William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. He has research interests in international relations theory, international security, Russian foreign policy, and the Cold War.
He is author of Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War (Cornell, 1993) and editor of several books, including Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Johns Hopkins, 1996); Cold War Endgame: Oral History, Analysis, and Debates (Penn State, 2003); The Balance of Power in World History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), with Richard Little and Stuart Kaufman; World Out of Balance: International Relations Theory and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton University Press, 2008), with Stephen G. Brooks; and International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity (Cambridge University Press, 2011), with G. John Ikenberry and Michael M. Mastanduno.
He has a B.A. from Beloit College and a Ph.D. from Yale University.
Abstract
How do the outcomes of inter-state wars affect domestic social conflict? In turn, how does intra-national, inter-ethnic conflict affect the nation’s ability to fight inter-state wars? What is the relationship between nationalism and state power? We address these questions using a simple model in which two ethnic groups compete over resources and power within a state that is controlled by one of the groups and, in turn, the state competes for power internationally. Victory in inter-state war raises national status, which lowers ethnic conflict within the state by inducing people to identify nationally rather than ethnically. We explore how the escalation of conflicts to war (inter-state or intra-state) depends on individuals’ desire for greater in-group status and national prestige, controlling for the perceived distance between the individual, his/her ethnic group, and the nation, where distance is measured along some ethnic attribute space.
The model connects the international relations literature on war and the comparative politics literature on ethnic conflict and social identification, drawing on empirical results regarding the nature and determinants of group identification from social psychology and behavioral economics. The model’s propositions are illustrated with a case study of the effects of the Franco-Prussian war on German unification. We show that the war with France caused a social transformation in Germany, led by a liberal-nationalist reimagining of the Prussian state. Nationalists, who had earlier pinned their hopes on Austria and had been disappointed with Prussia’s victory in the Austro-Prussian war, abandoned their resentment over Prussian dominance when Prussia delivered a victory over France.
Synthesizing information in historical studies, newspapers, and literary sources (contemporary literature, letters, memoirs, and teacher’s journals) we show how the victory that established Prussia as a great European power inflated German pride, boosting national identity at the expense of regional, state nationalisms. Further, we show that this was a bottom-up process, rooted in public opinion, and not driven by political parties or elite interests at the regions.
