paper 3

EthnicNationalist.docx

ETHNIC NATIONALIST FACTION

Over the course of the nineteenth century, Galtonia was ruled as a constitutional monarchy by the Galtonian royal family, which, after being overthrown during the Galtonian Revolution, regained the throne during the restoration of 1834. Like other countries in Europe, periodic outbursts of revolutionary activity have threatened the stability of Galtonia as workers demanded universal suffrage and greater participation in government. The works of Marx and Engels along with other communist movements throughout Europe have stirred these feelings even further. The rulers of Galtonia have managed to retain control by alternating between authoritarian repression (i.e. sending in troops to break strikes) and co-opting the opposition (i.e. bring moderate socialist parties into the Parliament and offering a social safety net for workers). However this is simply a means of dividing the organic unity of the Galtonian nation. You believe that what Galtonia needs is a return to its roots in the blood of the Galtonian race and the soil of the Galtonian homeland.

Now it is July 1914 and this delicate balance is in danger as the threat of war looms on the horizon. As the nations of Europe mobilize for war, Galtonia must decide whether to ally itself with the Triple Entente (England, France, and Russia), or with the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy), or try to stay neutral like Spain or Switzerland. (Hint: many Galtonians can trace their ancestry back to the Teutonic tribes that gave birth to the German people.) A decision to join one of these alliances would entail a vote for war credits, which would provide the government the funds to begin mobilizing for war. In this industrial age, mobilization is very difficult to stop once started.

In response to this crises a semi-formal special advisory session of Parliament has been called to debate the question of war credits. Your faction’s vote will change the course of Galtonian history.

You are members of the Party for the Preservation of the Galtonian Homeland (PPGH). Like many ethnic nationalist parties in nineteenth-century Europe, you feel that Galtonia has a unique historical, linguistic, religious, and racial heritage that must be preserved at all costs against the threats of internal subversion, foreign aggression, and international socialism (not to mention communism and anarchism).

As with previous papers, your job is to write a 500-600 word paper comprising a character sketch with biographical details, an account of how you came to hold your political beliefs (you must reference AT LEAST THREE specific historical events from the textbook that shaped your political ideology), and an argument for what position Galtonia should take (You must reference AT LEAST TWO primary sources that influenced you—don’t forget the quotation sandwiches!). Remember, successful papers will include EXAMPLES from your reading and EVIDENCE from primary sources.

For ideas you might want to research some nineteenth-century theorists of European ethnic nationalism like Fichte, and practitioners like Mussolini.

Here is a link to a contrast between civic and ethnic nationalism that might be useful:

https://www.msu.edu/user/hillrr/161lec16.htm?iframe=true