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The history of humankind is intertwined with continuous conflicts that emerge based on differences in interests and competition over resources. Wars, social unrest, and other forms of conflicts are inevitable elements of historical development; they are driven by power distribution and the fight for dominance. In this regard, the application of conflict theory to the analysis of war is an insightful practice that allows for identifying the causes of the war, its characteristic features, and its impact on society. In this paper, the case of the American Civil War will be explored and analyzed using conflict theory. The paper will aim to determine that this conflict developed based on the economic, social, and political competition over land, resources, and prevalent social order between the South and North. The research question of the planned research will be as follows: How does the conflict theory inform the causes of the American Civil War?
As with any other war in the history of humanity, the American Civil War started due to a disagreement between the parties in the society. The conflict between the Union, consisting of the Northern states, and the Confederacy, including the Southern states, lasted between 1861 and 1865(Parish, 2020). The forces of the two sides fought because of their opposing views on the role of slavery, which was necessary for the agricultural South and unacceptable for the industrialized North. According to Parish (2020), the theory of conflict implies economic interpretations of the causes of the American Civil War, which are seen in the contradiction of economic interests.
Indeed, since slavery was at the center of the conflict, the economic gains that were pursued by the South were the free labor force granted by slavery for cotton production. The conflict theory holds that the bargainer must persuade the other that he/she will carry through with a threat or promise or will not move from the announced stand (Pruitt, 2018, p. 284). In the case of the American Civil War, the threat of using military means in the case of resistance to the change in slavery was a turning point.
Apart from the economic gains, the political and social issues were influential in the unfolding of the conflict. In particular, the conflict of interests related to slavery was indicative of the social causes of the conflict. Indeed, while slavery had economic benefits for the South, it was a matter of social justice for the North (Parish, 2020). From a political perspective, the causes of the Civil War involved the legal statuses of particular states and the overall political order. In such a manner, a wide range of underlying forces played a significant role in the unfolding of the conflict, which ultimately affected the historical development of the country.
Thus, the application of the conflict theory to the American Civil War demonstrated that the war was caused by the clash of economic, political, and social interests of the two parts of the society. The analysis indicates that the conflict does not emerge in isolation but rather unfolds at multiple levels. In the case of the Civil War, the differences in the interests within the political and social realms contributed to the economic conflict. Thus, the events during the war involved the restructuring of the social order, political reality, and economic circumstances. The proposed research will be focused on researching the interplay between the causing factors of the American Civil War from the perspective of conflict theory.
References
Parish, P. J. (2020). The American Civil War. Routledge.
Pruitt, D. G. (2018). Tom Schellings contributions to conflict theory and research. Negotiation Journal, 34(3), 283290.
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