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Chapter 5 Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Monocentric Geographic Realm | A world geographic realm dominated— territorially and/or demographically—by a single country. Russia in Russia/Central Asia is a prime example; others are the United States (North America), India (South Asia), and China (East Asia). |
| Exclave | A bounded (non-island) piece of territory that is part of a particular state but lies separated from it by the territory of another state. |
| Irredentism | A policy of cultural extension and potential political expansion by a state aimed at a community of its nationals living in a neighboring state. |
| Geopolitics | Political relations among states or regions that are strongly influenced by their geographical setting, including proximity, accessibility, sovereign boundaries, natural resources, population distribution, and the like. |
| Continentality | The variation of the continental effect on air temperatures in the interior portions of the world’s landmasses. The greater the distance from the moderating influence of an ocean, the greater the extreme in summer and winter temperatures. — |
| Continentality Cont. | — Continental interiors also tend to be dry when the distance from oceanic moisture sources becomes considerable. |
| Permafrost | Permanently frozen water in the near-surface soil and bedrock of cold environments, producing the effect of completely frozen ground. Surface can thaw during brief warm season. |
| Tundra | The treeless plain that lies along the Arctic shore in northernmost Russia and Canada, whose vegetation consists of mosses, lichens, and certain hardy grasses. |
| Taiga | The subarctic, mostly coniferous snowforest that blankets northern Russia and Canada south of the tundra that lines the Arctic shore. Known as the boreal forest in North America. |
| Northeast Passage | The high-latitude sea route of the Arctic Ocean that follows the entire north coast of Eurasia from northern Norway in the west to the northeasternmost corner of Russia where it meets the Bering Strait. — |
| Northeast Passage Cont. | — Increased seasonal melting of the Arctic ice cap in recent years has begun to open up this waterway as a summer route for shipping between Europe and East Asia. |
| Forward Capital | Capital city positioned in actually or potentially contested territory, usually near an international border; it confirms the state’s determination to maintain its presence in the area of contention. |
| Federation | A country adhering to a political framework wherein a central government represents the various subnational entities within a nation-state where they have common interests— |
| Federation Cont. | — defense, foreign affairs, and the like—yet allows these various entities to retain their own identities and to have their own laws, policies, and customs in certain spheres. |
| Russification | Demographic resettlement policies pursued by the central planners of the Soviet Empire (1922–1991), whereby ethnic Russians were encouraged to emigrate from the Russian Republic to the 14 non-Russian republics of the USSR. |
| Command Economy | The tightly controlled economic system of the former Soviet Union, whereby central planners in Moscow assigned the production of particular goods to particular places, often guided more by socialist ideology than the principles of economic geography. |
| Satellite State | The countries of eastern Europe under Soviet hegemony between 1945 and 1989. This tier of countries—the “satellites” captured in Moscow’s “orbit” following World War II—was bordered on the west by the Iron Curtain and on the east by the USSR. — |
| Satellie State Cont. | — Using the names then in force, they included Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. |
| Near Abroad | The 14 former Soviet republics that, in combination with the dominant Russian Republic, constituted the USSR. Since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has asserted a sphere of influence in these now-independent countries, based on its — |
| Near Abroad Cont. | — proclaimed right to protect the interests of ethnic Russians who were settled there in substantial numbers during Soviet times. These 14 countries include Armenia, — |
| Near Abroad Cont. | — Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. |
| NATO | Established in 1950 at the height of the Cold War as a U.S.-led supranational defense pact to shield postwar Europe against the Soviet military threat. NATO is now in transition, expanding its membership while modifying its objectives in the — |
| NATO Cont. | — post-Soviet era. Its 28 member-states (as of mid-2016) are: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the — |
| NATO Cont. | — Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. |
| Distance Decay | The various degenerative effects of distance on human spatial structures and interactions. |
| Unitary State System | A nation-state that has a centralized government and administration that exercises power equally over all parts of the state. |
| Population Implosion | The opposite of population explosion; refers to the declining populations of many European countries and Russia in which the death rate exceeds the birth rate and immigration rate. |
| BRICs | Acronym for the four biggest emerging national markets in the world today—Brazil, Russia, India, and China. |
| Centrality | The strength of an urban center in its capacity to attract producers and consumers to its facilities; a city’s “reach” into the surrounding region. |
| Shi'ite Islam | The smaller of the two main Islamic sects, comprising about 10 percent of Muslims overall, but in the majority in both Iran and Iraq. The origin of Shi’ism dates back to the — |
| Shi'ite Islam Cont, | — death of the Prophet Muhammad, whose adherents believe that only a blood relative of Muhammad (his cousin) could be considered his legitimate successor. |
| Sunni Islam | The larger of Islam’s two main sects (encompassing) roughly 90 percent of all Muslims) who adhere to the conviction that any devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad is eligible to be his legitimate successor. |
| New Silk Road | China’s ongoing ambitious project to forge an overland routeway of high-speed railroads to link East Asia to Europe via Central Asia. This new “Eurasian land bridge” follows — |
| New Silk Road Cont. | — the general alignment of the fabled ancient Silk Road traversed by Marco Polo from the Mediterranean Basin to medieval China. |
| Eurasian Customs Union | A supranational organization created by Russia in 2010 to maintain economic ties with the friendliest countries in the Near Abroad. The three charter members — |
| Eurasian Customs Union Cont. | — (Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan) were joined in 2015 by the two smaller countries of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. |
| Geopolitical Revanchism | Retaliatory policies pursued by a state aimed at recovering lost territory. Russia’s forcible annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 is a good example. |
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