The Politics of Slavery and the Coming Civil War

Author(s):  
John Ashworth

This article is divided into four parts. The first recounts the events of the sectional crisis up to the Compromise of 1850. The second looks at factors underlying these events: the relationship between slavery and the Democratic Party, deepening attachment of the South to slavery, the economic and social changes that generated antislavery sentiment in the North (including the shift to wage labor), and the much neglected role of slave resistance in the politics of the sectional conflict. The third shows the decisive impact of these factors in the final decade of peace. The fourth refers to, and criticizes, some current interpretations and misunderstandings of the origins of the Civil War,

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 92-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Foner

Abstract The four essays by Ashworth, Blackburn, Nimtz and Post all make important contributions to our understanding of the causes and consequences of the American Civil War, and to modern analysis of these questions within a Marxist tradition. Although they differ among themselves on key issues, they direct attention to problems too often neglected by other historians: the rôle of class-conflict within North and South in the coming of the War; the part played by slave-resistance in the sectional conflict; the nature of the economic relationship between slave and free economies; and a shift in control of the national state as an enduring result of the conflict.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
John Ashworth

Abstract This essay replies to critics of my earlier piece in Historical Materialism (Volume 19, Issue 4, 2011) which looked at the origins of the American Civil War. The essay re-emphasises the importance of the shift to wage labour in the North, it re-asserts the need to incorporate slave resistance as a key factor in any causal account of the sectional conflict, and it argues that the ultimate northern victory in that conflict should be seen as constituting a ‘bourgeois revolution’. It engages specifically with the criticisms and some of the alternative interpretations offered by Charles Post, Eric Foner and Neil Davidson.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-40
Author(s):  
Archana Prasad

This article explores some questions arising from recent debates on patriarchy and capitalism. The focus is on the role of women in communist-led peasant movements in India and the implications of such struggles on the project of women’s emancipation. The first section lays out a framework for discussing the interface between class consciousness and the anti-patriarchal project, whereby patriarchy is located within the structural contradictions arising out of the contestations within the process of accumulation. The second section documents the historical context, focusing on the relationship between land reforms and social transformation in semi-feudal and early capitalist contexts, and analyzes the extent to which communist-led struggles are anti-patriarchal in character. The third section turns to the participation of women in the contemporary struggles of both agricultural workers and peasant movements and underlines the new emerging dialectics between women’s and peasant organizations under a neoliberal state and with deepening agrarian distress.


Author(s):  
Suryani Rosa Harahap ◽  
Ricu Sidiq

This study aims to determine the role of Amri Tambunan in the period before and after becoming Deli Serdang Regent, knowing the condition of Deli Serdang in the first period 2004-2009, and the second period 2009-2014 during the leadership of Amri Tambunan. This research uses the historical method. Based on the results of the study, it was concluded that Amri Tambunan was known as a North Sumatra figure, among others as the Chairperson of KAPPI Siantar (1964), Deputy Chair of PCNU Deli Serdang (1988), Deputy Chair of North Sumatra PWNU (1999), Chair of the North Sumatra Kepamongan Alumni Family Association (2010 to present), Mustasyar PWNU North Sumatra (2007 to present), and Chairman of the Honorary Board of the North Sumatra Democratic Party (2011-2016). In addition, Amri Tambunan also has a number of achievements in various fields from 2009 to 2013 at national and international levels, such as the Innovative Government Award (IGA) and the Darling Mother and Baby Hospital.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas T Hirblinger ◽  
Dana M Landau

‘Inclusion’ has emerged as a prominent theme in peacemaking. However, its exact meaning remains vague, as do assumptions about the relationship between inclusion and peace. This article seeks to problematize the research, policy and practice of inclusion. Focusing on United Nations (UN) peacemaking, we ask how the object of inclusion has been framed, and based on what strategies and underlying rationales. We do so against the backdrop of emerging debates about an agonistic peace, which suggest that violent antagonistic relationships can be overcome if peace processes enable contestation between adversaries. This requires that peacemakers recognize the constitutive role of difference in political settlements. We identify three distinct strategies for inclusion, with corresponding framings of the included. Firstly, inclusion can be used to build a more legitimate peace; secondly, to empower and protect specific actor groups; and thirdly, to transform the sociopolitical structures that underlie conflict. The first strategy frames the included in open terms that can accommodate a heterogeneity of actors, the second in closed terms pertaining to specific identity traits, and the third in relational terms emerging within a specific social, cultural and political context. In practice, this leads to tensions in the operationalization of inclusion, which are evidence of an inchoate attempt to politicize peace processes. In response, we argue for an approach to relational inclusion that recognizes the power relations from which difference emerges; neither brushing over difference, nor essentializing single identity traits, but rather remaining flexible in navigating a larger web of relationships that require transformation.


Slavic Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 661-684
Author(s):  
Theodora Dragostinova

This article examines Bulgarian cultural relations with India and Mexico in the 1970s to explore the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the Cold War. In 1975, Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the Bulgarian leader, became the head of the Committee for Culture; under her patronage, Bulgarian officials organized literally hundreds of exhibitions, concerts, academic conferences, book readings, cultural weeks, and visits that involved the three countries in an intense cultural romance. Even though Bulgaria was known as the “Soviet master satellite,” culture provided a considerable level of independence in Bulgarian dealings with international actors, which often caused Soviet irritation. In the end, by using culture, in addition to political and economic aid, Bulgaria managed to forge its role as an intermediary between the Second World and the Global South, and to project its notions of development on a global scene.


AILA Review ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 57-68
Author(s):  
Kees de Bot

In this contribution developments in Applied Linguistics in Europe are linked to major social changes that have taken place over the last decades. These include: The decline of the USSR and the end of the cold war; The development of the EEC and the EU and fading of borders; The economic growth of Western Europe; Labor migration from the south to the north of Europe; The emergence of regionalism. All of these developments have shaped the role of languages in society and they have sparked research on linguistic aspects related to the languages in contact due to these developments.


1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michio Muramatsu ◽  
Ellis S. Krauss

This article extends the recent empirical work on the perceptions and role of bureaucrats and politicians in policymaking. The question of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats and the role of each in policymaking is especially important in the case of Japan, because the prevalent models of Japanese politics and policymaking are those of the “bureaucracy dominant” or of a closely interwoven “ruling triad” of bureaucracy, big business, and the governing Liberal Democratic Party.Data are from a systematic survey of 251 higher civil servants and 101 members of the government and opposition parties in the House of Representatives, supplemented by data from other surveys and, wherever possible, compared to equivalent data from western democracies.The results indicate that Japanese politicians and bureaucrats resemble Western European elites both in social background and in the fact that although the roles of politician and bureaucrat are converging, there are still differences in their contributions to the policymaking process. However, politicians influence policymaking more than most models of Japanese politics have posited, and even government and opposition politicians share some consensus about the most important policy issues facing Japan. A factor analysis demonstrated that higher civil servants' orientations toward their roles vary significantly with their positions in the administrative hierarchy.The 27-year incumbency of the LDP as ruling party has been particularly important in determining the Japanese variant of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats. We suggest that the Japanese case shows that the bureaucracy's increasing role in policymaking is universal; however, in late-modernizing political systems like Japan's, where the bureaucracy has always been a dominant actor, the growing power of politicians in postwar politics has been the most significant actor in bringing about more convergence in the two elites. Our data on this trend argue for a more complicated and pluralistic view of Japanese policymaking than that provided by either the bureaucracy-dominant or the ruling-triad model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keneshia N. Grant

AbstractThe Great Migration fundamentally reshaped Northern electorates. Millions of Black voters, who had been unable to vote in the South, became eligible to vote through their resettlement in the North. In many instances, parties and politicians believed that Black voters were the balance of power in elections. This belief led them to change their approaches and make specific appeals to Black voters in an effort to win their support. Although scholars of American politics have revised the dominant narrative about the development of the Democratic Party on issues related to race, they fail to account for the role of Black voters in contributing to the Party’s change. The goal of this work is to describe how the Great Migration influenced Democratic Party interactions with Black voters in presidential elections from 1948–1960. I argue that increasing competition between the Democratic and Republican Parties, coupled with Black migrants’ location in electorally important states, made Black voters an important target of presidential campaign strategy in the post-war era.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (27) ◽  
pp. 276-299
Author(s):  
JULIANA JARDIM DE OLIVEIRA E OLIVEIRA

Este artigo aborda o tema das relações entre Império e Prová­ncias no Brasil a partir de um olhar internacional e em um contexto de ”crise da década de 1860” e da Guerra Civil nos EUA. Dentro do contexto de uma guerra que tem implicações transnacionais, analisaremos dois focos de debate na Cá¢mara dos Deputados do Brasil que sofreram a influência do conflito nos EUA: as propostas de retomada de produção do algodão e os problemas relativos ao recrutamento de soldados em meio á  guerra. Busca-se demonstrar que a Cá¢mara dos Deputados foi palco importante para que os deputados se posicionassem a partir de diferentes interesses regionais ou provinciais, frente a um contexto internacionalizado. Em suas falas é possá­vel observar que em face ao conflito norte-americano e o contexto internacional, os parlamentares foram capazes de fazer uso de um ”jogo de escalas” para discutirem demandas e interesses regionais, explicitando relações nacionais, regionais e internacionais.Palavras-chave:  Estado Nacional. Guerra Civil. Prová­ncias.  PROVINCIAL INTERESTS IN BRAZIL DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR:  a transnational view of the relationship between the Empire and the ProvincesAbstract:  This paper discusses the relationship between the Empire as a central power and the Provinces in Brazil from an international perspective within the context of the ”crisis of the 1860s” and the American Civil War. In view of this national conflict with transnational implications, we will focus on two debates in the Brazilian Lower House of Congress: the debates over the investments in cotton production and the army recruitment in times of war. The Lower House was an important environment for Brazilian Congressmen to defend different regional or provincial demands, in view of an internationalized context. In their speeches it is possible to assert that, when faced with the North American conflict and the international context, congressmen were able to use a game of ”scales” to expose their regional demands and interests, highlighting national, regional, and international relationships.Keywords:  Civil War. National State. Provinces.  INTERESES PROVINCIALES EN BRASIL EN LOS Aá‘OS DE LA GUERRA CIVIL NORTEAMERICANA:  una mirada transnacional sobre relaciones entre el Imperio y las ProvinciasResumen:  Este articulo trata del tema de las relaciones entre imperio y provincias de Brasil a partir de la mirada internacional en el contexto de la ”crisis de la década de 1860” y de la Guerra Civil de los EEUU. Dentro del contexto de una guerra de carácter internacional, analizaremos dos enfoques de debate en la Cámara de los Diputados de Brasil: las propuestas de retomadas en la producción del algodón y los problemas relacionados al reclutamiento de soldados en el medio de la guerra. Es objetivo probar que la Cámara de los Diputados fue un escenario importante para que los diputados se posicionaran a partir de diferentes intereses regionales o provinciales, frente a un contexto internacionalizado. En sus declaraciones es posible observar que ante el conflicto norteamericano y el contexto internacional, los parlamentarios fueron capaces de hacer uso de un ”juego de escalas” para discutir demandas e intereses regionales, explicitando relaciones nacionales, regionales e internacionales.Palabras clave:  Estado Nacional. Guerra Civil. Provincias.


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