Political

• State


  an area with a permanent population, defined borders, sovereign government, and is recognized by other states
• Sovereignty


  the authority of a state to govern itself with domestic and international affairs
• Nation


  A group of people with a shared culture, language, history, homeland and self determination
• Self-determination


  the right or desire for a nation, or group of people, to govern themselves
• Nation-state


  it’s a state with only one nation inside its borders
• Multinational state


  a state that has more than one nation inside its borders
• Multistate nation 


  a nation that is spread across multiple sovereign states
• Stateless nation


  a nation of people without sovereignty over its homeland
• Autonomous regions


  an area of a country that has a degree of self government from authority
• Semi-autonomous regions


  can govern itself in certain areas but can’t govern itself completely
• Colonialism


  the practice of acquiring territories and settling there to exert political, economic, and social control over the area
• Imperialism


  idea of growing a state by force over other nations to gain power without establishing settlements
• Decolonization 


  the process by which a colony becomes independent of the colonizing country
• Devolution


  the transfer of power from a national government to lower organizations
• Territorially 


  how people use space to communicate to a territory with their interests
• Demilitarized zone


  an area between two states which cannot be occupied or used for military purposes
• Microstates 


  a state that encompasses a very small land area
• City-state


  a sovereign state comprising a city and its immediately surrounding countryside.
• Colony


  a territory that is legally tied to a sovereign state rather than completely independent.
• Balance of power


  a condition roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries
• Democracy 


  a country in which citizens elect leaders and can run for office
• Autocracy


  country that runs depending to the ruler and not people
• Anocracy


  part of a dictatorship
• Unitary state


  a state organization that places most power in the hands of central government officials
• Federal state


  an internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government
• Terrorism


  syncretic use of violence to intimidate a population or coerce a government
• Weapon of mass destruction


  a weapon that can kill and harm a large number of humans or structures
• Frontier


  a zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control
• Boundary


  an invisible line that marks the extent of a state‘s territory
• Compact state


  a state that is small and centralized
• Prorupted state


  an otherwise compact state with a large projection extension
• Perforated state


  a state that completely surrounds another one
• Elongated state


  a state with a long narrow shape
• Fragmented state


  a state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory
• Landlocked state


  a state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea
• Gerrymandering


  process of redrawing legislative boundaries for benefiting the party in power
• Neocolonialism


  modern colonialism
• Relic Boundary


  boundaries that used to exist and can still be detected on the landscape
• Superimposed Boundary


  boundary that has been imposed on an area by an outside power
• Subsequent Boundaries


  one that has been put in place after a border had already been established