Nationalism as a Contributing Factor in the American Civil War
Abstract
The United States currently applies analytic and diagnostic frameworks to potential hotspots around the globe to determine their likelihood or potential for violence. Foreign policy and preventive measures are shaped by the predictions of these diagnostic tools. What prognosis would they bare if used in retrospect on the American Civil War? Would they indicate the war as being inevitable or unnecessary? The answer to these questions is based largely on the causal link between certain nationalism movements and their potential risk for violence. The author proposes to answer these questions using the analytic tool developed by Stephen Evera. Many view the American Civil War as inevitable while others propose it was an unnecessary tragedy. How does one answer the question, "why a civil war?" One can answer this question subjectively or through a more scientific process. The debate over a more scientific study forms the problem background and significance of this study. It is the author's hypothesis that the issue of nationalism greatly affected the risk of war. Stephen Van Evera, a political science teacher at MIT, makes a strong case for the causal link between nationalism and war. The author explains and uses Evera's two-part analytic framework of immediate/proximate causes and the three underlying catalytic factors of these causes (structural, political/environmental and perceptual factors) as an assessment tool. He then applies this analytic framework to the federal and the southern/Confederate nationalist movements. This analysis explains the conditions that cause certain nationalist movements to escalate to violence, and it offers judgement on the role nationalism played in the escalation between north and south. Finally, the author addresses the question of how, if at all, can the war-causing attributes of nationalism be suppressed or neutralized? (40 refs.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA425338
Entities
People
- Scott A. Ofsdahl
Organizations
- Air University