Building Nationalism

After most these states and the ruling elites started to impose, standardization of time, administration, law languages in order to develop a common identity within the citizens. Good examples were Americas, Canada, the Latin America, and parts of Europe. Some of the national leaders used education to combat strong regional identities[1].

Expanding the empires

Almost all new nation-states, national building worked together with the imperialism. This was one way of showing national strength. There was high competition to the scramble of land across the world by most of the nation states[2]. In addition, most of these nations made it possible for goods and people to move around the world.

AMERICAS

Here the American’s elites developed a strong nation state by both territory expansion and inclusive government method. In the expansion method, the elites involved the conquest and the incorporation of the frontier territory and indigenous people into the nation-state. The American government would sign treaties with groups from India and later the American government refuses to keep the agreement. The following are some of the national buildings that led to the expansion of the nation[3].

• Basic Economy

The country had advanced it industrial economy by implementing innovations in the sector. This marked the high gross national product in the world. The state could feed the local demand and proceed to export of the surplus to the other nations. The exports dominated a force of financial stability in the economy of the country.

The main challenge was ensuring that the price of the exported goods was low because there were other countries that were venturing into the business. Since the government had abolished slavery, the companies had to look for the labor force. This was another challenge that faced the companies as they had to increase their budgets in hiring the labor force.

• National Identity

The country had faced a lot of immigrants especially from Spanish and India. The nation had to absorb or assimilate them to produce a standard American culture idea. The nation was composed of white, middle-class status and the inhabitants who included the Africa- American, Mexican-American and the Asia-American. During the census, the nation did not hyphenate the American Europe descent. This fact led to identity and civil rights movements that emerged creating new cultural politics in the country.

• Ethnic Relations

In the colonial times, the indentured servants and other poor whites constituted a buffer between the slaves and landowners. They two groups constituted the bottom rung of the social ladder. The poor whites were self-identified as white associated themselves with the powerful landowning class instead of get to see their common interest with slaves[4]. The process emphasized on the dominance of white racial identity over class identity. This process could increase the level of the ethnic relations.

• Government

United States is composed of more than fifty state governments. The political government was created to compose of two political parties; the Republican, as well as the Democrats. Spanish and the Indian, who settled in the country as the early immigrants were given the right to participate in the elections as both the voters and participants in the various seats in the government. This strengthened the relationship of the different groups that lived in the country.  

LATIN AMERICA

In America, Brazil and Spanish, there was a great expansion of the frontier was small compared to the elites who had huge plantation estates. Their wealth and the political influence were highly marked by this difference as people gained different status in the country. Therefore, this resulted to unequal distribution of resources in the nation. Even though some of the nation-states decided to build unity and economic prosperity among the people living there, some nations struggled to achieve the ideal. Therefore, Latin America had to use the territorial expansion to achieve prosperity in the country by reducing the gap of the poor and the rich and including them in the activities of the nation.

• Consolidation versus Fragmentation

Because the elites in the country feared the rebellion, this lead to the elites increases their control of their economy and political power. This was done by curbing the rights of the non-propertied and the poorest people in the country. The nation estate, therefore, excluded large segment of the community from both the estate and the nation.

• Brazil: An “Exclusive” Nation-State

There was the creation of the Brazilian republic that shows how the Latin America elites were able to build nations even though they were excluding many people from the system. There was great fear by the Brazilian after the abolishment of the slave trade, but the elites managed to maintain their plantations until early 1880’s. Later 1888, there was the introduction of the slavery exclusive suffrage law[5]. The policy gave rights to the vast population of the freed slaves as well as the rights to other impoverished Brazilians.

• Brazil: Expansion and Economic Development

Brazil government increased its territory expansion by creating railways that assisted in fostering economic development.  The expansion was mainly conducted to the Amazon river basin and the cash collected was used to build cosmopolitan cities.

CANADA

Although the country obtained its independent in a peaceful manner from England, Canada had to construct the nation from different sectors.

Building a Nation

• Language

Canada’s French-speaking population had the intention to preserve its cultural integrity by not being involved to the English world.

• National policies

Once the country become independent in 1867, the building of the nation began. This was marked by the by double and tripling of the country and concept of national policy that connected Atlantic to Pacific through a railway line[6]. There was a lot of creation and building of the national consciousness and most French Canadians and Irish migrants understood themselves as Canadians. Most of this people forgot their cultures or British loyalty and grew to the opportunity and life that were offered by this new identity.

• Territorial Expansion

Canada states used expansion of the territory as a channel to preserve unity and opportunity to the Canadians. Canada ensured that its western territories were not dominated by United States. To achieve this, the country had to construct the westwards railways as well as establishing treaties with the Americans that most of them were broken by the Canadian government.  The strategies strengthened the state, but the concept among the people living in Canada remained poor up to the twentieth century.

• Culture maintenance

The first nation language group plays an important role in the country’s political and culture. The first largest nation languages include Cree, Ojibway, and Inuktitut, but the first people’s language continue to plague the importance of these mother tongues.

Bibliography

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