Chapter 8 T&R on Political Geography

Trevor Jones
1/31/16
Per. 3


Sources: Human Geography: People, Places, and Culture: Chapter 8 - Political Geography

Republic of Abkhazia and Republic of South Ossetia: http://listverse.com/2011/09/02/top-10-controversial-territorial-disputes/

Gerrymandering Solved: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/

Texas is About to Turn Blue: http://www.greenvillegazette.com/texas-is-turning-blue-and-the-republican-party-may-be-on-the-verge-of-extinction/

Lines in the Sand: https://dawsonschool.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/715/download/download_1695098.pdf

Benedict Anderson, Man Without a Country: https://newrepublic.com/article/125706/benedict-anderson-man-without-country

Former Yugoslavia: http://geography.about.com/od/politicalgeography/a/fmryugoslavia.htm

The Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia were both little known territories that wanted independence from Georgia, but Georgia would not allow this would not allow this, so, despite the consequences the Republic of Abkhazia and the Republic of South Ossetia saw their chance and declared independence from the state in the 1920’s. Conflicts continued throughout most of the 1900’s and when the USSR, who had control over Georgia and all of its autonomous republics, declined, Georgia rebelled and took back their independence. Then, the autonomous republics and Georgia returned conflict, eventually leading to wars in 1992 and 2008, and the republics ultimately being recognized by two independent states by Russia in 2008. 

Gerrymandering Solved: 

Rather than having an independent panel redistrict the state, algorithms have been created in order to draw legislative districts after each census, which ensures that the district boundaries reflect actual neighborhoods and don't arbitrarily cut through somebody’s house or business. This process reduces gerrymandering on a district, by cutting down on minority-majority, however, algorithms do not take into account “communities of interest”, which is already a very difficult problem to solve due to its vast definition. 

Texas is About to Turn Blue: 

Texas is becoming an increasingly democratic state, due to immigrants who support democratic policies and despise conservative policies that suppress them, which could make is near impossible for the Republican party to win an election, due to Texas’ influence on the outcome. As California is important to the outcome of the Democratic party in elections, Texas is the most important in terms of Territorial Representation for the republican party, whom will most likely go extinct than change their ideals. 

Lines in the Sand:

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the middle east’s political boundaries were drawn primarily at Paris by Britain and France, taking into account regions sharing certain natural bonds and commonalities, but would not always conform to the region’s underlying social, religious, and demographic contours. Geographers in Paris aimed to define the nation-states’ configuration as they already exist, rather than how an outside “we” would see them.    

Benedict Anderson, Man Without a Country:

Benedict Anderson was an adept linguist as well as an author that saw nationalism as an integrative imaginative process that allows us to feel solidarity for strangers, however as a nationalist, it is hard to distinguish what nation he belonged to. He had roots in Britain, China, Ireland, America, and Indonesia, however he found a strong sense of nationality in Indonesia, where he died in 2015.   

 This is a map of the former Yugoslavia, which today is comprised of individual states known as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. The reason i chose to color a map of the modern day-countries forming the former Yugoslavia, is because it is the perfect example of a multinational state. With the fall of the Austria-Hungary empire at the end of World War I, the victors threw together a new country which was composed of more than twenty ethnic groups - Yugoslavia. Due to this variety, war constantly broke out between the ethnic groups and eventually between the USSR as well, due to the negative relationship between Stalin and Tito, which improved upon Tito’s death in 1980. Following Tito’s death, the ethnicities of the state demanded more autonomy and eventually fell apart into the jigsaw puzzle that we know today due to the fall of the USSR in 1991.