balkanization
[ (bawl-kuh-nuh-zay-shuhn) ]
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Division of a place or country into several small political units, often unfriendly to one another. The term balkanization comes from the name of the Balkan Peninsula, which was divided into several small nations in the early twentieth century.
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Words nearby balkanization
balisage, balistraria, balk, Balkan, Balkan frame, balkanization, Balkanize, Balkan Mountains, Balkan Peninsula, Balkans, Balkan States
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
How to use balkanization in a sentence
What the Malkins of the world have sought to create is rather a kind of intellectual Balkanization.
This brings us to "malkinization"'s other virtue as a term: the allusion to "Balkanization".