Framework for Discussion

Empires are both simple and complex. Simple, because they are broadly identifi­able through a small number of key elements in common—extended territorial polities dominated by a core, usually with a substantial element of coercive power at its disposal; they tend to entail the incorporation of local elites, and often local religious cultures, into a system dominated by the center; the language and culture of the core tends to become the dominant language of the empire's administration and elite culture; and they evolve, to a greater or lesser degree, an imperial ideology through which the existence of the imperial system can be legitimated.

The origins of an empire generally determine the forms of revenue sought by different types of empire, so that taxation, tribute, and trade all coexist in different proportions and occupy different positions within the imperial system according to geography, cultural tradition, access to precious metals, the political conjuncture, technological development, and the structures of rule and administration. And these features reflect relationships, or sets of relationships, that involve all aspects of social power as elaborated by Mann—collective and distributive, intensive and

¹ For a useful general survey of notions of imperialism and empire and how to approach them, see Mommsen 1982 and the literature cited in Burbank and Cooper 2010, 461-462; Darwin 2008; Hardt and Negri 2000.

John Haldon, The Political Economy of Empire In: The Oxford World History of Empire. Edited by: Peter Fibiger Bang, C.A. Bayly, Walter Scheidel, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780199772360.003.0005. extensive, diffused and authoritative. Using those rubrics, a heuristic framework can be constructed that helps us understand the dynamics of imperial systems in both space and across time. Social power in this sense is indeed fundamental to the actual configuration of different networks of social relations and to the state formations which develop out of them. Equally important is Mann's elaboration of states as constituting themselves as autonomous actors in the evolution of social- economic and power relations, although of course empires, as “multilevel states,” in many respects do not necessarily conform in this regard.^[382]

One point worth noting at the outset is that, viewed from a modern perspective, imperial systems and the economic structures that maintain them have evolved: the succession of empires over time shows a succession of imperial forms that vary in terms of the extent of their integration of subordinate elites, of their power over conquered lands, of the sophistication of resource extraction and redistribution, as well as in respect of patterns of ideological integration. The Hittite “empire,” with its loosely federated vassal polities drawn into a network of commercial and gift­exchange relationships focused on court and temple, is an early variant; the mili­taristic Assyrian Empire, a conquest polity with an insistence on the primacy of its god Assur over all others, its centralized control over local elites, and the fragile in­terdependency between ruler, military elite, and conquest, another.

Runciman is concerned to pinpoint the micro-structural elements that facilitate change in social relations and that lead to the continued evolution or the blocking of certain modes of power distribution.^[383] If social practice does not adequately ad­just to changes in broader social relations, the balance of resources, or external relationships with other territorial powers, the empires they support fail, generally to be replaced by new sets of institutional practices—new imperial systems—which correspond better to the shift in circumstances and which assure the vested or perceived interests of the elites in the social-cultural systems they embrace, whether old or new.

'1 here have been many discussions of “empire” and “empires,” each with their own specific point of view and set of questions, each comparing a range of empires or imperial systems against one another under a range of different theoretical perspectives, and Chapter 1 of this volume has summarized much of the debate of which they are part. Given the vast spectrum of imperial forms across human his­tory, a chapter on the political economy of empire(s) can barely scratch the surface of the range of possible issues that this phrase encompasses. In what follows, I will consider a small number of key questions, questions that the comparative historian of empires as well the historian of specific imperial systems might wish to ask and that may serve as useful heuristic foci on which to concentrate in interrogating the sources and in elucidating the ways in which a given empire worked and evolved. And in terms of political economy, these will largely be concerned with the post­expansionist phase of empire, since we should probably differentiate, as far as is possible, between “empire” as an established territorial political dominance, as opposed to “imperialism,” the (ongoing) process of expansion, conquest, and in­corporation. There may thus be significant differences between the military and ec­onomic phases of an imperial project.^[384]

We can approach the political economy of traditional empires through certain key features which all systems have in common, although their forms, and the way they function in respect of what we may call their cultural geography, vary widely, often to the extent that it is difficult to identify the most important func­tional aspects in every case. There are two primary issues on which it seems worth concentrating when examining a given empire or comparing a particular group of empires.