Question

How are nationalism and the quest for power and resources often underlying causes for war?

Answer 1

The concepts of Nationalism and Imperialism were coined to explain the political and economic phenomena that dominated Europe at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century.

The concept of nation promoted national unity both in Europe and in other regions of the world, such as the American continent, and inaugurated new political struggles and new cultural manifestations. However, nationalism also became something dangerous, given that the racial theories to justify the expansion of European nations and the process of domination that they launched on the African and Asian continents were elaborated at that time.

Therefore, in the same context in which nationalism emerged in Europe, imperialism also emerged, that is, a political and economic development of European nations, which needed to expand their industry. The concept of imperialism involves the meaning of two phenomena: 1) the integration of financial capitalism (stock exchanges, bonds, banks, etc.) with industrial capitalism and 2) the expansion of the dominions of European nations to other continents, in this case , for Asia and Africa.

This phenomenon was also given the name of Neocolonialism, that is, a new process of colonization, different from those that occurred between the 16th and 18th centuries.