Political Geography: States, Boundaries, and Supranational Organizations

What is a state?

A sovereign state has four criteria: defined territory, permanent population, organized government, and the recognized capacity to enter into relations with other states. The system of sovereign states organized this way is often called the Westphalian system, from the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that formalized it in Europe.

Sovereignty means supreme authority over one's own territory + independence from external control. It is the central concept in international relations.

State vs nation vs nation-state

• State — a sovereign political entity (Germany, Brazil)
• Nation — a cultural community with shared identity (Kurds, Palestinians)
• Nation-state — state whose borders roughly match one national community (Japan, Portugal are canonical examples)
• Stateless nation — nation without its own state (Kurds spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria; historically Palestinians)
• Multi-nation state — state containing multiple national communities (Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Nigeria)

Types of government

• Democracy — political power ultimately from citizens, exercised through elections
• Republic — no hereditary monarch; head of state is elected or appointed
• Constitutional monarchy — hereditary monarch as head of state, but power limited by constitution and mostly held by elected officials (UK, Japan, Sweden, Spain)
• Absolute monarchy — monarch holds unchecked power (Saudi Arabia, Eswatini)
• Authoritarian — power concentrated without meaningful electoral accountability; opposition and press restricted
• Totalitarian — the state seeks to control all aspects of public and private life (historically Stalinist USSR, Maoist China, North Korea)

Territorial organization

• Unitary state — power concentrated at national level (France, Japan)
• Federal state — power divided between national and regional governments (US, Canada, Germany, Brazil, India, Australia)
• Confederal — loose league of largely-sovereign units (Swiss cantons historically, some interpretations of EU)

Types of boundaries

How borders were drawn matters:

• Antecedent — drawn before dense human settlement (US-Canada border west of the Great Lakes)
• Subsequent — drawn to accommodate existing cultural distributions
• Superimposed — imposed by outside powers, often ignoring local realities (African colonial borders inherited at independence)
• Relict — no longer function politically but still visible (Great Wall of China, former Berlin Wall)

Devolution and separatism

Devolution transfers powers from central government to regional units, without full independence — Scotland within UK, Catalonia and Basque Country within Spain, Quebec within Canada. Sometimes the pressure escalates to separatism (Kosovo, South Sudan, East Timor became independent; Kurdistan, Catalonia, Scotland have not). Watch for these hot-spot cases on the exam.

Supranational organizations

• United Nations — near-universal; General Assembly (all members), Security Council (5 permanent + 10 rotating), specialized agencies (WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR)
• NATO — mutual-defense military alliance, US + Canada + European members + newer accessions (Finland 2023, Sweden 2024)
• EU — deepest supranational integration; single market, customs union, partial monetary union (Eurozone), Schengen Area (open internal borders for many members)
• African Union — pan-African body
• ASEAN — Southeast Asian regional grouping
• OPEC — oil-exporting states coordinating production levels
• WTO — global trade rules
• ICC — international criminal court (individual accountability for atrocity crimes; not universally accepted)

Strategic maritime zones

Under UNCLOS (1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea):

• Territorial sea — 12 nautical miles, full sovereignty
• Contiguous zone — additional 12 nm for enforcement
• Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) — up to 200 nm; exclusive rights to fishing, minerals, energy; other states retain freedom of navigation
• High seas — beyond EEZ; belong to no state

Contemporary boundary disputes

• South China Sea — overlapping claims by China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan over islands/reefs and surrounding waters (EEZ implications)
• Kashmir — India-Pakistan-China
• Israel-Palestine — long-running, complex boundary and sovereignty dispute
• Cyprus — Turkish-Cypriot North vs Republic of Cyprus
• Arctic — as ice retreats, Russia, Canada, US, Norway, Denmark contest EEZ boundaries and shipping-route access