Table Of ContentSPONSORED BY THE
JOINT COJ\JJ\IITTEE ON THE NEAR AND l\1lDDLE EAST,
SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
AFTER EMPIRE
MULTIETHNIC SOCIETIES
AND NATION-BUILDING
The Soviet Union and the Russian,
Ottoman, and Jlabsburg Empires
EDITED BY
KAREN BARKEY AND MARK VON HAGEN
~estview
.... '5
For ollr grandparolfs
wbo u'cr,' bam ill tbl' IfflbJiJlIIg lind OttOIl/i/1I empires
tllld /i-c, .. d /lIost ~/fheir li·pes fljia empire
.. \1\ ri~hts reserl'ed. Primed in 1Ill' llnited States Ilf,\mcric;1. ;-.J" part of this puhlicllionllla,' be
u.'prnduccd or tr~\ns'l1ittl'd ill an," form Of hy an~' ml~i.lIl", l'kctrollic or Tllel.. haniral, including phnto
C(lp~·. recording. or <Hl~' inltl!'m,uion ":;1()r;\~e and retric,' .. 1 :-'~'stCIll, without pCfmi:-;sioll ill writing
Ii-olll the puhlisher.
I'ublished in 19,}7 in the l'nitl'd Stall's Ilfl\merir;t Iw \\'est\"il'w Press, 5500 Centr;.1 . \"l'I1Ul" Boul
der, Colorad" ROJOl-2877, and ill I he United Kil1~dolll 1)\· \ V<'''''ie\\' Press, 12 I lid's Copse Road,
CUI1I1HH [lill, Oxl<1Il1 OX2 '!J.I
l.ihr;lry nf('()lI~rl'o;s C,u,\lc'girlg-in-))uhlicati(HI I).U,l
Arter empire: Ilndtil'thnic soCiclic" and Il,lti(ltl-bllildin~ : the S(l\,ict
l'nillil .Ind RII"i;\n, 0(\0111;\11, .,nd I L,hshllr~ Empires I edited I'." Karen
Ihrkn' .,nt! I\lark \'On I [agen.
p. lIII.
Ind"des index.
ISBN tl-8U.1-2%1-'!,-ISB~ ()-~n1-296·FI (I'hk)
I. Imperialism. 2. Tllrkc\'-I [i"nn'-Onn"';II' Fmpire, 1211R-1 'HR.
".1 Lrbshllrg, 1 [nllSt' of. -I, 1\IIstri;,-[ [iston'. 5, I{IIssia-llisrnn·.
(,. Soviet Ullion-llistn'T. 1. Barke.", Karen', 195R- II. Vnn
I L,~en, 1\ lark, 195-1- '
.IU5'! .1\53 1' 197
.U5' ..' 2-<lc21 96-,OOh6
UP
The paper IIsed ill this I'"blication met''' tire re'l"irt'nlt'llts of the An",ric;II' ~ati •• n.,1 SI'II,,!.,nl I,,,
Pennallellce "I' Paper 1,"'Prin'ed Lihran I\Lnerials 1.1'),-l8-19ll-l.
7
CONTENTS
Ack 170w/"dO'li/ellts
<~ \'11
1 How Empires End, Char/, ',I TiI~l} 1
2 The End of Empires, I:', I J fobs/la'wlIl
12
Part One
Collapse of Empires: Causes
3 Thinking Abollt Empire, .I1/,ox(ll1derj Jlvlo~}'/
19
-+ The Ottoman Empire, Cilg!ar KLyder
30
5 The I Ltbsburg Empire, S%moll Himk
45
6 The Russian Empire, /\Iad: VOll Hagell
58
7 The Soviet Union, 1T it"/Dr Zas/a'VJkv
7J
Part Two
Collapse of Empires: CO\lscquences
\8 Thinking About COnSel\UenCes of Empire, K,,/,'II Bark,y
99
9 The Ottoman Empire, Serif/Hardin
115
10 The I Ltbsburg Empire, Jj/-vdn D,'dk
129
11 The Russian Empire, ROlilild G, SIII1Y
142
12 Aftenn.lths of Empire and the
Unmixing ofPeopks, Ragin Brubaker
155
13 Conclusion, Karl'lI Hark,y {lnd /VIark ,()Oll l/agm
181
/Jbollt the' Book {/nd Editon
191
About tb,' COlltrib"tors
1lJ2
Jlldex
1lJ3
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This I'oillme is the result of a conference conyened ,It Coillmbi,l Univcrsity in
NovclllblT 1,)':1-+. It was spollsored bl' the foint Committee on the Ne,lr and l\lid
dIe E,lst of thc Social Sciencc RC'i:arch 'Coullcil, the Ccnter till' the So,'ial Sci
cnces, and the I I.trriman Institute of Columbi,l Uni,'ersity, Abm'c all, \\'e th,lIlk
Lisa Anderson of Columbia's Political Science Dep,lrtlllent ,md StelTn Ileyde
mann of the SSRC ti)r initiating the project on empires and l\lexander j\ lotyl ti)r
his help in organizing the l'Ollt~Tence.
'''Ie are abo grateful to the participants and comlllentators at the conferencc.
In addition to those who hal'e contributed papcrs to this volume, we thank: Har
rison ''''hite, Jack Snyder, Ste\'(: Solnick, Richard 'Vortman, Sukru I LlIIioglu,
Robcrt Paul l\ Iagosci, Rajan l\ knon, and David Good, During the discussion
and rel'ision of thc p,lpers, wc hendtted from the critictl cyes and minds of
Charles Till)', lIcndrik Spruyt, D,llliel Chi rot, and Antholl), VV. l\larx. Caglar
Keyder and 15tv',\n Deik desen'l' spccial thanks ti)!' agrL'eing quickly and ~r,l
ciollsl), to switch roles from cOlllmentators to authors.
Our editors, l\largaret Sevchcnko and David Gibson, worked hard for long
hOllrs to prepare the papers ti)l' publication and track down elusive ti)(Hllotes and
tr,lnslitemtions. Finally, til!' hn help in organizing the conference we gmtefully
acknowledge the dfims of t Ltjdcja Iglic.
KITI'<'I1 Bad:t']!
IH(/Ii' 'UI)II flilg<'11
Columbia Unil'ersit.y' Ncw )~lI'k
1
How
EMPIRES END
C I L\RLES TILLY
From Herodotus to 1\lontesquieu ~lIld bcyond, pocts, historians, and philoso
phers have recurn:ntly produced one of our culture's ,t~lndard literary tlmns: the
dirge rl)r ,I f~dlen empire. Relkcrioll on imperial decline has lVorld-historical res
o~~nce beC<llIse it records tlH' all to sec the t~dlibilit}' of seemingly unshakable
human enterprises. Contrast between sometime gr,lI1deur and startling ruin has
often prol'ided the text of moral retlections on imperial decline, orations in the
ruins, either by new conquerors who boast their own superiority over the
defeated or by philosophers who want to warn ~Igainst the excesses of hubris. (\Ve
who now pronounce on the SOI'iet empire's collapse should consider into which
category we fall.) Among the philosophers' laments, n:membn Lewis 1\ lumt(l1"J's
classic lincs Oil Romc:
From the st~lIldpoint ofhoth politics an,l urhanism, I{ome remaills a siJ!:niticlIlt les
SOil of what to a\'oid: its history presents .1 series of d'lSsic danger sign.tls to warn olle
when life is Ill()\'ing ill the wrong ,Iirecrioll. \\lhnen:r crowds g~lthcr in suft<)cltin)!;
nllmbers, wherc",:r rents rise steeply and IWIISillg nlllditiollS deterior.lte, wherevcr a
ollc-sided exploit.ltion of dist"nt territories femln-es thc pressucc ttl ~lchic\"C l"lbllce
;llld h'lrJllon~' ne.lrcr at lund, there the l'recedcnts of ({oman bllilding allll"'t ;Ulto
m;ltic.rlll' reyiYe, .IS they h'I\'e L'Ollle hack today: the .lren.l, the tall tenement, the Illass
contests .lIld exhihitions, the t;)othall m,ltches, the imernational he'lut\' contests, the
strip"te,,,e made ubiqllitolls lw 'Id\'l'l'tiscment, the cllnstanr titilLrtill1l of the scnses
b~' sex, liquor, and violence-all in tCIIL' Rtlman stde, So, too, the ll1ulriplic.ni,m of
bath .... otlls :lIld the oyer-expenditure on hmadh' pa\'ed motor w'lds, and .Iho\,e .tll,
the nLlssilT c,)lkctive cOIlcentration Oil glib ephemer;rlities of .tll kinds, pcrt;mlled
with "Il'reml' tedl1lical alldacin', These ,Ire sYmptoms of the end: magniticati"m of
demOJ'.rli'led power, minitiL'ations of life, \\'hcn these sif!;ns 1ll1lItipl~', l\'L'lTol'olis is
1
Cb"d,', Tillv
2
IH'M, rh()lI~h not a stOllt: ILlS Yct Cfllmhkd. For thl' h'lrhari,l1l has alreach' c'l'turcd
the: c'iry tfom within. COI\1t', h.\I)~n);\n! Comc, vulture!'
Thus l\IumflHCI applies his theory that beyond a modest limit the growth of
political power and technical virtuosity dehumanize lite, hringing on their own.
annihilation. Le~s oronllld, but in the same vein, Alex l\\otyl declares that "abso
lutism engenders p,lthologies that Ic,ld to its own degeneration, a flct that, in ter
ri tori ally contiguo~s empires, necessarily lc,lds to the decay of the center's control
of the periphery.'"
Bd(lre pertcmning learned autopsies, howe\'er, we should just be sure the body
was sick, and has actually died. Over the time that the world has known sub
st,lntial stites, after all, e;ll~_sJlave been the dominant and largest state l~~m,
carnivorous dinosaurs that nothing but a terrestrial di;;aster, it seems, could erad
icate. Only now, during the twentieth cennlry, do we seem to be kal'ing the age
of massive Eurasian empires that began in earnest across a b,lnd from the
1\ lediterranean to East Asia almost four thousand ~'eafS ago. To the extent that'
we regard sllch intefllational compacts as the European Union, GATT, and
NAFTA as embodying imperial designs, furthermore, e\'ell today's fe'luiem may
prove premature.
If empires are indeed disappearing, their demise raises questions just as
knotty as the dinosaur,' sudden disappearance. At the end of the world's blood
ie~t and most military century, does imperial disintegmtion mean that interstate
military conquest will also decline, perhaps in fl\'or of civil W,l[ and genocide?
Does the dispefs,t/ of previolls empires, including the massive decolonization that
began in the 19605, suggest what will h'lppen to th\! debris of the most recent \
breakdowns? How generally, when, and where, docs the end of empires genefate
new timl1s of conf1ict, internal and external? Do bursts of nationalism on beh,llf
ofiiml1er imperi,\1 fragmellts generally accompany the dissolution of central con
trol? (Tnder what conditions docs-or, fi:lr that m,ltter, could-sllccessor states to
empires fllflTI stable democratic regimes? Whether or not we h,\\'l' reached the
end of imperial history, previous cycles of decline present us with pressing ques
tions and 'lmple bases fi.>r comp,uison,
As we undertake such comparisons, we should avoid the smug assumption that
empires flil simply because they generally adopt un\'iable fi>nm of rule. Histori
cally, empires h,l\'C been h!mly beasts, Variants of the Chinese empire endured
two millennia or more, the B1'zantine empire continued tClr more than a millen
nium, the Roman empire Iast~d tilr about six centuries, the Ottoman empire sur
yiyed about halfa millennium, various l\Iong"Olempires occupied the widest con
tiguous territorial f<l11ge of 'lII)' political organization el'el' to exist for some tive
hundred years, while the ends of briefer but still mOJllentous British, French,
eerman, It,llian, Sp,lnish, Portuguese, Belgian, Dutch, American, Russian,
Sm'iet, and Austro-I lungarian empires lie within the Illemories oflil'ing people.
Between the Roman and British juggernauts, Europe itself saw great Norman,
Lithuanian-Polish, Swedish, Burgundian, and many other empires bd()fe con-
