Hello there geographers and welcome back to the Mr. Sin channel. Today we will be reviewing devolutionary factors. As always, if you find value in this video, consider subscribing. Now remember, devolution is the transfer of power from a central government to a regional government.
This change in power can sometimes result in a state breaking up into multiple smaller states. Or the state may remain whole and just see some of its power shift from the national government to its regional government. Now devolution can occur from a variety of different factors. Sometimes it may occur due to the physical geography of the state. If If a state is fragmented, whether it be due to a mountain range, ocean, river, or just because the state is geographically large, people may become isolated from other parts of the state, which may lead to different cultures and identities to start to form.
If we connect back to our Unit 1 concepts, we can see that when people are physically separated, they're less likely to interact with one another, which would be an example of distance decay. Now, this separation and formation of local cultures and identities may result in a want for more local power over the national power, as more people desire regional representation or control over their political decisions and day-to-day life, thus resulting in devolution. One example of this would be the Basque in Spain.
Historically, the Basque people have been isolated from the rest of Spain. Due to this physical separation, the Basque people have retained their own unique language. which is not part of the Indo-European language family. They've also retained their unique cultural identity from the rest of Spain. The Basques are separated from other parts of Spain by mountains, and they have a desire for more autonomy and independence, all of which puts devolutionary pressures on Spain as the Basques continue to seek for more control over their day-to-day lives.
The Basques would also be an example of a stateless nation, a concept we last talked about in our Unit 4 Topic 1 video. Now, it's not just the physical geography that could lead to this. lead to devolution. We can also look at cultural elements as well.
States that are made up of many different ethnic groups with a history of self-determination may see those ethnic groups and national groups want more autonomy. This can be a risk for many multinational states. If a person or group starts to identify more as their own ethnic group than as a citizen of the state and wants more political power or wants to separate from the state, it's known as ethnic separatism.
The Basques would be an example of ethnic separatism. As would the Catalans in Spain and the Kurds in the Middle East. We've already talked about the Kurdish nation and their desire to have their own state earlier in Unit 4, but we have not talked about the Catalan people. The Catalans reside in Catalonia, an autonomous region of Spain. Over the years, Catalonia has seeked independence from Spain, holding referendums in 2017 on independence.
However, the referendums were declared unconstitutional and did not result in independence. We can see, though, that this has not stopped the Catalan people from... seeking independence as talks are still ongoing in 2022. Now, sometimes ethnic separatism can actually occur due to the physical geography, a factor we talked about earlier in this video. For example, if an ethnic group is physically separated from the state and other cultural groups in the state by mountains, rivers, or other geographic features, they're more likely to retain and develop their own cultural identity. And over time, they may start to question why they're part of the larger state.
And this brings me to an important point. Oftentimes, there are multiple devolutionary factors at work at once. It's not always just a cultural factor or a physical factor occurring separately.
We can see this is true for both the Basque people and the Catalan people who both have retained their unique culture, language, cuisine, and identity. Now, sometimes we can see devolutionary movements occur just because of the languages that are spoken in a geographic area. For example, in Quebec, the primary language is French, even though the rest of Canada has English as their primary language.
This has helped create a unique cultural elements for both parts of the state, putting devolutionary pressures on the state. We can also see the impact of language in Belgium, where we can see the country is split into two major groups. The Flemish community, which is known as Flanders, and the French-speaking community, which is known as Walloonians. The Flemish are in the northern part of Belgium and speak Dutch, but the Walloons are in the southern part and speak French.
This has led to somewhat of an identity clash, with some speculation that we may start to see more power shift from the national government and move to the southern part of the country. to the regional level. Another devolutionary force that can occur in a state happens when a government or dominant group in society abuses its power over other individuals in a state, such as a government participating in ethnic cleansing, which is when a government attacks an ethnic group in a state with the goal of pushing the group of people out of the state, thus cleansing the state of the cultural group. This can happen in the form of mass incarceration or by killing members of the ethnic group. We saw this happen in the Rwandan genocide.
which occurred in 1994. During the genocide, Hutu extremists murdered thousands of ethnic Tutsis. The Hutu- Two were the ethnic majority in the country at the time and were in control of the government. When the genocide was over, it was estimated that over half a million people were killed. Unfortunately, we can also look at more recent examples of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, where the government has denied rights and citizenship to the minority Rohingya people. The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority group who have lived in Myanmar for centuries.
The Rohingya have been classified as illegal immigrants by the Myanmar government and have been persecuted in a variety of ways. different ways. However, in 2017, the Myanmar government and military started a brutal campaign against the Rohingya people, burning settlements and killing the Rohingya people, forcing many people to flee the country and become refugees, seeking refuge in Bangladesh. Moving into our next evolutionary force, we can observe the impact that terrorism has on a state. Terrorism is the use of violence and or intimidation against civilians to try and promote terror for political reasons.
States that have a high rate of violence. and terrorism are more likely to see challenges to the state and have citizens demand structural changes, thus putting devolutionary pressures on the state. Now shifting gears away from political factors, we can also see devolution occur due to economic and social divisions in a society. States that fail to provide enough jobs for citizens, ensure equal opportunities for all people in society, and fail to continue to move economically or socially in a positive direction.
will often see citizens become frustrated with the status quo. The more disparities there are between different parts of a state, the more likely a state will experience devolutionary pressure as citizens demand more opportunity. For example, we could look at the Catalonian people again in Spain. Here you can see a map that shows the GDP per person for each of the different provinces in Spain. Notice how Catalonia has the highest GDP out of all the provinces of Spain.
This has caused the Catalan people to become frustrated with Spain. Since the people in Catalonia feel culturally different from the rest of Spain, and see that they are the most economically productive, leading people to question why they should have to pay for the other provinces of Spain. We could also look at Nigeria, which is made up of a variety of different ethnic, cultural, and linguistic groups. Over the years, Nigeria has experienced ethnic and religious conflicts between different cultural groups. This tension between different cultural groups and the government has only increased due to the unequal distribution of resources throughout the...
state, all of which increases the devolutionary pressures on the state. Now moving into one of our last devolutionary factors, we have irredentism, which is a movement by a nation to unite other parts of its nation that are located in another state's boundary. Irredentism can lead to devolution as nations who are split between different states seek to become unified with other members of their nation who are residing in another state, thus putting pressure on a state to split. If we look at the Ukrainian Russian war, we can see examples.
of irredentism. This becomes apparent if we go back and look at some of President Vladimir Putin's speeches. Starting in 2005, we can see that he said that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophes of the century.
Going on to say, as for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory. If we fast forward to 2014, we see Russia invaded part of Ukraine. and annexed Crimea. Putin claimed that Russia was taking the region to protect ethnic Russians from extremists at the time.
Fast forwarding again now to 2021, we can look at another speech that Putin gave in which he argued the idea of Ukrainian state was fiction. Stating modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia. More specifically the Bolshevik communist Russia. Then in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to a full military invasion of the country, forcing millions of Ukrainians to flee.
Now there are a variety of other reasons for this conflict and the situation is still ongoing as of the making of this video. But Putin's words show us that he views these conflicts not as two separate states and cultures fighting, but as Russia seeking to unify its people, making it a great example of irredentism. All right, geographers, the time has come to practice what we've learned, and we've learned a lot in this video.
Answer the questions on the screen and when you're done check your answers in the description of this video or in the comment section down below. Remember too if you found value in this video consider subscribing and check out my ultimate review packet for more help with your AP Human Geography studies. Thank you so much for watching, as always I'm Mr. Synn and I will see you next time online.