AP® United States History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/us-history/units/9/9-7)
Unit 9 · Topic 9.7
9.7 Causation in Period 9
This skill topic practices causation across Period 9: explaining why conservatism rose, why the Cold War ended, why the economy changed and how 9/11 reshaped foreign policy. You'll also practice judging which effects of change after 1980 mattered most for American national identity.
Key terms
- causation
- short-term cause
- long-term cause
- effect
What causation asks you to do
Causation means explaining why something happened (its causes) and what it led to (its effects). A strong causation argument does more than list. It shows how one thing led to another and judges which causes or effects mattered most, which the exam calls relative significance.
Sort causes in two ways. Long-term causes build over years or decades; short-term causes, or triggers, set an event off. Primary causes matter most; secondary causes contribute. For example, the long-term growth of the Sun Belt and evangelical political activism helped the rise of conservatism, while the Iran hostage crisis and 1980 inflation were short-term triggers for Reagan's victory.
Key cause-and-effect chains in Period 9
| Development | Causes | Effects |
|---|---|---|
| Rise of conservatism | Backlash to the Great Society and 1960s culture; Vietnam and Watergate; stagflation; Sun Belt growth; the religious right | Tax cuts and deregulation; large deficits; welfare reform (1996); ongoing culture wars |
| End of the Cold War | Soviet economic decline; war in Afghanistan; Gorbachev's reforms; U.S. buildup and diplomacy; Eastern European protests | Fall of communism in 1989; Soviet breakup in 1991; U.S. as sole superpower; debates over intervention |
| Changing economy | Computers and the internet; automation; free trade such as NAFTA; decline of unions | Service economy; Rust Belt job losses; stagnant wages; rising inequality |
| New immigration | 1965 Immigration Act; war and poverty abroad; jobs in the U.S. | More diverse population; IRCA and border debates; growing Latino and Asian American influence |
| September 11 attacks | Al-Qaeda's anger at U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and U.S. Middle East policy; gaps in intelligence and airport security | Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Patriot Act; Homeland Security; civil liberties debates |
Effects on American national identity
The unit's big question asks which changes after 1980 most affected how Americans saw themselves. You could argue for the end of the Cold War, which removed the enemy that had defined U.S. identity since 1945 and forced debate over America's role in the world. You could argue for immigration, which made the country more multicultural and renewed arguments over what it means to be American. Or you could argue for 9/11, which created a new sense of national unity at first and then deep divisions over war and civil liberties. Any of these can work if you compare it against the others and explain why it mattered most.
Writing a strong causation argument
- Use causal language: 'led to,' 'because,' 'as a result,' 'contributed to,' 'which in turn.'
- Explain the mechanism. Don't just say A caused B; show how A produced B.
- Rank causes or effects and say why the top one outweighs the rest.
- For complexity, connect short-term triggers to long-term causes, or show an effect that was unintended, such as tax cuts paired with military spending producing record deficits.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Building a causation chain
Short-answer practice: Briefly explain ONE cause of the growth of the conservative movement in the 1980s.
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- Step 1: Pick one specific cause rather than listing several.
- Step 2: Give concrete evidence with a name or date.
- Step 3: Explain the mechanism: how did this cause lead to conservative growth?
Answer: Model answer: The economic troubles of the 1970s helped the conservative movement grow. Stagflation pushed inflation to about 13.5 percent in 1980 while unemployment stayed high, and liberal policies seemed unable to fix it. As a result, many voters became open to Ronald Reagan's argument that high taxes and heavy regulation were the problem, which helped him defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980 and pass the large tax cuts of 1981.
- Example 2
Judging relative significance
Write a thesis for this prompt: Evaluate the relative significance of the effects of the end of the Cold War on United States foreign policy from 1989 to 2001.
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- Step 1: List possible effects: new peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions, new diplomatic and trade relationships, debates over the proper use of U.S. power, NATO expansion.
- Step 2: Choose the most significant and explain why it outweighs the others.
- Step 3: Acknowledge a competing effect to set up complexity.
Answer: Model thesis: Although the end of the Cold War opened new diplomatic and trade relationships, such as NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe and arms-reduction treaties with Russia, its most significant effect was a lasting debate over when the U.S. should use military force, because without the Soviet threat leaders had to justify interventions case by case, from the Persian Gulf War in 1991 to failures and successes in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Common mistakes
- Listing causes without explaining how each one produced the result.
- Treating every cause as equally important when the prompt asks you to evaluate relative significance.
- Confusing correlation with causation: two things happening at the same time does not prove one caused the other.
On the exam
- Essay prompts that ask you to 'evaluate the relative importance' of causes or effects need a thesis that ranks them, not one that lists them.
- The DBQ covers only 1754–1980, but causation evidence from Period 9 can strengthen a broad long essay, and the skills you practice here apply to every period.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 9.7 Causation in Period 9. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
Which of the following was a long-term cause of the conservative revival that brought Ronald Reagan to power in 1980?
Which of the following was a long-term cause of the decline of manufacturing jobs in the Rust Belt after 1980?
Which of the following was an effect of the end of the Cold War on the United States in the 1990s?
"We know big Government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We know, and we have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic Government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big Government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves."
Source: President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996.
Which of the following most directly contributed to the political situation in which Clinton gave this speech?
0 of 4 answered