Political Geography Quarterly最新文献

Because of the US Supreme Court's one-person, one-vote decision, recent years have seen in that country an increase in the number of ‘geographically-split’ legislative districts; i.e., legislative districts divided into distinct sections by a natural feature such as a river, harbour, desert or mountain chain. This article analyses elections in one such district, the New York State 62nd Assembly District in New York City, whose Staten Island half was separated from its Manhattan half by New York Harbour. In almost all the elections, a ‘friends-and-neighbours’ factor played a role, with candidates from a particular part of the district faring better there than on the other side of the harbour. (However, partisan allegiance had some impact in these races as well.) Further research is needed to determine whether the ‘friends-and-neighbours’ factor prevails in other geographically-split legislative districts and, if so, the extent to which legislators from one portion of a district adequately represent the interests of the residents of the other.

Recent studies of processes operating in the modern world system imply that the continued existence of the interstate system—the system of multiple, competing, and unequally powerful states—may be a luxury which humanity cannot afford. Because of the destructiveness of modern weaponry the continuation of the legitimacy of warfare as a method for resolving disputes is incompatible with the survival of our world civilization and perhaps also with the survival of life on Earth. This paper examines theories which purport to explain the longevity and structural basis of the contemporary interstate system. These have implications for the possibility of global state formation.

Comparative research shows that the modern interstate system is unusually long-lived. I argue that the emergence of capitalist commodity production accounts for the structural resistance of the contemporary interstate system to transformation into a ‘universal empire’. The processes of hegemonic rise and fall of states which operate within the modern system differ significantly from earlier world systems in which capitalist commodity production was less fully institutionalized. Modern hegemonic core states support the multicentric political structure of the interstate system, while dominant states in earlier systems tried to create system-wide imperium. This analysis of the relationship between the logic of accumulation and processes of political centralization has implications for the possibilities of developing a world polity which can prevent the usage of weapons of mass destruction.

The paper examines the development and content of Finnish political geography and in particular the development of geopolitical thinking and its social and historical contexts in Finland and internationally. Political geography has not been popular in Finland, even though the country is often regarded as an epitome of living geopolitics, as described by the expression ‘Finlandization’. Geopolitics was more popular in Finland among academic circles and within various nationalist movements before World War II, and one specifically geopolitical number of Terra, the journal of the Geographical Society of Finland, is analysed to identify the tendencies that have been central to Finnish geopolitical thinking. The roots of geopolitics in Finland can be traced to relations between Finland, the Soviet Union and Germany.

South Korea's population is currently passing through an age-structure transition featuring the emergence of a high proportion of young adults, those in the 15–24 age range. This paper describes the effect of this transition on political stability in South Korea, and uses population projections to show the potential effect of age-structure change, and discusses the efforts of the government to counteract negative features of this impact.

A growing awareness among population scholars of the relation of age-structure to political instability has led them to note that in many countries unrest arises when the proportion of young adults is larger than 20 percent. Given that proportion as a possible danger level, it is projected that for South Korea as a whole, and for most provinces, the danger is almost over. However, proportions above 20 percent will likely remain in Seoul and Pusan for three or four years more.

Unrest among students and young workers over the past seven years may be seen as a not surprising result of the youth bulge, and decline in levels of unrest may be expected in the relatively near future.

The particular focus of the paper is upon the mounting competition between those who utilize traditional water systems and incursionist Jewish developments within one part of the occupied West Bank. While hydrological backgrounds are briefly considered, attention is given to both the physical and human consequences of such competition. Here particular concern is directed to the relatively large-scale entrapment of water by deep and deepening Jewish wells, including the traditional systems to the east and south-east of Nablus noted in the field study of October–November 1986. In any consideration of such changes cause-effect problems are particularly apparent. Here, however, the nature and importance of Military Order 158, which controls the further development and indeed the continuing utilization of West-Bank sub-surface water resources, are identified. The specific contribution of the research endeavours to stress that it is the human characteristics—political controls and management initiatives—rather than any of the innate physical features of the native systems that pose the major and mounting problems.