Empire
An empire is a realm controlled by a monarch or other official and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries. The center of the empire has political control over the peripheries. Within an empire, different populations may have different sets of rights and may be governed differently. The word "empire" derives from the Roman concept of Imperium. Narrowly defined, an empire is a sovereign state that exercises control over multiple distinct territories; however, not all states with aggregate territory under the rule of supreme authorities are called "empires". Not all self-described empires have been accepted as such by contemporaries and historians.
Empires have taken many forms throughout history. An important distinction has been between empires relying on land forces and consisting mostly of contiguous territory, such as the Roman Empire or the Mongol Empire; and those based on sea power and which include territories that are remote from the core of the empire, such as the Dutch Colonial Empire or the British Empire.
Aside from the more formal usage, the concept of empire in popular thought is associated with such concepts as imperialism, colonialism, and globalization, with "imperialism" referring to the creation and maintenance of unequal relationships between nations and not necessarily the policy of a state headed by an emperor or empress. The word "empire" can also refer colloquially to a large-scale business enterprise, or to a political organization controlled by a single individual or by a group. "Empire" is often used as a term to describe overpowering situations causing displeasure.
Definition
An empire is an aggregate of many separate states or territories under a supreme ruler or oligarchy. This is in contrast to a federation, which is an extensive state voluntarily composed of autonomous states and peoples. An empire is a large polity which rules over territories outside of its original borders.Definitions of what physically and politically constitutes an empire vary. It might be a state affecting imperial policies or a particular political structure. Empires are typically formed from diverse ethnic, national, cultural, and religious components. 'Empire' and 'colonialism' are used to refer to relationships between a powerful state or society versus a less powerful one; Michael W. Doyle has defined empire as "effective control, whether formal or informal, of a subordinated society by an imperial society". Imperialism for Doyle is simply the process of establishing and maintaining an empire. Similarly, for Rein Taagepera imperialism is a policy of conquest and domination of foreign lands and populations.
This is not to be confused with the Imperialism in the Marxist-Leninist sense of the late modern phenomenon following the European colonialism and representing the last stage of capitalism. Initially, the term was New Imperialism, where the qualifier "new" differentiated the contemporary imperialism from earlier imperialism, such as the formation of ancient empires and the first wave of European colonization. Eventually, Lenin cancelled all earlier forms and began the history of Imperialism in the 1760s. The Leninist definition of imperialism removed the essence of empire from politics to economics and explicitly denied that modern capitalist imperialism had anything in common with the empires of the past.
Since the beginning, mainstream historians of empire were puzzled: as the highest stage of capitalism, imperialism cannot exist before 1876. Such a concept is not very helpful “if we do not know for certain whether it fits the facts of two millennia or… two generations.” Kenneth Waltz believed that the cause appears much younger than the effect. He believed that it is as though Newton explained gravitation by a 17th-century phenomenon, ignoring that gravitation operated earlier. Lenin’s work was interpreted as political pamphlet rather than scientific thesis, suitable for "the half-educated whose power of criticism was not fully developed," and calling them to hunt the “invisible hand” of economic exploitation. According to Michael Doyle, thus imperialism turned into an economic and European phenomenon. The pamphlet re-defined empire as the original sin of European peoples, who corrupted an 'innocent world', and the belief became wholeheartedly shared all over the non-Western world. In this world, the word imperialist became "the 20th-century version of the devil" who has constant designs on their sovereignty and economic growth.
Few historians follow the Marxist approach and most recognize that imperialism predates the European colonialism and capitalism by at least millenia. In the early 21st century, most theories of empire still were Eurocentric, reflecting the brief period when European empires dominated the world. This perspective, according to the 2021 Oxford World History of Eire, must be widened and the "Age of Imperialism" situated within a proper world history of empires. Millennia had passed before Europe could claim to dictate the course of world history and a significant time has passed since.
According to historians such as George Steinmetz, involving the cessation of state sovereignty, empires should properly be studied in the domain of politics rather than economics. The essential core of the definition is political. Lenin’s usage of the term 'empire' primarily deals with imperialism during the 20th century. Mainstream and Marxist historians heavily disagree on the topic of imperialism.
Tom Nairn and Paul James define empires as polities that "extend relations of power across territorial spaces over which they have no prior or given legal sovereignty, and where, in one or more of the domains of economics, politics, and culture, they gain some measure of extensive hegemony over those spaces to extract or accrue value". Rein Taagepera has defined an empire as "any relatively large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign". Peter Bang characterizes empire as "composite, layered and anything but uniform in their internal organization of power," and comprising "a range of different territories and communities, subjected hierarchically in various ways to a dominant power."
However, sometimes an empire is only a semantic construction, such as when a ruler assumes the title of "emperor". That polity over which the ruler reigns logically becomes an "empire", despite having no additional territory or hegemony. Examples of this form of empire are the Central African Empire, Mexican Empire, or the Korean Empire proclaimed in 1897 when Korea, far from gaining new territory, was on the verge of being annexed by the Empire of Japan, one of the last to use the name officially. Among the last states in the 20th century known as empires in this sense were the Central African Empire, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Manchukuo, Russia, Germany, and Korea.
Scholars typically distinguish empires from nation-states. In an empire, there is a hierarchy whereby one group of people has command over other groups of people, and there is a hierarchy of rights and prestige for different groups of people. Josep Colomer distinguished between empires and states in the following way:
- Empires were vastly larger than states
- Empires lacked fixed or permanent boundaries whereas a state had fixed boundaries
- Empires had a "compound of diverse groups and territorial units with asymmetric links with the center" whereas a state had "supreme authority over a territory and population"
- Empires had multi-level, overlapping jurisdictions whereas a state sought monopoly and homogenization
Characteristics
Empires can expand by both land and sea. Territorial empires with looser structures and more scattered territories, often consisting of many islands and other forms of possessions which required the creation and maintenance of a powerful navy.
The Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire, and the British Empire developed at least in part under elective auspices. Empires such as the Holy Roman Empire also came together by electing the emperor with votes from member realms through the Imperial election. The Empire of Brazil declared itself an empire after separating from the Portuguese Empire in 1822. France has twice transitioned from being called the French Republic to being called the French Empire while it retained an overseas empire. Europeans began applying the designation of "empire" to non-European monarchies, such as the Qing Empire and the Mughal Empire, as well as the Maratha Confederacy, eventually leading to the looser denotations applicable to any political structure meeting their criteria of "imperium". Some monarchies styled themselves as having greater size, scope, and power than the territorial, politico-military, and economic facts support. As a consequence, some monarchs assumed the title of "emperor" and renamed their states as "The Empire of..."
Empires were seen as expanding power and administration, and guaranteeing stability, security and legal order for their subjects. They tried to minimize ethnic and religious antagonism inside the empire. Some empires tended to impose their ideas, beliefs and cultural habits on the subject states to strengthen the imperial structure; others opted for multicultural and cosmopolitan policies. Anthony Pagden estimates that most of the early empires were multicultural and attempted to incorporate various groups into some larger cosmopolitan whole. The aristocracies that ruled empires were often more cosmopolitan and broad-minded than their nationalistic successors. Cultures generated by empires could have notable effects that outlasted the empire itself.
In the mid-twentieth century, the word "empire" obtained a negative connotation, viewed as inherently immoral or illegitimate. Traditional or overt empire destroyed and discredited itself in the World Wars. The matters are worse in the German language where empire is "reich" and immediately associates with the Third Reich. For the first time in history, countries which proudly called themselves empires disappeared from the map. The postwar world came under the domination of two superpowers both of which proclaimed themselves to be enemies of empire. The West contained the imperialist East and the East and the South resisted the imperialist West. Imperialism became a cosmopolitan, multi-front battle cry wielding many diverse and distant peoples in fighting a common enemy. As former colonies came to make up the majority of states in the United Nations, "empire" lost all legitimacy in this major international forum. "Any state stupid enough to call itself an empire became subject automatically to UN resolutions on decolonisation." Most postwar histories of empires have been hostile, especially if the authors were promoting nationalism.