Professional Documents
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Geography
Warm Up:
Thinking like a (political)
geographer… What does
political organization of
space mean?
What is a “political” geographer?
What is a state?
A social/cultural concept, more so tied to ethnicity
Historical community that shares common ancestry; a
people with a sense of union with one another
Not every nation has a state
◦ Kurds, Palestinians
Some states contain more than one nation
◦ Belgium, UK, Canada
Some nations are larger than one state
◦ About 4 millions Jews live in Israel, many members of the
Jewish nation living elsewhere in the world (US/Eastern
Europe)
What is a nation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
The “Perfect” European Model of State
State:
Nation-state:
A political unit
wherein the
territorial state
coincides with the
Nation:
area settled by a
certain national
group or people.
Laws
Nation-State: ------
-------
-------
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Nation-state?
Self-determination – concept that every nation/ethnicity has the
right to govern themselves
Very few, if any, nation-states
◦ Iceland, Sweden, Japan, Greece are mostly culturally
homogenous with few minorities
Advantages of a nation-state?
Why is the idea of a nation-state not necessarily realistic?
What would
Africa look
like if divided
by Ethnicity?
How many
Nation-States
would there be?
Multistate nation
◦ Example? ISRAEL
Multiethnic state
◦ Example? USA
Multinational state
◦ Examples? RUSSIA
Stateless Nation
◦ Example? Tibetans
Answers