Politics (Part 2) | AP Human Geography Unit 4 Review in 20 minutes - YouTube

What's going on Mr Lee here and this is the second part of the political unit where we

will continue our conversations on devolution with case studies, talk about various forms

of government, explain gerrymandering, cover supranational organizations, and discuss centripetal

and centrifugal forces.

First let’s cover the idea of devolution and exactly what this entails, devolution

is the process of moving power from a central government to a regional one, so to put it

in layman’s terms, it the transfer of power from a larger government to a smaller one,

essentially a separatist movement.

Let’s use a hypothetical example to demonstrate . Say that our good ol’ lonestar state said

that they have had enough of the United States and wanted to break free from the US.

Yeah, something like that, in this case because the power is shifting from the federal government

and moving to the state government, this would be a perfect example of devolution.

Now let’s move onto actual case studies of devolution that might be useful for your

exams, beginning with Basque and Catalonia, two regions in Spain that have a history of

seeking devolution for cultural purposes.

These two regions speak different languages than the rest of Spain and have a drastically

different culture than the rest of the country as well, thus the push for devolution.

This separatist movement is actually still ongoing for Catalonia, as you can see this

article from June 2021, and there’s also economic ties to the devolutionary movements

as well.

Take a look at this regional map of Spain, where each province’s color is determined

by their GDP output per capita, red being the highest and yellow being the lowest.

Catalonia has the highest GDP output out of all the provinces of Spain and this can lead

to devolutionary sentiment because they feel like they are, so to speak, “carrying”

the team.

A religious example of devolutionary movement can be seen with the Uyghur population in

the Xinjiang province of China, where the majority of this group is Muslim and have

been facing discrmination from the Chinese government, and some have proposed the possible

devolution to counteract this, although it is very unlikely that the Chinese Communist

Party would allow this to occur.

There have also been proposals of devolution in Nigeria, because of the various ethnic

and cultural groups that reside in the state and the numerous problems that it has been

facing.

Some of these problems can include ethno-religious conflict, which can eventually lead to unequal

allocation of resources and power clashes in the government.

Two cases of linguistic devolution that you want to keep in mind are Quebec and Belgium.

In the past, there have been talks of devolutionary movements as the primary language in Quebec

is French, whereas the rest of Canada has English as their primary language.

In Belgium, there have been devolutionary movements as the country is divided into two

major groups, Flanders and Wallonia.

The Flemish up north speak Dutch whereas the Walloons in the South speak French and because

of their linguistic differences, there have been conversations in the international media

of possibly moving the central power to regional governments.

Then lastly, there’s physical devolution which can occur because of physical isolation

and this can come in the form of actual distance, like islands, or mountain ranges that separate

regions.

For example, Jammu/Kashmir, marked in red, is separated by the Pir Panjal and Himalayan

Mountains, which can lead to devolutionary sentiment within the people as they feel like

they are isolated from the rest of the Pakistani and Indian population.

The recent rise of devolution and political movements can be attributed to the advancement

of technology, specifically the use of cellphones and the internet, as people have easier access

to communication methods, thus the political conversations diffuse at a faster rate.

Moving on, we have the various forms of government that you are responsible for, starting with

the Unitary State, which is when the power is held primarily by the central government,

AKA the federal government.

This form of government is generally seen in smaller, homogenous countries, where there

isn’t that much diversity and one system of government is enough.

Then there’s the federal state, which is when the power is shared between the federal

government and the regional governments, so this is like the form of government in the

United States and these states are generally bigger with quite a bit of diversity.

Take a look at this map that categorizes the federal and unitary states around the world.

You should notice a particular pattern right off the bat, which is that the countries with

federal governments are, for the most part, the biggest in reference to physical size

and the unitary states tend to be smaller.

Some examples of federal states include the United States and Germany, and some examples

of unitary states are France and Japan.

An important vocabulary term that often gets overlooked in this unit is the concept of

irredentism, which is the idea that a country or a group of people want to take back a region

because of historical ties, and a really good example of irredentism was in Sudetenland,

which was one of the first places that Germany invaded in WWII, as they claimed that the

region should be theirs, because there were about 3 million Germans living in this area,

and annexing this region would “unite” the german people.

Another great example of irredentism would be how China is laying claim over the South

China Sea, as they said that the historic 9 Dash Line gave them sovereignty to the area.

Irredentism can lead to devolution, because as the invaders lay claim to the area, the

people within the conquered region can eventually want their independence and sovereignty.

Let’s now move onto the concept of gerrymandering.

Remember how in part 1 of the political video, we talked about how the United States has

a census and that census determines how many votes that a state gets and how many districts

that it should have.

Well the process of drawing these districts is not the most fair, and this practice of

drawing borders to assist certain political parties is called gerrymandering.

It is called gerrymandering because the practice was first established by a guy named Elbridge

Gerry.

Elbridge here thought that it was a good idea to draw district boundaries to help himself

out politically and thus he carved out a portion of Massachusetts to win the election and this

portion ended up looking like a salamander.

Exactly how does gerrymandering work, you’re wondering, well let's use Gerrytown as our

example to demonstrate.

In this town, there are 6 republicans that live in the west side and 9 democrats and

in an ideal world, the districts would be drawn like so, so that it gives 2 republican

districts and 3 democratic districts.

However, by utilizing strategies such as cracking and packing, gerrymandering allows the people

who create these boundaries to influence the votes.

Imagine if the borders were now drawn like so.

Now you have three republican districts and two democratic districts, even though there

was a democratic popular majority.

However, these districts aren’t always drawn so perfectly and in reality they look more

like these on the map.

Some rules of gerrymandering include that the districts need to be contiguous and that

the representative needs to live within the boundaries of the district they are in charge

of.

In order to determine how many votes each district gets and how many people are in the

district, a census is conducted every 10 years, where they ask you questions about your family

size and based on the results, they redistrict, basically redraw districts.

We just had our 2020 census pass and I know for my home state California, due to the emigration

and the population decrease, California lost a House Seat.

Let’s now move onto the concept of supranational organizations, which is when three or more

countries come together for the sake of a common goal or shared interests.

There are quite a few that you need to know and they essentially break down into three

categories.

Economic, environmental, and political.

Political supranational organizations are generally for the sake of political stability

and military alliances.

The primary goal of the United Nations is political in the sense that they attempt to

maintain peace and unity around the world.

Although the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is technically not a supranational

organization, it demonstrates supranationalism because these countries that border the North

Atlantic Ocean all came together for the sake of fighting communism and promoting security.

Another really good example of a political supranational organization is the African

Union, a collection of 55 African countries that exists to promote political stability

and to rid the continent of the negative effects of colonialism and apartheid, which was legalized

segragation in South Africa.

However, the African Union does not merely exist for the sake of political support, but

is also economic in nature as well.

Then there’s economic supranational organizations and they exist because of the concept of economies

of scale, which shows up multiple times in the Course Description.

Economies of scale essentially states that if businesses or countries increase the size

of their companies or economies, they become stronger and can scale at much faster rates

with greater profit margins.

The European Union is a really good example of this concept, as the smaller, individual

countries wanted to compete with countries like the United States and Soviet Union so

they teamed up to create one common currency with a sprinkle of political aspects as well.

Another economic example of supranational organization is with the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations AKA ASEAN.

As you can see, when the Southeast Asian countries cooperate economically, they are able to compete

with the largest economic powers of the world, whereas if they maintained their economic

independence, they would not be able to.

Keep in mind these Supranational Organizations are not always isolated in their economic

characteristics, as ASEAN also exists to maintain political stability as well.

Then lastly there are environmental supranational organizations, the most important one being

the Arctic Council, which includes many countries in the Northern hemisphere and all of the

ones that border the Arctic Ocean and it exists to protect the environment and the indigenous

people in and near the North Pole.

They come up with ideas that promote sustainable development so we can protect the ecosystems

that house animals like these polar bears.

Centrifugal forces are forces that divide a nation and some examples of such forces

can be uneven economic development, difference in culture, specifically in with language

and differences in religion as well.

These forces can eventually lead to the following: failed states, basically a state with no government

in control, stateless nations, as a nation’s sovereignty can be taken away, and uneven

development, as some regions might be favored over others.

They can also lead to ethnic nationalist movements, which are movements that favor certain ethnic

groups at the expense of others.

A really good example of ethnic nationalist movement would be in Rwanda, between the Hutus

and the Tutsis, as demonstrated by the movie Hotel Rwanda, where there was a mass genocide

of Tutsis over government control and a power vacuum.

Then there are centripetal forces, which are forces that unite nations, and these can lead

to ethnonationalism, which is the idea that nationalism is identified with ethnicity and

this can occur in nation-states like Japan.

Centripetal forces can also lead to prolonged periods of peace and will foster even development

throughout the country.

Lastly, centripetal forces will also cultivate cultural cohesion which is the peaceful existence

of cultures, which can sometimes even come in the form of syncretism, where cultures

combine.

Alright that does it for the second part of the political unit and dont forget to utilize

the Quizlet down below to make sure that you have a strong foundation on the vocabulary

terms, have a fantastic day.