. They stabilize and strengthen the country and create a sense of unity.
Cold War
A state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact).
Colonialism
The process by which one nation exercises near complete control over another country which they have settled and taken over. Often, the governing country uses the colony for its resources, taking what is useful without regard to the original inhabitants.
Decolonization
Process by which colonies become independent of the colonizing country.
Devolution
The movement of power from the central government to regional governments within the state or breakup of a large state (balkanization) into several independent ones
Genocide
Deliberate extermination of a racial or cultural group
Imperialism
Forceful extension of a nation’s authority by conquest or by establishing economic and political domination of other nations that aren’t its colonies.
Nationalism
The attachment of a person to a particular nation, or a political action by such a group to achieve statehood (or national self-determination), or an ideology that a person’s nation is superior to all others.
Self-Determination
The process by which a country determines its own statehood and forms its own allegiances and governments.
Satellite States
A political term that refers to a country which is formally independent, but under heavy influence or control by another country.
Geopolitics
The study of the interplay between international political relations and the territories in which they occur.
Territoriality
A means of affecting (enhancing or impeding) interaction and extends the particulars of action by contact. Territoriality is defined here as the attempt to affect, influence, or control actions, interactions, or access by asserting and attempting to enforce control over a specific geographic area.
Neocolonialism
The continued economic dependence of colonies on their former occupiers.
