Argumentative Essay about geography being one of the most important variables for explaining the differences between countries.
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Geography of a particular country plays a significant part in determining the outcome societies in that country. Borders, a geographical element define the boundaries of a particular country. Boundaries also influence politics and culture in a given country. Various studies have been conducted to determine how geography relate to politics, culture, and economy of a particular country. Therefore, this paper is an Argumentative Essay about geography being one of the most important variables for explaining the differences between countries. Specifically, the countries explored in this paper are Britain and Mexico.
Numerous factors influence human societies, and among these elements is geography. Naturally, geographic features give the basis of countries in that the location of a particular country greatly impacts the culture of people in that country. Moreover, neighbouring countries most likely influence international relation policies of nations (Gottmann 1951, 154). Therefore, geography plays a significant part in determining the history and culture of a particular country. In addition, it also directly impacts for people and individuals whereby geography determines the sense of self among individuals. For example, where a person is born and raised influences their culture, education, and nationality, among others.
Up to this point, we get the idea that geography, over time, has defined numerous human factors such as behaviour. This shows that it is important to study borders as they mutually coexist with human societies. Moreover, they are not limited to visible features and figures but also directly affect political dynamics (Alvarez 1995, 449). People tend to create borders intentionally based on political viewpoints, except cases where environmental factors limit them, i.e., seas, mountains, and lakes. Most boundaries are created with administrative and jurisdictional intentions in mind. However, they also naturally tend to affect the way people think about their country (Alvarez, 1995). Boundaries between nations create societies that are bound by these boundaries and the sovereignty of their country (Anderson 1983, 7). The aspect of sovereignty has more influence on the political dynamics of regional identity and nationality.
National boundaries encapsulate political and geographical aspects; therefore, they affect politics significantly within a country and outside. Today there are arguments that borders are becoming outdated due to globalization and no longer limit exchange of goods, services and ideas, including the movement of people (Ohmae, 1990). Nonetheless, national boundaries seem to be more important and mutually coexist with globalization.
However, different national boundaries have varying significances; some have great ramifications, while others have negligible implications (Wilson & Donnan, 1998). Boundaries within countries have less influence on politics, culture and economy than boundaries between countries. This is because national boundaries link sovereign independently while regional boundaries are mainly administrative. This is the reason why borders have been grouped into three classes according to existing theories. The table below shows this classification.
| Border existence | Conditions | Outcomes | Examples |
| Border | Institutional + differences | Affects | National borders and regional borders |
| Border | Non-institutional + differences | Affects | Regional boundaries in unitary countries |
| No border | Non-institutional + differences | Has no effects | _ |
Table 1-border effects according to existing theories.
Existing theories studies on borders have been studied concerning institutions across borders such as national borders or regional borders. This is because borders and institutional changes like policies of different countries exist together. Therefore, to purely study border effects while neglecting institutional changes; borders without institutional differences should be used. This thesis employs simple logic to explore how geography is the main variable variables for explaining the differences between countries, particularly in Britain and Mexico. To clearly explain this, the national boundaries is an important aspect because it affects human behaviours, thus resulting in these differences.
As we have earlier seen, geography plays an important role in shaping human societies and thus is a major variable in how countries are different. However, geographical studies often major on economic and political aspects in the past up to the 1980s (Krugman, 1999). The reason is it is hard to determine the relationship between geographical factors and human behaviour (Star & Most 1976, 583). As a result geography, particularly economic geography often majors on the relationship between institutions and geography. Currently, there is difficulty to explain the impact of geographical features concerning human behaviour. This is because geographical features cannot be simplified as they have unique characteristics. Therefore two main fields are studied, and it involves political geography. The two ideas are economies that are spatial and determinism of the environment.
Scholars such as Jeffrey Sachs are in the frontline focusing inherent features such as landscape in explaining the development of societies and consequently, the difference between countries. These scholars are of the argument that the geographic location of countries directly influence how certain grow economically. The geographical location of a particular country can provide a favourable environment for economic growth or an unfavourable one; these environmental factors have effects how institutions are shaped (Gallup, Sachs, & Mellinger, 1998). On the other hand scholars such as Krugman are renowned for exploring spatial economics that leads differences among regional institutions economically. The concept of new economic geography, explain the relationship between endogenous decisions and the economic aspects work across within space and regional disparities (Fujita et al., 1999).
These two approaches seem to contradict each other, but they consider geography as an important determinant of the difference between various regions and countries. Therefore based on this information, borders seem to be the most vital aspects to consider when trying to examine how countries are different in geographical terms (Wilson and Donnan 1998). This is because borders are geographical creations create significant variations. For that reason, borders affect both institution and geography; therefore, their powers of jurisdiction need to be specified. In simple terms, borders between countries and those that are regional have very strong powers of jurisdiction, which is accompanied with more effects. While those borders within countries divide a particular country into administrative areas, hence they have weaker jurisdictional powers. Nonetheless, tough borders affect the behaviour of people and societies; the degree of these effects varies from one border to another.
In economic terms, some scholars particularly (Ohmae, 1990, 172) argued that borders have become obsolete in restricting the movement of capital. The emergence of globalization seemed to be shifting the world into a borderless world. However, the ideas of a borderless world tough plausible, implementing them in the real world seem to be a major issue which has not been solved satisfactorily yet. Evidence indicates that national borders have negative impacts on international trade. This is because different countries have varying policies and regulations towards internal and trade with other countries.
Nevertheless, evidence from research, particularly economists, show that borders between nations still make a difference (Evans 2003). Evans, in his study, found that Canada trades twenty times more within its borders than they trade with the United States, and these boundaries were close to each other. This study indicates that borders have more impact on trade than the actual distance. In addition, Canada and the United States share common language, culture, institutions and are close to each other geographically; hence borders seem to be very vital while explaining how countries are different. The study was further supported by research in evidence in Quebec. This region does not share language and with other regions of Canada traded in the same margin with other provinces within Canada than the U.S.
Research shows that corporations and companies within the European Union favour their homeland more than other countries in economic terms (Wei, 1996). Wei, in his research, found that a country is more likely to import from itself than from another identical country. As demonstrated by the above data borders, which is an element of geography, still has a significant role to play in explaining how countries are different, particularly in economic terms.
Borders also have different effects on a unitary nation. Studies on borders within nations focus more on the difference in administrative policies. Some scholars argue that the characteristics of a region do not relate to policy but aspects such as distance or location of a particular industry (Holmes, 1998). Dynamic aspects such as the geographical location of factories, climate, soil fertility, and access good transport systems. This suggests that policy is more likely to affect how industries are located.
Geographical factors directly influence the culture of various nations. The distance between countries determines how these countries relate to each other. Countries that are close to each other have been proven to interact more than those that are far away. Borders are avenues that societies from different countries interact. While interacting, these individuals share their culture and ideas that are unique to their countries. The use of passports to travel is seen as a major hindrance to international interactions. However, some scholars are of the view that borders can be created in terms of dynamic aspects of trade, migration and trade flows (Malkki, 1995).
Contagious countries seem to be more prone to conflict, and therefore distance acts as a major factor to avoid conflict between countries. Similarly, distance seems to add more cost to trade; therefore, it hinders trade (Chang et al., 2004). Nevertheless, neighbouring countries seem to have more relations regardless of the interactions between them. People that are close to borders are more likely to interact more and often seem to have a common culture unless they are barred by large geographical features such as mountains, hills, lakes, and seas.
Geography also affects the composition of politics between different countries. Since geographical location affects the general behaviour of people, borders are more likely to affect the politics of people in countries. For instance, during voting periods there is low turnout in regions near borders as compared to inland. Also, people near borders have different perspectives on policies that relate to tax and the economy, among others.
There are numerous and conflicting suggestions that deal with economic perspectives concerning geography. However, all theories seem to be in agreement that the government takes centre stage in regulating the economy within its borders and other countries. In almost all countries the countries’ centre seems to be more productive than borderlands. The reason is that the revenue of most countries is shared with the capital that is often in the centre. It is also true that regions near borders trade more with other nations because of logistical and cost factors. Transport costs have a direct influence on the number of trade flows, and distance is affected by the geographical location of a particular country. This is because geographical location directly relates to the distance between different nations.
In the case of Britain, which is located in the northwestern region of the continent of Europe; Its geographical area 248,532 square kilometres and it is the seventh-largest country with an island. Its closeness to water means that it heavily relies on water as a form of transport. It means that the united kingdom has many ports. As a result, many people from different nations have interacted with it this informs why the British were the first country to industrialize because many cultures have influenced their culture. Also, the reason why the British are renowned for having a very strong royal navy is that England is close to the sea. English is the most spoken language in the world by far because the British, due to their close proximity to the sea engaged in many explorations by sea and in the process, they spread their language.
While in the case of Mexico, it is located in a region that is rich in natural resources. These natural resources such as gold, oil, lead, copper, silver, and fertile lands are spread evenly within the Mexican interior. Mexico is among the top exporters of oil exports to the United States. Nearly half of Mexico has fertile soils capable of sustaining profitable agriculture. This is because Mexico is located in an area where there are tropical rains hence saving costs that would be used for irrigation. Mexico`s ecosystem is suitable for tourism with tropical weather and beaches being among the combinations that can be explored in this area.
Tough Mexico is located in a geographical area that is favourable for economic development. Government policies seem to be that main factors that hinder economic advancement in Mexico. Mexico also seems to be affected by societal factors such as drug cartels due to its proximity to the large market in the United States.