Decline in General

A respect for nominalism need not rule out the search for regularities. Common dilemmas faced most empires, even if they then handled them in their own distinc­tive ways. The empirical base at the back of the discussion is both that of such long- lasting tributary empires as Rome, Byzantium, Mughal India, and China and that of the great modern empires, whether centered on land or in possession of overseas territories.

Before proceeding, a methodological note is necessary. The decline of empires is so varied as to rule out any precise formula. The first reason for this follows from the presence of the set of factors that will concern us. Some empires have several factors at work at the same time, while others have single factors that impact with different tempos. But there is a second reason that deserves to be noted, although to develop the matter fully would require another complete essay of its own. Imperial rulers can seek to arrest, to manage, and even to reverse decline.^[1362] Consider Great Britain, faced with the challenge of Germany in the twentieth century. On the one hand, it resisted, through higher taxes designed to win the naval race and through geopolitical retrenchment allowing the fleet to concentrate in European waters; on the other, it sought to appease the rising power as much as possible. But there are other strategies. Most obvious is the desire to return to one's best self, to remove corruptions so as to restore the institutions that worked in the past.

It would be remiss not to begin with the factor most often noted by impe­rial ideologists, namely that of moral corruption. The sociology of Ibn Khaldun revolves around this.^[1364] As rulers become corrupted by urban life, they lose both legitimacy and military effectiveness, and become easy prey for a virtuous, mil­itarily effective tribe called to power by discontented ulama; but history is made cyclical by the certain fact that urban life will corrupt the new rulers. A very sim­ilar view derives from classical thought. The military prowess ensured by simple virtuous living is destroyed by luxury, leading thereby to decline. Edward Gibbon had this theory at the heart of the account of empires, although he felt that modern Europe's economic advance meant that technological sophistication would at last counter the military virtue of invading nomads. What are we to make of this view? For social scientists, the prescriptive quality of the theory can irritate. One notes, for instance, that the tulip mania present in the early eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire was not linked to decay or decline. Still, the presence of the theory suggests a measure of background descriptive power.

To some extent, all rule depends upon cooperation between state and society. Any center of power necessarily lacks detailed knowledge of local conditions, with its ef­fectiveness resting in the end upon the presence of transmission belts able to see, to suggest, and to implement. This consideration lay behind Tocqueville's explanation for the greater powers of the English state in the eighteenth century compared to that of France—powers resulting from greater military capacity resting on higher levels of taxation agreed to by an upper class that trusted a state in which its voice was heard.^[1365] But both these states were relatively small, both on course to become nation- states. The problem of the allegiance of elites was much more serious for com­posite, imperial entities.^[1366] The powers of the center were constrained both by lim­ited rates of fiscal extraction and very often by distance. In these circumstances, it was absolutely necessary to rule through local power-holders. Such power-holders might be appointed from the center, or the center might choose to cooperate with varied types of traditional elites—a practice famously described by Lord Lugard when writing about British rule in West Africa as that of “indirect rule.”^[1367] But danger lurked here at all times. On the one hand, the local power-holders could over time become too autonomous, so much in control of local resources as to refuse to pass enough to the center, and able on occasion to challenge it altogether. The great theorist of this world is Franz Oppenheimer,^[1368] who made much of the “feudalizing” tendencies of agrarian rule.

The growth of the empires, their provision of peace and habitual economic growth, made them ever more attractive to outsiders. The Hollywood image of “barbarians” is of uncouth pillagers, bent on rape and destruction. The truth was often exactly the opposite, namely that of the desire to get in, to gain the benefits of a more advanced world. Of course, this increased the pressure on agrarian empires, and this often resulted in heightened demands for taxation, frequently avoided but otherwise capable of breeding revolt.

Distance makes it hard to exercise control. One remembers how many months it took the government of Margaret Thatcher to assemble a rather motley fleet to retake the Falkland/Malvinas islands! Hence a notable cause, often interrelated with those already noted, is that of overextension. The great theorist here is Paul Kennedy, the author of a much-cited work designed to warn the United States that it might follow in the footsteps of Great Britain.^[1372] If that warning was perhaps pre­mature, as we shall see, there is no doubt but that overextension and exhaustion massively contribute to the end of empires. Spain lost its imperial possessions in Latin America because it became overextended when fighting against Napoleon. But Russia under Tsars or Bolsheviks was always overextended when it controlled Poland.

This naturally leads to another factor, analytically separate even though it is very often joined together with overextension. Notice has already been given to John Hobson's view that traditional empires were worlds unto themselves. This is, of course, not entirely correct. The Mughals and the Qing faced genuine rivals, and many emperors wrote to their fellows, often referring to them as brothers. Still, the greatest tributary empires did not face much rivalry, and so were able to last for very long periods even after much power had been transferred to the regions. Nonetheless, it is in the modern world, as noted, that systematic rivalry comes to the fore. As a background to this factor, it is important to note that the British Empire lasted so long because no great power wished to challenge it, or to allow any rival state to challenge it.^[1373] Longevity resulted from an idiosyncratic power vacuum. But once full-scale rivalry did surface at the end of the nineteenth century, maintaining empires became difficult. Great Britain was sorely stretched by conflict in South Africa, not least because it lacked any allies. The Ottomans were unable to adapt, and were slowly dismembered, suffering massive ethnic cleansing from their former Balkan territories. Still, an agreement of the great powers to maintain at least the shell of Ottoman power for a long period prevented complete disaster, as

indeed was the case in China. But once war exhausted the great European empires, they were doomed. Austro-Hungary and the Ottomans did not recover from World War I; the British, French, and Dutch overseas empires fell after World War II, not least because their defeats in Asia removed their reputation for invincibility. Sheer ruthlessness did of course mean that the Russian Empire was reconstituted under different management after 1919. But no account of the collapse of the Soviet Union would make sense if it made light of the effective military defeat during the course of the Cold War.

The final factor is simply that societies tend to institutionalize the moment of their success. A modern example can make the point most clearly, and in an aseptic manner. Great Britain had pioneered what might be called the first stage of the industrial era. But the leading sector of that stage, textile production, was clearly overtaken at the end of the nineteenth century by German specialization in chemi­cals. It is hard to adapt, and there are sunk costs in particular technologies. But sunk ideological and institutional costs can matter quite as much. Dominic Lieven in Chapter 35 offers an interesting example.

The eighteenth-century Russian system of mobilizing resources in the cause of imperial power was formidable and ruthless. This successful tradition of authori­tarian mobilization undoubtedly inhibited the introduction in the nineteenth cen­tury of reforms which might have drawn state and socialist together by allowing elected representatives of the social elites to participate in government and legis­lation. The resulting alienation of these elites from the regime was an important element in tsarism's demise.

Vigorous attempts were sometimes, as noted, made to reform, change, and rejuve­nate. Diocletian tried to do this in the Roman case, and did so with some success— although the increasing militarization in the end increased regionalization. But the more characteristic pattern is to return to old and trusted ways rather than to im­agine new ones, all too likely to be seen as newfangled and dangerous. The struggles between “Westernizers” and “populists” characterized the last years of many empires. This is scarcely surprising. No one likes to admit to inferiority, making an inward turn to local traditions easy to understand.