Expansionism is a nation’s practice or policy of territorial expansion. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many Americans believed the United States had to expand to keep its economy strong. In order to do this, they had to follow a foreign policy of imperialism. Imperialism is building an empire by founding colonies or conquering other nations.
What is the meaning of expansionism?
Definition of expansionism : a policy or practice of expansion and especially of territorial expansion by a nation : the belief that a country should grow larger : a policy of increasing a country's size by expanding its territory
What led to the westward expansion in the 19th century?
In United States: Expansionism and political crisis at midcentury Throughout the 19th century, eastern settlers kept spilling over into the Mississippi valley and beyond, pushing the frontier farther westward. The Louisiana Purchase territory offered ample room to pioneers and those who came after. American wanderlust, however, was not….
What is an example of expansionist nationalism?
Past examples. Expansionist nationalism is an aggressive and radical form of nationalism that incorporates autonomous, patriotic sentiments with a belief in expansionism. The term was coined during the late nineteenth century as European powers indulged in the ' Scramble for Africa ' in the name of national glory,...
What is pan-nationalism and how does it justify expansionism?
State-collapse anarchy, reunification or pan-nationalism are sometimes used to justify and legitimize expansionism when the explicit goal is to reconquer territories that have been lost or to take over ancestral lands.
What is the definition of expansionism?
Consists of policies of governments and states that involve territorial or economic expansion. The full extent of the empire of Alexander the Great, assembled in the 4th century BCE as he strove to conquer the lands of Asia and the Mediterranean. In expansionism, governments and states expand their territory, power, ...
Which country is accused of expansionism?
The People's Republic of China is accused of expansionism through its operations and claims in the South China Sea, which are concurrently claimed by Vietnam.
What is the purpose of colonialism?
Colonialism is a form of expansionism in which the policy of a nation seeks to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories, generally with the aim of developing or exploiting them to the benefit of the colonizing country. The European colonial period, from the 15th century to the mid-20th century, had several European powers establish colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia .
What was the Manifest Destiny movement?
In American politics after the War of 1812, Manifest Destiny was the ideological movement during America's expansion West. The movement incorporated expansionist nationalism with continentalism, with the Mexican War in 1846-1848 being attributed to it.
What was the European colonial period?
The European colonial period, from the 15th century to the mid-20th century, had several European powers establish colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia . Expansionist nationalism is an aggressive and radical form of nationalism that incorporates autonomous patriotic sentiments with a belief in expansionism.
What is the term for the expansion of a country?
In expansionism, governments and states expand their territory, power, wealth or influence through economic growth, soft power, military empire-building or colonialism.
When did Russia become aggressive?
Russian posturing has become aggressive since 2008, and especially since 2014. The events associated with Russia are: the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and Russia's occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, which began in 2014 with the Annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbass; and the military intervention in Syria .
Origin of expansionism
Throughout history, powerful nations have always sought to subdue their weaker neighbors, to forcibly incorporate them into their society, and take advantage of the natural, cultural or territorial resources on which they are built.
Causes of expansionism
The reasons that drive expansionism point to the growing demand for consumer goods or capital within the State that seeks to expand, and that consider the option of taking it away from its neighboring countries or colonizing some other territory to obtain them.
Imperialism
More or less synonymous with colonialism and expansionism, Imperialism consists of a doctrine of political, military, and even cultural interference on the part of a more powerful nation over weaker ones that it administers as tutelary entities, despite the fact that these continue to be nations, in theory, independent.
The Lebensraum
The Lebensraum justified the German need for more resources and territory.
Expansionism today
It is a doctrine strongly criticized today, when its political and social consequences and its high cost in terms of world stability and respect for human rights are known, among which is the right to self-determination of peoples.
Example of expansionism
A perfect example of expansionism was the war policy of Nazi Germany, which occupied many neighboring territories in Eastern Europe and proceeded to empty them of their natural inhabitants to settle German settlers in their place. Citizens of these countries were considered “inferior” and sent to death camps or forced labor.
Examples of expansionism in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web The joint statement gave China the opportunity to provide some diplomatic cover to Russia’s regional mobilization, by framing it in broader terms as part of a response to U.S. global policies rather than as Russian expansionism. — Andrew Jeong And Emily Rauhala, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Feb.
First Known Use of expansionism
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What did Jefferson believe about the Westward Expansion?
To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health: He believed that a republic depended on an independent, virtuous citizenry for its survival, and that independence and virtue went hand in hand with land ownership, especially the ownership of small farms.
What was the Westward Expansion and the Compromise of 1850?
Westward Expansion and the Compromise of 1850. Bleeding Kansas. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, and it doubled the size of the United States.
Why was the Mexican American war so unpopular?
That same month, Polk declared war against Mexico, claiming (falsely) that the Mexican army had “invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil.” The Mexican-American War proved to be relatively unpopular, in part because many Northerners objected to what they saw as a war to expand the “slaveocracy.” In 1846, Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot attached a proviso to a war-appropriations bill declaring that slavery should not be permitted in any part of the Mexican territory that the U.S. might acquire. Wilmot’s measure failed to pass, but it made explicit once again the sectional conflict that haunted the process of westward expansion.
What was the Missouri compromise?
The acquisition of this land re-opened the question that the Missouri Compromise had ostensibly settled: What would be the status of slavery in new American territories? After two years of increasingly volatile debate over the issue, Kentucky Senator Henry Clay proposed another compromise. It had four parts: first, California would enter the Union as a free state; second, the status of slavery in the rest of the Mexican territory would be decided by the people who lived there; third, the slave trade (but not slavery) would be abolished in Washington, D.C.; and fourth, a new Fugitive Slave Act would enable Southerners to reclaim runaway slaves who had escaped to Northern states where slavery was not allowed.
What was the Westward Migration?
Westward migration was an essential part of the republican project , he argued, and it was Americans’ “ manifest destiny ” to carry the “great experiment of liberty” to the edge of the continent: to “overspread and to possess the whole of the [land] which Providence has given us,” O’Sullivan wrote.
Where did the American settlers move to?
Thousands of people crossed the Rockies to the Oregon Territory, which belonged to Great Britain, and thousands more moved into the Mexican territories of California, New Mexico and Texas. In 1837, American settlers in Texas joined with their Tejano neighbors (Texans of Spanish origin) and won independence from Mexico.
How many square miles did the Gadsden Purchase add to the United States?
Did you know? In 1853, the Gadsden Purchase added about 30,000 square miles of Mexican territory to the United States and fixed the boundaries of the “lower 48” where they are today.
Overview
Further reading
• Abernethy, David B. The dynamics of global dominance: European overseas empires, 1415-1980 (Yale University Press, 2000).
• Darwin, John. After Tamerlane: the global history of empire since 1405 ( Bloomsbury, 2008).
• Edwards, Zophia, and Julian Go. "The Forces of Imperialism: Internalist and Global Explanations of the Anglo-European Empires, 1750–1960." Sociological Quarterly 60.4 (2019): 628–653.
Theories
Ibn Khaldun wrote that newly established dynasties, because they have social cohesion or Asabiyyah, are able to seek "expansion to the limit."
The Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev theorized that capitalism advances in 50-year expansion/stagnation cycles, driven by technological innovation. The UK, Germany, the US, Japan and now China have been at the forefront of successive waves.
Examples
Every part of the world has experienced expansionism. The religious imperialism and colonialism of Islam started with the early Muslim conquests, was followed by the religious Caliphate expansionisms, and ended with the Partition of the Ottoman Empire.
The militarist and nationalistic reign of Russian Czar Nicholas I (1825–1855) led to wars of conquest against Persia (1826–1828) and Turkey (1828–1829). Various rebel tribes in the Cauca…
21st century
The People's Republic of China is accused of expansionism through its operations and claims in the South China Sea, which are concurrently claimed by Vietnam.
Israel was established on reacquired lands under international law and a manifest of original ownership on May 14, 1948, after the end of World War II and the Holocaust. Its government has occupied the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula since the Six-Day War, althoug…
Ideologies
In the 19th century, theories of racial unity evolved such as Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, and Pan-Turkism and the related Turanism. In each case, the dominant nation (respectively, Prussia; the Russian Empire; and the Ottoman Empire, especially under Enver Pasha) used those theories to legitimise their expansionist policies.
In popular culture
George Orwell's satirical novel Animal Farm is a fictional depiction, based on Stalin's Soviet Union, of a new elite seizing power, establishing new rules and hierarchies, and expanding economically while they compromise their ideals.
Robert Erskine Childers's novel The Riddle of the Sands portrays the threatening nature of the German Empire.
See also
• American imperialism
• British Empire
• Colonialism
• Early Muslim conquests
• Ethnic cleansing
Origin of Expansionism
- Throughout history, powerfulnations have always sought to subdue their weaker neighbors, to forcibly incorporate them into their society, and take advantage of the natural, culturalor territorial resources on which they are built. This isbased on the growing need for food, consumer resources, and eventually, land that a growing population needs.
Methods of Expansionism
- Expansionism can consist of military occupations. Expansionism does not always occur in the same terms, although it is always marked by certain coercion or violence on the part of the expanding state. This can consist of military occupations, forceddisplacements, economic impositions, successive territorial claims, or simple political annexations. In the case of the cont…
Causes of Expansionism
- The reasons that drive expansionism point to the growing demand for consumer goods or capitalwithin the State that seeks to expand, and that consider the option of taking it away from its neighboring countries or colonizing some other territory to obtain them. Other reasons may imply a market in need of foreign consumers, for which their products are implanted more or les…
Consequences of Expansionism
- Colonial stages often spread the culture of the colonizer. Expansionist doctrines often meet with resistance in occupied countries and lead to wars, both frontal and asymmetric, which come at a cost in humanlives. Furthermore, when it comes to territorial annexation, the attacked country loses part of its territory or even ceases to exist as an independent nation. On the other hand, th…
Colonialism
- The colonial states provide low-cost resources to the metropolis. Colonialism is usually a consequence of expansionismand consists of the formation of protected states, loyal to the colonizer, which provide them with some type of resources at a very low cost, despite the fact that this may be to the detriment of their own well-being. These colonial states operate as distant isl…
Imperialism
- More or less synonymous with colonialism and expansionism, Imperialism consists of a doctrine of political, military, and even cultural interferenceon the part of a more powerful nation over weaker ones that it administers as tutelary entities, despite the fact that these continue to be nations, in theory, independent. An example of this is the Monroe Doctrine and its applications b…
Non-Expansionary Disputes
- Britain’s occupation of the Falklands is not an expansionist act. Border disputes between sovereign countries, resolved through diplomatic or military channels, are not considered expansionist acts, as long as they are not part of any imperial or colonialist project of any of the parties in dispute. The recovery of occupied territories, such as the Falkland Islands of Great Brit…
The Lebensraum
- The Lebensraum justified the German need for more resources and territory. In the Nazi theory deployed by Adolf Hitler in his book My Struggle ( Mein Kampf, 1925), he explained the reasons why German territorial expansion was necessary after the defeat suffered in the First World Wardeprived it of its colonies. African countries and imposed political and economic sanctions …
Expansionism Today
- It is adoctrine strongly criticized today, when its political and social consequences and its high cost in terms of world stability and respect for human rightsare known, among which is the right to self-determination of peoples. However, worrying cases of expansionism remain, such as the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories by Israeli settlers, forcing local citizens to abandon th…
Example of Expansionism
- A perfect example of expansionism was the war policy of Nazi Germany, which occupied many neighboring territories in Eastern Europe and proceeded to empty them of their natural inhabitants to settle German settlers in their place. Citizens of these countries were considered “inferior” and sent to deathcamps or forced labor. The above content published at Collaborative Research Gro…