| A | B |
|---|
| Annexation | The formal act of acquiring something (especially territory) by conquest or occupation. |
| Anocracy | A country that is not fully democratic or fully autocratic, but rather displays a mix of the two types. |
| Autocracy | A country that is run according to the interests of the ruler rather than the people. |
| Balance of power | A condition of roughly equal strength between opposing countries or alliances of countries. |
| Border landscape | The complex representation of the environment around a particular area's boundaries. |
| Boundary | An invisible line that marks the extent of a state's territory. |
| Buffer state | Country that lies between two other states, but remains neutral in the conflict between them. |
| Compact state | A state in which the distance from the center to any boundary does not vary significantly. |
| Confederation | Association of sovereign states by a treaty or agreement. |
| Democracy | A country in which citizens elect leaders and can run for office. |
| Devolution | The delegation of authority from a central to a regional government. |
| Domino theory | When one country experiences a rebellion or political disunity, other countries around it will also experience turmoil as a result, leading to political instability. |
| Electoral regions | The different voting districts that make up local, state, and national regions. |
| Elongated state | A state with a long, narrow shape. |
| European Union | International organization comprised of European countries promoting free trade amongst its members. |
| Federal state | An internal organization of a state that allocates most powers to units of local government. |
| Fragmented state | A state that includes several discontinuous pieces of territory. |
| Frontier | A zone separating two states in which neither state exercises political control. |
| Gerrymandering | The process of redrawing legislative boundaries for the purpose of benefiting the party in power. |
| Heartland Theory | Suggests that whoever owns Eastern Europe and Western Asia has the political power and capital to rule the world. |
| International organization | An alliance of two or more countries seeking cooperation with each other without giving up either's autonomy or self-determination |
| Iron Curtain | Divided democratic, capitalist Western Europe from totalitarian, communist Eastern Europe. |
| Irredentism | The attempt by one country to provoke coups or separatist movements in another country. |
| Landlocked state | A state that does not have a direct outlet to the sea. |
| Law of the Sea | The UN-sanctioned international agreement primarily cementing the ocean as neutral territory. |
| Mackinder, Halford J. | Devised Heartland Theory. |
| Median-line principle | Statement in UNCLOS declaring, that when there is not enough water for each country on opposite sides of the sea to have 200 nautical miles of exclusive economic zone, the two or more countries involved will divide the water evenly. |
| Organic Theory | State is like a living entity that constantly needs to grow to thrive by getting need territory to meet the needs of ever-growing population. |
| Perforated state | A state that completely surrounds another one. |
| Prorupted state | An otherwise compact state with a large projecting extension. |
| Raison d’être | Reason for being; purpose that justifies something's existence. |
| Ratzel, Friedrich | Devised Organic Theory. |
| Reapportionment | Boundaries separating legislative districts redrawn periodically to ensure each district has approximately the same population. |
| Regionalism | A foreign policy that defines the international interests of a country in terms of particular geographic areas. |
| Reunification | When parts of a state that were formerly together become one again. |
| Rimland | Believed in forming alliances to keep the heartland in check by containing its surrounding areas and controlling the seas. |
| Satellite state | National state that is economically dependent and politically and militarily subservient to another--in its orbit, figuratively speaking. |
| Shatterbelt | A zone of chronic political splintering and fracturing, strategically located in a region occupied by a number of conflicting interests adjoining powerful states. |
| Spykman, Nicholas | Devised Rimland Theory. |
| Suffrage | The right to vote. |
| Supranationalism | Resulting in an entity or organization composed of three or more states that forge an association and form an administrative structure for mutual benefit in pursuit of shared goals. |
| Territorial disputes | Any conflict over land ownership. |
| Territorial morphology | Examining the shapes of states. |
| Terrorism | The systematic use of violence by a group in order to intimidate a population or coerce a government into granting its demands. |
| Treaty ports | A port open for foreign trade according to the terms of an agreement between two or more countries. |
| Unitary state | An internal organization of a state that places most power in the hands of central government officials. |
| United National Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) | International agreement that resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. |
| Women’s enfranchisement | The right for females to vote. |
