AP Human Geography Unit 5 – Devolution

Unite country, pull it together

Divides country, forcing it apart

Where? - Spain Why more autonomy? - more freedom, different ethnicities and religions, want control of own economics and resources

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Ceding Power from a central government to regional or local governments -Basque Country

-physical geography -ethnic separatism -terrorism -economic & social problems -tribalism -Irredentism

Impacts the degree a state is unified or fragmented example: The Balkan States (southeast Europe) have mountains the Basques have the Pyrenees

-can isolate areas -make difficult to feel incorporated into mainstream -lead to cultures much different from rest of country -create barriers to diffusion of culture Example: Hawaii

- Indonesian archipelago (group of islands) is largest in world - creates many local identities and a weak unitary government

Compact and flat, low elevation make devolution less likely, and a unitary state more likely

When an ethnic group desires to separate from larger group

-The Basques in Spain -Quebec -Belgium

a form of nationalism in which an ethnic group to have control of their own political, economic, & social affairs

Sub-national terrorism coincides with the rise of nation-state and can be devolutionary

Can be a result of those who feel wronged by their own or another government

Europe has major separatist movements in the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, and Italy

Italy -North is industrialized and wealthy -South remains agrarian and poorer

England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland

When people feel greater allegiance and loyalty to their own ethnic group than to a state as a whole

The idea that a state should be annexed becuase an ethnicity had a prior historical possession of the land

-Hungarians -Serbians

A conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is an example of Irredentism. Both sides make historical claims to land.

In 1999 the province of Nunavut was created for the Inuit in Canada. The region was granted some regional autonomy and ability to self-govern.

Usually in the form of self-government, not complete independence

-Native American Reservations in the United States -Nunavut (region of Canada made of native Inuit people)

When people give their primary allegiance to traditional groups or nations that are smaller than the population of the entire state

Spain - Basques Belgium - Flemish Canada - Québécois

Movements in which nationalities within a country demand independence -Catalonia -Chechnya -Kurds -Texas Secessionists

Breaking up or fragmentation into smaller units -Former Yugoslavia broke up because of ethno-nationalism

Violent removal of an ethnic group from a political space to secure spatial homogenization by the perpetrating state or ethnic group -Bert & Ernie Definition: the violent removal of an ethnic group from an area -Muslims in Bosnia

groups in the Caucasus (Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia) in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine sought independence after the Soviet Union collapsed

Peaceful split of Czechoslovakia into Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1989

Political movements in parts of the former Soviet Union & the Balkans that advocated closer ties to "the west"(Europe and the United States)

-physical geography -ethnic separatism -terrorism -economic/social problems -irredentism

-autonomous regions -subnational political units -separatist movements -Balkanization

-ethnic cleaning