Modern Imperiology Theories and Problems of the Study of Ancient Empires
Journal: Social Evolution & History. Volume 24, Number 2 / September 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30884/seh/2025.02.18
Alexander V. Makhlaiuk
Lobachevsky Nizhny Novgorod State University, Russia
The historical importance and omnipresence of empires in world history cannot be overstated. In total, more than 200 empires are known. The concept of ‘empire’ is applied to polities that are vastly different in their nature and dates of existence, ranging from the earliest states in Western Asia and classical antiquity to modern political entities. Even polities previously treated as proto-states are now described as empires, including formations without a state at the heart of power, as for example the empire of the Comanche Indians.
Various social and humanities disciplines offer their own theories of empire. Beginning in the 1960s and especially in the 1990s, one can observe an explosive interest in the phenomenon of empire, resulting in the so-called ‘imperial turn’ and the emergence of a broader discipline conventionally called imperiology (this term is much more popular in the Russian academy than in Western scholarship), as well as ‘new imperial history’. Its subject matters and methodologies are substantially based on theories of postcolonialism and postmodernism, and correlate with such categories as nationalism, ethnicity, race, and archaeology of knowledge. Some theorists see the main task of imperial studies in justifying the empire as a politically formalized peak of the development of a specific civilization or culture of a given superethnos. However, scholars in the field of law, international relations, sociology, ethnology, cultural studies, and political sciences, although drawing on historical material to a greater or lesser extent, often do so rather superficially, so that their suggestions are sometimes of rather speculative and abstract character. Historians, in turn, being immersed in their material, rarely develop or offer their own generalized models of empires. Nevertheless, the ‘new imperial history’, during recent decades, has expanded its boundaries to include not only traditional issues of power structures or imperial political economy, but also explores new topics such as environmental problems, gender and sexuality, identities, and globalization.
One of the hot topics of ‘new imperial history’ is the implementation of theoretical concepts and approaches of imperiology in studies of concrete imperial formations of the past. How can these theories and their apparatus shape actual agendas and what can they offer students of ancient empires? How, in turn, can the studies of concrete historical empires help to validate, tune and probe proposed theoretical constructions? The survey of current research reveals a number of unresolved and controversial issues.
Thus, despite the widespread use and discussion of the central concept of ‘empire’, debates about its meaning and heuristic potential continue. It is evident that attempts to define empire as an analytical category remain far from any generally accepted solution. The analysis of proposed definitions reveals that they are vulnerable to criticism. Sometimes, one of the imperial parameters is quite arbitrarily considered as fundamental, and their inextricable connection with each other and with the political significance of empire is overemphasized. Most definitions in academic literature can be called syndromic, i.e. a simple listing of the attributes of an empire (primarily political or spatial ones). More productive are genetic (or functional) definitions that highlight causal connections and functional mechanisms of empires. All in all, the proposed definitions need to be juxtaposed with what we know about individual ancient empires.
Recently the concept of ‘empireness’ (‘impérialité’, ‘Imperialität’) has begun to be used, although not strictly terminologically. It is proposed that this concept will allow us to not only state the fact of the existence of different forms of empire, but also to present it as a kind of variable quality, a change in statuses, a claim for dominance. ‘Empireness’ is seen as a set of properties and characteristics of an empire, such as the functions of borders, the distribution of rights, the peculiarities of emergence, the extent in time and space, and the special logic of empires. Sometimes ‘empireness’ is interpreted as a form of power in the context of polymorphic imperial spaces; or as a certain ‘internalization’ of the imperial approach when imperialism in relation to the outskirts and colonies starts to be reproduced in the political structures of the imperial metropolis. It seems that a similar range of questions can be raised when studying ancient empires and imperialism. However, the category of ‘empireness’ itself requires further a clear definition.
In any case, despite the continuing range of opinions and interpretations, at present the empire is increasingly viewed not so much as a kind of state, but as a specific substantial historical form that is essentially different from national or communal states and from hegemonic formations. At the same time, it also appears as a kind of cultural (in the broad sense of the word) practice. In this connection it is worth noting that recent scholarship has produced interesting studies on the cultural history of empires (see Coller et al. 2018).
One of the important and promising tendencies in recent studies is the accentuation, as a characteristic identifying feature of all empires, their own world views, which at times can even be designated as messianic and missionary. Among other promising approaches, there are studies of imperial discourses and practices, or the languages of self-description of imperial experiences, which are intertwined in a dynamic open system of an ‘imperial situation’. They are oriented towards a more trusting and serious attitude towards attempts at self-represen-tation and self-description of each specific empire. Such a research perspective is indeed appropriate, allowing (to a certain extent) to avoid abstract generalizations and overly speculative ‘constructivist’ judgments about empires, and to prioritize interest not so much in some theoretical generalization, but rather in the historically specificity of a particular imperial formation and a specific understanding of what it means to be an empire.
Particular issues of typology (classification) of empires also are under intense discussion in current scholarship. The typologies of imperial polities of the past are based on either a spatial criterion, according to which they are divided primarily into maritime and continental/land (thalassocratic and tellurocratic ones), oasis empires, and ‘amphibious’ empires, or on political and economic factors (including methods of appropriation and redistribution of surplus product, and various forms of exercising power); accordingly, scholars distinguish between tributary empires (these include almost all empires of the ancient world, which were complex agrarian societies at their core), colonial, patrimonial, bureaucratic, imitative, trade, satellite, shadow empires, oligarchic empires, tribal, currency empires and economic empires. These typologies deserve further exploration with regard to ancient imperial polities, in particular from the point of view of their stadial differentiation as earlier, mature, and later empires. Certain speculative typologies require critical examination, such as the classification proposed by Ilya I. Rogov, who distinguishes between four types of empires:
1. True, fully-fledged empires (Imperial Idea is Divine Providence);
2. Not-quite empires (those that self-proclaim or consider their mission sacred, as well as those who are unable to realize their mission);
3. Nominal empires only in name (geopolitical ‘simulacra’);
4. Anti-empires (that distort or emasculate the imperial mission through the absolutization of power as such) (Rogov 2017).
Some researchers introduce into the analysis of empires such a category as ‘imperial people (ethnos)’ and identify a number of characteristics that form it (integration of oneself into one's own ideal image, the ability to convey one's truth to other peoples, increased ability to interact with other peoples and colonize alien territories, ability to endure and overcome internal contradictions brought by an empire, etc.) (Aksyutin 2009: Lurie 2012). Although one can argue with individual formulations and assessments by the authors, the very appeal to the issue of the imperial people as a subject of empire-building seems important and promising, and this research direction surely deserves further development.
In general, despite the speculative nature of many modern theoretical works on the nature and significance of empires, their frequent isolation from the latest concrete historical interpretations, some of the proposed ideas and generalizations deserve further testing against empirical historical material. For example, ideas about imperialism as a specific discourse, about the significance of literary works as a part of the general relationship between culture and empire, or ideas about the imperial culture as a specific phenomenon, about a palimpsest of identities, about biopolitics underlying imperial projects, about empire as a way of organizing peoples, spaces and resources, as a factor in cultural transfer, and so on. The concepts, which are developed in theoretical imperiology literature, if critically configured, can open up new research subjects and lead to a better understanding of ancient empires.
REFERENCES
Aksyutin, Yu. M. 2009. ‘Imperial Ethnos’: Concept and Definition. Vestnik Chelyabinskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 18 (156). Filosofiya. Sotsiologiya. Kul'turologiya 12: 35–39. Original in Russian (Aксютин Ю. М. «Имперский этнос»: понятие и определение. Вестник Челябинского государственного университета 18 (156). Философия. Социология. Культурология. № 12. С. 35–39).
Coller, A. M., Burton, A., Loomba A. et al. (eds.). 2018. A Cultural History of Western Empires. 6 vols. Vol. 1. A Cultural History of Western Empires in Antiquity (500 BCE –800 CE). London, New York, Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic.
Lurie, S. V. 2012. Imperium: Empire – A Value and Ethnopsychological Approach. Moscow: AIRO–XXI. Original in Russian (Лурье С. В. Imperium (Империя – ценностный и этнопсихологический подход). М.: АИРО XXI).
Rogov, I. I. 2017. Theory of Imperiology. Moscow: Knizhny Mir. Original in Russian (Рогов И. И. Теория империологии. Москва: Книжный мир).