Political Geography

(Ch. 6)
Week 11 Lecture: States and Geopolitics
GEOG 129 Human Geography: Resources, Development
and Society

25 March, 2025
 Notices

 Feedback on Essay Two sometime next week

 Final Exam - April 17, 12 pm
 Study guide for the final exam will be available today
 Official course evaluation (SEI) - March 29 – April 10
 Office Hours:

Mine: Thursday, 11-12noon

Dina: Wednesday 11.30 - 12.00

Megan: Friday 2.30 - 3.00pm

 Tutorial Prep
1) Watch the short video by Gerard Toal and explain the
differences between critical geopolitics and traditional or
classical geopolitics

2) Watch the second video on the geopolitical conflict between

India and Pakistan, and answer the questions below:
 What cultural variable was fundamental to the origins of nationalism in
this case?
 Whatroles did colonization play in the rise of nationalist states in the
two countries?
 When did India and Pakistan become nation-states? Is it 1947? Over
the decades that followed? Or is it an ongoing process still?
 Final Exam
 April 17, 12.00 pm
 Open-book, Online, via Canvas, Zoom Invigilation
 Short Essay Questions: Bank of 8; 5 in exam; you answer 2 (10
marks)
 20 multiple-choice questions (10 marks) and 10 fill-in-the-gap
questions (10 marks).
 Covers only weeks 7-12
 APA citation preferred, 350-500 words, at least 2 citations for
each essay
 Centrally organized, no flexibility except in exceptional cases
 Final Exam Question Bank
1) Compare wind and solar energy sources, discussing their advantages as well as their current
limitations or challenges.
2) Explain the tragedy of the commons and examine the extent to which it can explain patterns
of local resource use.
3) Differentiate between formal and vernacular cultural regions.
4) Why is language central to culture?
5) Explain three ways that language and landscapes interact.
6) Briefly outline the important elements and the spatial distribution of one of the
universalizing religions.
7) What is critical geopolitics, and how is it different from classical geopolitics?
8) Using one or more examples, discuss how colonization has influenced nationalism and the
possibility of nation-states in formerly colonized countries.
 Reading for Next Week

10th Edition: Read Chapter 6 pages 229 – 247 or

from ‘Grouping of States’ to the end of the
chapter.

11th Edition: Read Chapter 8 pages 308–333

Questions

Image: Pixabay
 Outline
 Intro

 Understanding states
 External state relations: Geopolitics
 Internal state relations: State (in)stability
 Grouping of States
 The Role of the State
 Elections

 War and peace

 Outline
 Explain concepts such as state, nation-state, nationalism, and multi
national state
 Discuss exploration, colonialism and decolonization
 Demonstrate an understanding of geopolitics and critical geopolitics
 Discuss intersection of nation and state in Africa and Europe
 Outline key issues in the groupings of states and the roles of the state
 Discuss the importance of geography in elections
 Demonstrate an appreciation of the geography of war and
peacemaking
Understanding States
 Understanding States

Source: wikimedia
Political partitioning of space into Sovereign States
 Understanding States

What is a State?

Typically, a distinct political unit in which

1. a Government
2. exercises Sovereignty
3. over a distinct permanent Territory
4. and a given Population

Politics: “struggle to exercise control over people and the spaces they
 Understanding States

What is a nation-state?

 Nation: a distinct cultural group with a territorial attachment

 State: a formally demarcated political unit with GSTP

 Nation-state: a political unit that contains one principal cultural

group that gives it its identity. Very few in reality. Why?

A State Vs The State?

A State: the foregoing -– a distinct political unit

 The State: the institutions of governance of a state

 Understanding States

Nation-state:

 they are rare e.g. Egypt, Iceland, Mongolia, Bangladesh

 Nation-state is also being used for cultural diverse

states

 Nations are often not naturally occurring, they are

constructed. A key preoccupation of states

 Nation-state often used to mean state

 Understanding States

Rise of nation-states relies

on nationalism
…the belief that nations
and states should be
neatly aligned, congruent

 naturalizes and idealizes

the nation-state but a
very recent idea

Nationalism Vs Patriotism?
 Understanding States

Aspirations of an active
nation-state (nationalist
state):
1) All members of the ‘nation-al’
group have residential rights
2) Limits residency of member
of other national groups
3) Dominant cultural group Credit: Washington Post

should be in charge of
government Why might these ideas lead to conflict?
 Groups

“In retrospect, nationalism was more often a

romantic yearning than a coherent political
program and therefore must be a flawed – but
vastly influential - concept”
-- Mercier and Norton, 2019

Disagree/Agree? Why?
 Understanding States

Historical rise of nationalism (later 19th, early 20th

centuries)

 Pre
19th century maps demarcated states based on
dynastic grouping and religion
 Ordinary
Europeans historically accepted boundaries
based on dynastic groupings and religion
 They saw no need for national identities
 Countrieswere whatever mix of peoples the conquering
kings and religious lords were able to delineate and rule
over
 Understanding States
‘Countries’ making up Italy in the year 1796

Nationalist drive began for most in the late 19th century

 Understanding States

Why the rise of national identity from the 19th

century?

1. The rise of nationalist political philosophies

2. Human affinity for people of similar cultural background
3. Follows from the shift from feudalism to capitalism;
stable state
4. Logically follows economic growth based on expanding
technologies
5. One state-one culture follows the collapse of local
communities and need for communication in a larger unit
 Understanding States

Contemporary nationalism

 Today,in a sense, much of Europe appears closest to the

ideal nation-state; although note imperialism and recent
migration

 Today,many African countries are multinational states

(with 2 or more cultural groups). Why?

 Othermultinational states include Canada, US, Belgium

Switzerland -- variously prone to political instability,
government change and ‘minority nation’ discontent.
 Understanding States

Exploration and Colonialism

“…expansion of a given’s state knowledge about the world” (Mercier and
Norton, 2019)

colonizers perspective as ‘development’

 Understanding States

Exploration and Colonialism

 Military Conquest, driven by economic growth and competition
 Control of economic, social, political and cultural by and in the
interest of the colonizing power
 Elimination (or attempted elimination) of indigenous
populations
 Institution of structures and systems of domination
 Decolonization; Reconciliation
 Persistence, Legacy, and Neocolonialism
 Soft power (e.g. The Commonwealth, Bilateral Agreements)
 Understanding States

“By the time a century or two of exploitation

has passed there comes about a veritable
emaciation of the stock of national culture. The
poverty of the people, national oppression, and
the inhibition of culture are one and the same
thing. After a century of colonial domination
we find a culture which is rigid in the extreme,
or rather what we find are the dregs of culture,
its mineral strata. Colonial exploitation,
poverty, and endemic famine drive the native
more and more to open, organized revolt.”

- (Fanon 1963 p.36)

The colonized’s
 Understanding States

Exploration and Colonialism: nationalism in Europe

 European nationalism + multinational empire-building

 Euro-empires began around 1500; many Asian and African
empires came earlier, Chinese and Islamic civilizations
dominant
 Subsequent forced and voluntary movement of non-
Europeans
 Present day migration and new Euro-nationalism (e.g.
Brexit, nationalist political parties), and colonial Islands
 Understanding States

Exploration and Colonialism: nationalism in former

colonies

 Decolonization after WWII – 1945 onwards

 Colonial
territorial boundaries, multinational states, & post-
independence nationalist campaigns
 Often very complex (e.g. Indian nationalism Vs Hindu nationalism)
 Embrace of ‘national identity’ as a way to cast off foreign rule
 Continued struggle to construct national identities, ethnic conflict

 No. of states: 70 in 1938 to 193 UN members states in 2018

 Understanding States

Exploration and Colonialism: nationalism in former colonies

Credit: Mercier and Norton, 2019

African political areas at different historical periods

 Understanding States

In groups:
Reflecting on the video and context of the use of English as a
nationalizing language in postcolonial African countries

1. Discuss the tensions between forging a national identity

(nationalism) and retaining African cultural and ethnic
diversity in relation to language.

2. What are some differences and similarities between

postcolonial African countries and Canada in terms of
efforts to construct national identities?
Understanding States
External state relations: Geopolitics
 External state relations: Geopolitics

 Geopolitics: state power and interests in the

international arena and entanglements with space
 Geopolitical debates began around late 19th century
 Theterm geopolitics coined in the early 20th
century
 The term emerged to make the central claim that
territorial expansion is a legitimate state goal
 Animportant element of geopolitical debates until
1940s
 External state relations: Geopolitics

H.J. Mackinder – propounded the Heartland Theory in 1904

Credit: Wikipedia

Geographer, academic and politician

 External state relations: Geopolitics

Heartland Theory
 Geography, history &
the mechanics of state
power in Europe-Asia
 Europe-Asia, the
“World Island” =
heartland (pivot area)
+ surrounding
(marginal crescent)
 Control of heartland =
global domination
 Location and physical
environment = power
distribution Credit: Mercier and Norton, 2019
 External state relations: Geopolitics
Rise of geopolitik:
 … a state as an organism that rely on territorial expansion as an
essence of its nature – an organism in need of lebensraum (living space)

 Popularized by German geographer, Karl Haushofer in the 20s,

30s during, Nazi German took interest in geopolitik

 Decline of geopolitics as a result

 Extremes of its earlier narrow legitimization of state territorial expansion

 Renewed interested from the 70s – broader framing, ‘new

geopolitics’, ‘critical geopolitics’
 Emphasis on the social construction of national identities and beyond the
state
 External state relations: Geopolitics

 Rimland Theory (Nicholas Spykman, 1940s)

 Build on MacKinder
 Control of surrounding (marginal crescent) or rimland
= world domination
 The rimland was a fragmented region at the time
 Post-WWII American foreign policy in the entire region
covering Vietnam and Korea

The impacts of these theories?

Internal state relations: State (in)stability
 Internal state relations: State (in)stability

Centrifugal Vs Centripetal Geopolitical Forces

 Centrifugal forces: lead to instability and tend to want to

tear the state apart
 Elements of internal differences including language and religion,
contested state boundaries and nascent co-existence

 Centripetal forces: nurture and builds up the state

 A strong identity or collective sense of purpose or reason for
being, long state history, clear and accepted boundaries

 The balance of these forces + interaction with other states

 Internal state relations: State (in)stability

Think, Pair, Share

Identify and discuss some of the centrifugal and

centripetal forces at work in Canada
 Internal state relations: State (in)stability

 Boundaries: either antecedent or subsequent

 Divided states: states divided in two or more segments

for various reasons, often reasons other than those
supported by residents (e.g. India/Pakistan; E/W Germany;
N/S Korea)

 Unstable states: divisions and conflict along ethnic

(often religious and language) lines; often threaten state
stability
 Rise of regional identities, lack of national attachment => Creation
 Internal state relations: State (in)stability

In unstable states, any one of three situations might occur:

1. Secessionist movement: groups within a state want a
separate state (e.g. Quebec, Welsh and Scottish)

2. New state from the pooling of scattered groups across

existing states(e.g. Basques in Spain and France; The Kurds
across M/East)

3. Irredentism: a state seeking the restoration of territory or

population formerly belonging to it. Common where
boundaries were determined by others (e.g. in the M/East;
 Internal state relations: State (in)stability

Read up:
 Nation and State discordance in Africa
 Read up Nation and States in Europe
End