Legacies of empire?

Abstract

Using methods and themes from Charles Tilly's work, this paper presents a number of propositions related to empire-to-state transformation. We argue that variations in national state development from imperial metropole origins can be explained, at least in part, by variations in imperial administration, finance, development, identity, and inequality. Capacity is a critical determinant of the results of state transformation, while decisions about finance and investment are both economic and political. Identity and inequality are inextricably linked to empire, and our exploration of these concepts demonstrates that they are the outcomes of variable processes linked to concrete, if inadvertent, lines of imperial decisions.Charles Tilly's sociological appetite was omnivorous: his interests spanned such broad topics as inequality, history, the sociology of knowledge, bureaucracy, macro-structural transformation, and violence. When asked to contribute to this collection, we challenged ourselves to pay tribute by producing a Tillyan perspective on a topic unexplored or, at least, under-explored by him. This seemingly impossible challenge found its answer in a surprising topic given Tilly's interests: empire. Consider the Tillyan possibilities. Is there a more durable form of inequality than that born of empire? Have any other political entities faced as significant a form of socially mobilized opposition?

Comparing Theories of Resource Distribution: The Case of Iran

“…The third key contribution of this research is that the results contradict core-periphery theory as described by Krugman (1991) and Centeno and Enriquez (2010). That theory would suggest that in Iran, the demographic shift from rural to urban areas in the 1920s and 1930s would produce greater allocation of resources around the immediate core of Iran, Tehran.…”

“…Our final hypothesis stems from core-periphery theory. Specifically, smaller distances between the provincial capital and Tehran positively influences per capita budgets received as the theory suggests that the closer an entity is to the center, the more resources it should have (Centeno and Enriquez 2010). These four hypotheses represent the key expected sources for inequality in resource distribution in Iran.…”

“…As with public choice theory, the state's self-interest supersedes that of the periphery. Concentrating the bulk of power and economic resources close to a centrally located capital is a concept seen in many countries and empires throughout history (Centeno and Enriquez 2010). Political patronage and public choice theories suggest resource distribution is based on a proclivity to a certain group, whether it be religious, ethnic, or simply regime loyalty (Brender and Drazen 2005).…”

Regional Fracture and Its Intractability in World Politics: The Case of the Late Ottoman Empire

“…The concept development introduced in this work offers a framework of analysis for thinking about regional ties but one which can transcend the state-centric, Westphalian, approach to regional studies, to incorporate imperial peripheries as political regions and study their legacies in world politics (Eckhardt 1990; Torbakov 2017; Centeno and Enriquez 2010; Mattli 2000). The continuity in regional studies, which this study offers, between imperial and Westphalian regionalisms, so to speak, helps to elucidate regional politics as one that has been fraught and contested, rather than evolutionary towards EU-style regional integration, with strong states as its constituent units.…”

The Rise and Fall of the Nomad‐Dominated Empires of Eurasia

“…To a large extent, a resurgence of academic attention to empires was spurred by the hegemonic endeavors of the U.S. government under George W. Bush administration (2001–2009). Although most of these endeavors have failed while the very categorization of the United States as an imperial state was contested (see Kumar 2010), a newly rekindled interest in studying past empires—centralized, hierarchical, multiethnic states formed by conquest and maintained by coercion—has allowed to make a significant step toward a better understanding the nature of large power structures that dominated the global political landscape before the rise of the modern nation‐state (e.g., Adams 1996, 2005; Adams and Steinmetz 2015; Barkey 2008; Centeno and Enriquez 2010; Go 2008, 2011; Göçek 1996; Goldstone and Haldon 2010; Kumar 2017; Mahoney 2001, 2010; Mann 1986, 1993, 2012; Scheidel 2019; Steinmetz 2007, 2014, 2017).…”