To Conquer Land or People: Regime Type and US Expansionism toward Canada
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: How does a state’s regime type influence its appetite for territorial expansion? Most great powers have historically used eras of strength to pursue expansion into neighboring population centers, which offer greater material benefits than empty lands. However, the only democracy to face major opportunities for expansion, the United States, has defied this pattern by consistently preferring to conquer land rather than people and by seeing its expansionism decline as its international power has grown. I argue that democracy transforms population centers from a lure into a deterrent by introducing a set of domestic social and political costs that can outweigh even substantial material gains. In this paper, I test this argument against the conventional wisdom by process-tracing US decision making during crises in its early relations with British Canada.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Richard W. Maass
Institution: University of Evansville
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2258464678