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1. Including:
THE HISTORY OF EMPIRE
Edited by THE FROLINAN SCHOLAR
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EMPIRES: A THEORY OF DE-DEVELOPMENT
By Johan Galtung, dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies

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Following below:
THE HISTORY OF EMPIRE
Edited by THE FROLINAN SCHOLAR
THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EMPIRES: A THEORY OF DE-DEVELOPMENT
By Johan Galtung, dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies

4. Empire 1
Empire
The term empire derives from the Latin
imperium (power, authority). Politically, an
empire is a geographically extensive group
of states and peoples (ethnic groups) united
and ruled either by a monarch (emperor,
empress) or an oligarchy.
Aside from the traditional usage, the term
empire can be used in an extended sense to
denote a large-scale business enterprise (e.g.
a transnational corporation), or a political
organisation of either national-, regional- or
city scale, controlled either by a person (a Imperialism and colonization in 1900
political boss) or a group authority (political
bosses).[1]
An imperial political structure is established and maintained in two ways: (i) as a territorial empire of direct
conquest and control with force (direct, physical action to compel the emperor's goals), and (ii) as a coercive,
hegemonic empire of indirect conquest and control with power (the perception that the emperor can physically
enforce his desired goals). The former provides greater tribute and direct political control, yet limits further
expansion because it absorbs military forces to fixed garrisons. The latter provides less tribute and indirect control,
but avails military forces for further expansion.[2] Territorial empires (e.g. the Mongol Empire, the Median Empire)
tended to be contiguous areas. The term on occasion has been applied to maritime empires or thalassocracies, (e.g.
the Athenian and British Empires) with looser structures and more scattered territories.
Definition
An empire is a state with politico-military dominion of populations who are culturally and ethnically distinct from
the imperial (ruling) ethnic group and its culture[3] — unlike a federation, an extensive state voluntarily composed of
autonomous states and peoples.
What physically and politically constitutes an empire is variously defined. It might be a state effecting imperial
policies, or a particular political structure. Empires are typically formed from separate components that come
together. Some units include ethnic, national, cultural, and religious diversity.[4]
Sometimes an empire is a semantic construction, such as when a ruler assumes the title of "Emperor". The said
ruler's nation logically becomes an "Empire", despite having no additional territory or hegemony such as Central
African Empire or the Korean Empire proclaimed in 1897 when Korea, far from gaining new territory, was on the
verge of being annexed by the Empire of Japan, the last to use the name officially. Amongst the last of these empires
of the 20th century were the Central African Empire, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Manchukuo, the German Empire, and
Korea.
The terrestrial empire's maritime analogue is the thalassocracy, an empire comprising islands and coasts which are
accessible to its terrestrial homeland, such as the Athenian-dominated Delian League.

5. Empire 2
History of imperialism
Early empires
Early empires
Achaemenid Empire of Persia at its zenith Maurya Empire of India at its greatest extent
under Ashoka the Great
The Akkadian Empire of Sargon the Great (24th century BCE), was an early large empire. In the 15th century BCE,
the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, ruled by Thutmose III, was ancient Africa's major force upon incorporating
Nubia and the ancient city-states of the Levant. The first empire comparable to Rome in organization was the
Assyrian empire (2000–612 BCE). The Median Empire was the first empire on the territory of Persia. By the 6th
century BCE, after having allied with the Babylonians to defeat the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Medes were able to
establish their own empire, the largest of its day, lasting for about sixty years. The successful, extensive, and
multi-cultural empire that was the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BCE) absorbed Mesopotamia, Egypt, part
of Greece, Thrace, the rest of the Middle East, much of Central Asia and Pakistan, until it was overthrown and
replaced by the brief-lived empire of Alexander the Great.
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive and powerful empire in ancient India, ruled by the Mauryan
dynasty from 321 to 185 BCE. The Empire was founded in 322 BC by Chandragupta Maurya who rapidly expanded
his power westwards across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers in the
wake of the withdrawal westward by Alexander the Great. By 320 BCE, the empire had fully occupied past
northwestern India as well as defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander. It has been estimated that the
Maurya Dynasty controlled an unprecedented one-third of the world's entire economy, was home to one-third of the
world's population at the time (an estimated 50 million out of 150 million humans), contained the world's largest city
of the time (Pataliputra, estimated to be larger than Rome under Emperor Trajan) and according to Megasthenes, the
empire wielded a military of 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 war elephants.

6. Empire 3
Classical period
Classical period
The Roman Empire under Trajan (98 - 117). This would be the Han Empire of China in 87 BC.
Empire's peak territorial power.
The Roman Empire was the most extensive Western empire until the early modern period. Prior to the Roman
Empire the kingdom of Macedonia, under Alexander the Great, became an empire that spanned from Greece to
Northwestern India. After Alexander's death, his empire fractured into four, discrete kingdoms ruled by the
Diadochi, which, despite being independent, are denoted as the "Hellenistic Empire" by virtue of their similarity in
culture and administration.
In western Asia, the term Persian Empire denotes the Iranian imperial states established at different historical
periods of pre–Islamic and post–Islamic Persia. And in East Asia, various Celestial Empires arose periodically
between periods of war, civil war, and foreign conquests. In India Chandragupta expanded the Mauryan Empire to
Northwest India (modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan). This also included the era of expansion of Buddhism under
Ashoka the Great. In China the Han Empire became one of East Asia's most long lived dynasties, but was preceded
by the short-lived Qin Empire.
Post-classical period
The 7th century saw the emergence of the Islamic Empire, also referred to as the Arab Empire. The Rashidun
Caliphate expanded from the Arabian Peninsula and swiftly conquered the Persian Empire and much of the
Byzantine Roman Empire. Its successor state, the Umayyad Caliphate, expanded across North Africa and into the
Iberian Peninsula. By the beginning of the 8th century, it had become the largest empire in history at that point, until
it was eventually surpassed in size by the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. The ally of the Caliphate, the Somali
Ajuuraan Empire, ruled over the Horn of Africa.[5] Through a strong centralized administration and an aggressive
military stance towards invaders, the Ajuuraan empire successfully resisted an Oromo invasion from the west and a
Portuguese incursion from the east during the Gaal Madow and the Ajuuraan-Portuguese wars.[6][7] Trading routes
dating from the ancient and early medieval periods of Somali maritime enterprise were strengthened or
re-established, and foreign trade and commerce in the coastal provinces flourished with ships sailing to and coming
from a myriad of kingdoms and empires in East Asia, South Asia, Europe, the Near East, North Africa and East
Africa.[8] In the 7th century, Maritime Southeast Asia witnessed the rise of a Buddhist thallasocracy—the Srivijaya
Empire—which thrived for 600 years, and was succeeded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit Empire in the 13th to
15th century. In the Southeast Asian mainland, the Hindu-Buddhist Khmer Empire built an empire centered in the
city of Angkor and which flourished from the 9th to 13th century. Followed by the sack of Khmer Empire, the
Siamese Empire was flourished alongside the Burmese and Lan Chang Empire from 13th through to 18th century .
In Eastern Europe the Byzantine Empire had to recognize the Imperial title of the Bulgarian rulers in 917 (through a

7. Empire 4
Bulgarian Tsar). The Bulgarian Empire remained a major power in the Balkans until its fall in the late 14th century.
Post-classical period
The expansion of the Rashidun Empire. The Ajuuraan Empire Mongol Empire in the 13th century.
in the 15th century.
At the time, in the Medieval West, the title "empire" had a specific technical meaning that was exclusively applied to
states that considered themselves the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire, e.g. the Byzantine Empire which
was the actual continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, and later the Carolingian Empire, the largely Germanic
Holy Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, yet these states were not always technically — geographic, political,
military — empires in the modern sense of the word. To legitimise their imperium, these states directly claimed the
title of Empire from Rome. The sacrum Romanum imperium (Holy Roman Empire) of 800 to 1806, claimed to have
exclusively comprehended Christian principalities, and was only nominally a discrete imperial state. The Holy
Roman Empire was not always centrally-governed, as it had neither core nor peripheral territories, and was not
governed by a central, politico-military élite — hence, Voltaire's remark that the Holy Roman Empire "was neither
holy, nor Roman, nor an empire" is accurate to the degree that it ignores[9] German rule over Italian, French,
Provençal, Polish, Flemish, Dutch, and Bohemian populations, and the efforts of the ninth-century Holy Roman
Emperors (i.e. the Ottonians) to establish central control; thus, Voltaire's ". . . nor an empire" observation applies to
its late period.
In 1204, after the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople, the crusaders established a Latin Empire (1204–1261) in
that city, while the defeated Byzantine Empire's descendants established two, smaller, short-lived empires in Asia
Minor: the Empire of Nicaea (1204–1261) and the Empire of Trebizond (1204–1461). Constantinople was retaken
by the Byzantine successor state centered in Nicaea in 1261, re-establishing the Byzantine Empire until 1453, by
which time the Turkish-Muslim Ottoman Empire (ca.1300–1918), had conquered most of the region. Moreover,
Eastern Orthodox imperialism was not re-established until the coronation, in 1721, of Peter the Great as Emperor of
Russia. Like-wise, with the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1806, during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815),
the Austrian Empire (1804–1867), emerged reconstituted as the Empire of Austria–Hungary (1867–1918), having
"inherited" the imperium of Central and Western Europe from the losers of said wars.
The Mongol Empire, under Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, was forged as the largest contiguous empire in
the world. Genghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan, was proclaimed emperor, and established his imperial capital at
Beijing; however, in his reign, the empire became fractured into four, discrete khanates. Nevertheless, the emergence
of the Pax Mongolica had significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia.[10][11]
In Oceania Tonga Empire was a lonely empire that existed many centuries since Medieval till Modern period.

8. Empire 5
Colonial empires
European landings in the so-called "New World" (first, the Americas and later, Australia) in the 15th century, along
with the Portuguese's travels around the Cape of Good Hope and along the southeast Indian Ocean coast of Africa,
proved ripe opportunities for the continent's Renaissance-era monarchies to launch colonial empires like those of the
ancient Romans and Greeks. In the "Old World", colonial imperialism was attempted, effected and established upon
the Canary Islands and Ireland. These conquered lands and peoples became de jure subordinates of the empire, rather
than de facto imperial territory and subjects. Such subjugation often elicited "client-state" resentment that the empire
unwisely ignored, leading to the collapse of the European colonial imperial system in the late-19th century and the
early- and mid-20th century. Spanish discovery of the New World gave way to many expeditions led by England,
Portugal, France, the Dutch Republic and Spain. In the 18th century, the Spanish Empire was at its height because of
the great mass of goods taken from conquered territory in the Americas (Mexico, parts of the United States, the
Caribbean) and the Philippines.
Modern period
Modern period
The Russian Empire in 1866 became the second largest In 1920, the British Empire was the largest empire in history.
contiguous empire to have ever existed. The Russian
Federation is currently the largest state on the planet.
Ottoman territories acquired between The Spanish–Portuguese Empire of the Iberian Union (1580–1640)
1481 and 1683 (See: list of territories) was the first global imperial entity.

9. Empire 6
The red of this map of North America 1775, shows those In the year 1690, the realms of the Mughal Empire
[12]
areas the British exercised direct control, while the pink spanned from Kabul to Cape Comorin.
shows areas largely under indirect control.
In general governments styled themselves as having greater size, scope and power than the territorial,
politico-military and economic facts allow. As a consequence some monarchs assumed the title of "emperor" (or its
corresponding translation: tsar, empereur, kaiser, etc.) and renamed their states as "The Empire of . . . ".
The French emperors Napoleon I and Napoleon III (See: Second Mexican Empire [1864–1867]) each attempted
establishing a western imperial hegemony based in France. The German Empire (1871–1918), another "heir to the
Holy Roman Empire" arose in 1871. Europeans began applying the name of "empire" to non-European monarchies,
such as the Qing Dynasty and the Mughal Empire as well as Maratha Empire, and then leading, eventually, to the
looser denotations applicable to any political structure meeting the criteria of imperium.
Empires accreted to different types of states, although they traditionally originated as powerful monarchies. The
Athenian Empire, the Roman Empire and the British Empire developed under elective auspices. The Empire of
Brazil declared itself an empire after breaking from the Portuguese Empire in 1822. France has twice transited from
being called the French Republic to being called the French Empire, while France remained an overseas empire. To
date it still governs colonies (French Guyana, Martinique, Réunion, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, St Martin, St
pierre et miquelon, Guadeloupe, TAAF, Wallis and Futuna, Saint Barthélemy, Mayotte) and exerts an hegemony in
Francophone Africa (29 francophone countries such as Chad, Rwanda, et cetera).
Historically empires resulted from military conquest, incorporating the vanquished states to its political union. A
state could establish imperial hegemony in other ways. A weak state may seek annexation into the empire. For
example, the bequest of Pergamon by Attalus III, to the Roman Empire. The Unification of Germany as the empire
accreted to the Prussian metropole was less a military conquest of the German states than their political divorce from
the Austrian Empire. Having convinced the other states of its military prowess — and having excluded the Austrians
— Prussia dictated the terms of imperial membership.
The Sikh Empire (1799–1846) was established in the Punjab. It collapsed when the founder, Ranjit Singh, died and
their army fell to the British. During the same period, Maratha Empire or the Maratha Confederacy was a Hindu state
located in present-day India. It existed from 1674 to 1818 and at its peak the empire's territories covered much of
South Asia. The empire was founded and consolidated by Shivaji. After the death of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb it
expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas. In 1761, the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat which

10. Empire 7
halted the expansion of the empire. Later, the empire was divided into a confederacy of Maratha states which
eventually were lost to the British in the Anglo-Maratha wars by 1818.[13]
The British also established their first empire in North America by colonizing the northern part that included Canada
and the colonies in America. In 1776, the United States declared itself independent from the British empire thus
beginning the American Revolution.
Politically it was typical for either a monarchy or an oligarchy, rooted in the original core territory of the empire, to
continue to dominate. If government was maintained via control of water vital to the colonial subjects, such régimes
were called hydraulic empires. When possible, empires used a common religion or culture to strengthen the political
structure.
In time, an empire may metamorphose to another form of polity. To wit, the Holy Roman Empire, a German
re-constitution of the Roman Empire, metamorphosed into various political structures (i.e. Federalism), and
eventually, under Habsburg rule, re-constituted itself as the Austrian Empire — an empire of much different politics
and vaster extension. After the Second World War (1939–1945) the British Empire evolved into a loose,
multi-national Commonwealth of Nations; while the French colonial empire metamorphosed to a Francophone
commonwealth. The British Empire also colonized China after the opium wars and had major influences in the
region via controlling Hong Kong, which was handed back to China in 1997 after 150 years of rule. The Portuguese
established its colony in China and had control over the territory of Macau, which was also handed back to China in
1999. Also, the French established its colony in China and had control over the territory of Kwang-Chou-Wan,
which was also handed back to China in 1946.
An autocratic empire can become a republic (e.g. the Central African Empire in 1979); or it can become a republic
with its imperial dominions reduced to a core territory (e.g. Weimar Germany, 1918–1919 and the Ottoman Empire,
1918–1923). The dissolution of the Austro–Hungarian Empire, after 1918, is an example of a multi-ethnic superstate
broken into its constituent states: the republics, kingdoms, and provinces of Austria, Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia,
Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Ruthenia, Galicia, et al.
Empire from 1945 to the present
Contemporaneously, the concept of Empire is politically valid, yet is not always used in the traditional sense; for
example Japan is considered the world's sole remaining empire because of the continued presence of the Japanese
Emperor in national politics. Despite the semantic reference to Imperial power, Japan is a de facto constitutional
monarchy, with a homogeneous population of 127 million people that is 98.5 per cent ethnic Japanese, making it one
of the largest nation-states.[14]
Characterizing some aspects of American foreign policy and international behavior "American Empire" is
controversial but not uncommon. Stuart Creighton Miller posits that the public's sense of innocence about
Realpolitik (cf. American Exceptionalism) impairs popular recognition of US imperial conduct. Since it governed
other countries via surrogates — domestically-weak, right-wing governments that collapse without US support.[15]
G.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: "We don't seek empires. We're not imperialistic; we never
have been"[16] — directly contradicts Thomas Jefferson, in the 1780s, awaiting the fall of the Spanish empire: ". . .
till our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece".[17][18][19] In turn, historian
Sidney Lens argues that from its inception the US has used every means to dominate other nations.[20]
Since the European Union began, in 1993, as a west European trade bloc, it established its own currency, the Euro, in
1999, established discrete military forces, and exercised its limited hegemony in parts of eastern Europe and Asia.
This behaviour, the political scientist Jan Zielonka [21] suggests, is imperial, because it coerces its neighbour
countries to adopt its European economic, legal, and political structures.[22][23][24][25][26][27]
In his book review of Empire (2000) by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Mehmet Akif Okur posits that, since the
11 September 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S., the international relations determining the world's balance of power
(political, economic, military) have been altered. These alterations include the intellectual (political science) trends

11. Empire 8
that perceive the contemporary world's order via the re-territorrialisation of political space, the re-emergence of
classical imperialist practices (the "inside" vs. "outside" duality, cf. the Other), the deliberate weakening of
international organisations, the restructured international economy, economic nationalism, the expanded arming of
most countries, the proliferation of nuclear weapon capabilities and the politics of identity emphasizing a state's
subjective perception of its place in the world, as a nation and as a civilisation. These changes constitute the "Age of
Nation Empires"; as imperial usage, nation-empire denotes the return of geopolitical power from global power blocs
to regional power blocs (i.e. centred upon a "regional power" state [China, Russia, U.S., et al.]) and regional
multi-state power alliances (i.e. Europe, Latin America, South East Asia). Nation-empire regionalism claims
sovereignty over their respective (regional) political (social, economic, ideologic), cultural and military spheres.[28]
Timeline of empires
The chart below shows a timeline of polities which have been called empires. Dynastic changes are marked with a
white line.
References
Notes
[1] "definition of empire from Oxford Dictionaries Online" (http:/ / oxforddictionaries. com/ definition/ empire?view=uk). Oxford Dictionary. .
Retrieved 21 November 2008.
[2] Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (1994), pp. 23–24, ISBN 0-582-06829-0 (pbk)
[3] The Oxford English Reference Dictionary, Second Edition (2001), p.461, ISBN 0-19-860046-1
[4] Howe, Stephen (2002). Empire. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-280223-1.
[5] I.M. Lewis, A modern history of Somalia: nation and state in the Horn of Africa, 2nd edition, revised, illustrated, (Westview Press: 1988),
p.24.
[6] Virginia Luling, Somali Sultanate: the Geledi city-state over 150 years, p. 17
[7] Luc Cambrézy, Populations réfugiées: de l'exil au retour, p.316
[8] Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900 (African Studies) by Pouwels Randall L – pg
15
[9] Voltaire (http:/ / en. wikiquote. org/ wiki/ Voltaire), Wikiquote, citing Essai sur l'histoire generale et sur les moeurs et l'espirit des nations,
Chapter 70 (1756), , retrieved 2008-01-06
[10] Gregory G.Guzman - Were the barbarians a negative or positive factor in ancient and medieval history?, The historian 50 (1988), 568-70
[11] Thomas T.Allsen - Culture and conquest in Mongol Eurasia, 211
[12] The East India Company and the British Empire in the Far East - Marguerite Eyer Wilbur, The East India Company - Google Books (http:/ /
books. google. com. pk/ books?id=HTCsAAAAIAAJ& pg=PA175& lpg=PA175& dq=baharji+ borah& source=bl& ots=AlYwMkBwb6&
sig=KpQbE7bMcMILePXasygPjYd6Xkk& hl=en& ei=ahnNTtnqEOHb4QSUtZ1S& sa=X& oi=book_result& ct=result& resnum=4&
ved=0CCoQ6AEwAw#v=onepage& q=cape comorin& f=false). Books.google.com.pk. . Retrieved 2012-04-29.
[13] Pagadi, Setumadhavarao R. (1983), Shivaji (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=UVFuAAAAMAAJ), National Book Trust, India, p. 21,
ISBN 81-237-0647-2,
[14] George Hicks, Japan's hidden apartheid: the Korean minority and the Japanese, (Aldershot, England; Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998), 3.
[15] Johnson, Chalmers, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000), pp.72–9
[16] Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, Lay summary (http:/ / booksellers. penguingroup. com/ nf/ Book/
BookDisplay/ 0,,9780143034797,00. html)
[17] Sidney Lens; Howard Zinn (2003), The forging of the American empire: from the revolution to Vietnam, a history of U.S. imperialism (http:/
/ books. google. com/ books?id=qvLfIHqkOOAC), Pluto Press, pp. 63–64 (http:/ / books. google. com. ph/ books?id=qvLfIHqkOOAC&
pg=PA63), ISBN 978-0-7453-2100-4,
[18] LaFeber, Walter, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (1993) 2nd edition, p.19

12. Empire 9
[19] Max Boot (May 6, 2003), American Imperialism? No Need to Run Away from Label (http:/ / www. cfr. org/ publication. html?id=5934),
Council on Foreign Relations OP-Ed, quoting USA Today, , retrieved 2008-01-06
[20] Lens & Zinn 2003, p. Back cover (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=qvLfIHqkOOAC& printsec=backcover).
[21] http:/ / users. ox. ac. uk/ ~polf0040/
[22] Ian Black (December 20, 2002), Living in a euro wonderland (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ elsewhere/ journalist/ story/ 0,,863888,00.
html), Guardian unlimited, , retrieved 2008-01-06
[23] EU gets its military fist (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 2/ hi/ europe/ 2574625. stm), BBC News, December 13, 2002, , retrieved 2008-01-06
[24] Nikolaos Tzifakis (April 2007), "EU's region-building and boundary-drawing policies: the European approach to the Southern
Mediterranean and the Western Balkans 1" (http:/ / www. informaworld. com/ smpp/ content~content=a777076388~db=all), Journal of
Southern Europe and the Balkans (informaworld) 9 (1): 47–64, doi:10.1080/14613190701217001, , retrieved 2007-01-06
[25] Stephen R. Hurt (2003), "Co-operation and coercion? The Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and acp states and the end of
the Lomé Convention" (http:/ / taylorandfrancis. metapress. com/ index/ HNG8A7X4G9BWAM84. pdf), Third World Quarterly
(informaworld) 24: 161–176, doi:10.1080/713701373, , retrieved 2007-01-06
[26] Europeanisation and Conflict Resolution: Case Studies from the European Periphery (http:/ / www. belspo. be/ belspo/ home/ publ/
pub_ostc/ WM/ rS10303_en. pdf), Belgian Science Policy, , retrieved 2008-01-06
[27] Jan Zielonka (2006), Europe as empire: the nature of the enlarged European Union (http:/ / users. ox. ac. uk/ ~polf0040/ IAReview. pdf),
Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-929221-3, , retrieved 2008-01-06
[28] For the Okur's thesis about "nation empires", look at the article: Mehmet Akif Okur, Rethinking Empire After 9/11: Towards A New
Ontological Image of World Order (http:/ / www. sam. gov. tr/ perceptions/ volume12/ winter/
winter-004-PERCEPTION(mehmetakifokur)[4]. pdf) Perceptions, Journal of International Affairs, Volume XII, Winter 2007, pp.61-93
Bibliography
• Gilpin, Robert War and Change in World Politics (http://books.google.it/books?id=2iKL7zr3kl0C)
pp. 110–116
• Geiss, Imanuel (1983), War and empire in the twentieth century, Aberdeen University Press,
ISBN 0-08-030387-0
• Johan Galtung (January 1996), The Decline and Fall of Empires: A Theory of De-Development (http://web.
archive.org/web/20071013085302/http://transcend.org/galt.htm), Honolulu, archived from the original
(http://www.transcend.org/galt.htm) on 2007-10-13, retrieved 2008-01-06 Written for the United Nations
Research Institute on Development, UNRISD, Geneva.
• Lens, Sidney; Zinn, Howard (2003), The Forging of the American Empire: From the Revolution to Vietnam: A
History of American Imperialism (http://books.google.com/?id=qvLfIHqkOOAC), Plkuto press,
ISBN 0-7453-2100-3
• Bowden, Brett (2009), The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Imperial Idea, University of Chicago
Press, ISBN 978-0-226-06814-5
External links
• Index of Colonies and Possessions (http://www.worldstatesmen.org/COLONIES.html)
• Gavrov, Sergey (http://ru.wikipedia.org/?oldid=46320689) Modernization of the Empire. Social and Cultural
Aspects of Modernization Processes in Russia (http://books.google.ru/books?printsec=frontcover&
id=Xk_2XdutUVcC#v=onepage&q=&f=true;) ISBN 978-5-354-00915-2
• Mehmet Akif Okur, Rethinking Empire After 9/11: Towards A New Ontological Image of World Order,
Perceptions, Journal of International Affairs, Volume XII, Winter 2007, pp.61-93 (http://www.sam.gov.tr/
perceptions/volume12/winter/winter-004-PERCEPTION(mehmetakifokur)[4].pdf)

13. Article Sources and Contributors 10
Article Sources and Contributors
Empire Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=511453459 Contributors: (, 200.191.188.xxx, 2812, 3141llamsR, 4shizzal, A. Parrot, ABF, ACSE, Aarandir, Aashaa, Acalamari,
Adam Bishop, AdamRaizen, Afinati, Agemegos, Aidarzver, Aitias, Al3xil, Alansohn, Albrecht, Aldaron, Aldis90, Ale jrb, Alex S, Alexcrossan, AlexiusHoratius, AllanBz, Allens, Allstarecho,
Altenmann, Altes, Amoruso, Andreas Kaganov, Andrew Gwilliam, Angr, Ankologist, Anon39923, Antandrus, AnthroGael, Apostrophe, Arad, Aregakn, Arigato1, Ashs da wacko, Atarr, Attilios,
Audioline, Avidius, BaiginLong, Bajazeth, Bambuway, Barf73, Bart133, Bbullot, Beao, Before My Ken, Belomorkanal, BenRG, Benedict Sarino, Bettymnz4, Beyond My Ken, Biccat,
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14. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF EMPIRES: A THEORY OF DE-DEVELOPMENT
by Johan Galtung, dr hc mult, Professor of Peace Studies
Director, TRANSCEND: A Peace and Development Network
Written for the United Nations Research Institute on Development, UNRISD, Geneva
Honolulu, January 1996
Tokyo, May 1996
Contents
1. Introduction: Why study de-development?
2. Decline, fall, and the afterlife of empires
3. Toward a theory of development: Some factors
4. Toward a theory of de-development: Twenty factors
5. Ten mini-studies
5.1 The decline and fall of the West Roman Empire
5.2 The decline and fall of the East Roman Empire
5.3 The decline and fall of the Arab empires
5.4 The decline and fall of Spain (la decadencia)
5.5 The decline and fall of the Italian city-states
5.6 The decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire
5.7 The decline and fall of the Chinese Ch'ing dynasty
5.8 The decline and fall of the British Empire
5.9 The decline and fall of the Soviet Empire
5.10 The coming decline and fall of the US Empire
6. Twenty factors, Ten mini-studies and Five reflections

15. 7. A mini-theory of rats, sinking ships, and new ships
8. Sustainability vs. natural death and euthanasia
9. Conclusion: Decline and fall of the global marketplace?
1. Introduction: Why study de-development?
Development studies often focus on deficits relative to certain goals and on how to make up.
Resources can be made available, like capital through savings, grants, loans, investment; human
capital through education/skills, health, modern values; fixed capital through technical
assistance, infrastructure, etc. One interesting formula is Development = Education/skills +
Infrastructure.
Given the development crisis, however, another perspective may also be appropriate.
"Development" is positive, carrying an idea of progress perspective. How about studying "de-
development", a negative, regress perspective, with decline and fall? As a minimum it might be
useful to know how and why things went wrong, trying to draw some conclusions about what not
to do. A focus on positive outcomes is needed. But we should also focus on negative outcomes,
on what should not be done, not come about, backed by data and theory. Falsification is also
easier than verification.
Economists and macro-historians like Edward Gibbon, Carlo M. Cipolla, Mancur Olson, Paul
Kennedy, P. Dasgupta have made material and hypotheses/theories available. Their books can be
mined for insights in de-development, and their findings can be related to general studies of
factors conditioning development.
After looking at about 30 cases, ten cases were selected: West Rome, East Rome (Byzants), Arab
Empires, Spain/la decadencia, Italian city-states, the Ottoman Empire, Ch'ing dynasty, British
empire, Soviet empire (socialist), and the US empire (capitalist). The mini-studies are superficial,
mainly based on Cipolla's major book. There may be other views. But there is sufficient basis to
propose a theory of de-development which can then be used as an additional approach,
complementing positive development theory.
2. Decline, fall and the afterlife of empires
Our cases are empires and dynasties. That they decline and in the end fall, can be seen as a
special case of the more general "law" or principle that nothing lasts forever. Everything is
subject to the "Law of Change." But if that is so, this should also be the case for that Law. Its
validity should not be "forever". Looking at the list of the ten empires, their creators certainly did
not think of their projet as existing on a limited lease of time only. The presumed viability was

16. forever; the project was irreversible. They thought they had created an End of History through a
new reality. Reality, however, put an end to their project. Why? How?
One answer: "because of dialectics". Actio creates reactio. Push long enough and counter-forces
arise. Empire-building without "pushing" is difficult, to put it mildly. To grow economically
some "pushing" is also needed. A single counter-force may not tear down what has been built,
being too weak. But in the margin of the system these forces will accumulate and their synergies
may ultimately lead to decline and fall as the system exhausts itself fighting or in general trying
to control the disruptive forces.
The dialectics is not always based on exogenous, external forces, like "ecological decay", or "the
barbarians crashing the gates" (Ibn Khaldun), hammering at the Roman Empire in synergistic
ways. The dialectic can also be endogenous, like Marx' theory of rupture when the mode of
production no longer is adequate for the means of production. Or Sorokin's "principle of limits":
any system will satisfy only a limited range of the broad spectrum of human needs; sooner or
later accumulated frustration from the needs left unattended will lead to major upheavals.
And a third possibility: stupidity, the March of Folly.
Such theories are far-reaching, but too general for a theory focusing mainly on the economics of
de-development. The range of factors behind the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, for
instance, spans far beyond economics, even with a broad definition of that field, into any field of
inquiry, like lead-poisoning from the pipe-lines in the Roman water system.
There is much to be gleaned from general dialectics, however, starting by asking a question:
"what would a diagram of decline and fall look like?" People usually draw single-peaked curves
with birth-growth-peak/maturity-decline-fall/death. The model is human biography. But that
should make us pause and think. Is the single-peaked life not a social construction. like in "he
reached the high point of his career"? Could we not have multi-peaked lives/empires? How about
shifting the achievement criterion, like an engineer-businessman becoming a scientist in the
history of his own specialty later on in life? How about empires doing the same?
Moreover, how do we reject any afterlife after death, neither in the form of eternal life "up there"
or "down under", nor in the form of reincarnation, nor in the form of rebirth of certain aspects? Is
an empire that disappeared but left behind strong memorials and memories, even to the point of
becoming archetypal like the Roman Empire, really dead? Do reincarnations like the "Holy
Roman Empire of the German Nation", or Mussolini's short-lived effort, not imply that
something was still alive? The Roman Empire was a more or less successfully imitated archetype
in all the other nine cases. Is that not some kind of rebirth - and in that case is it Christian
(forever), Hindu (intermittent) or Buddhist (partial)? We shall return to this question of after-life,
discussing sustainability, euthanasia, and acceptable death.
3. Toward a theory of development: Some factors
Critics of contemporary theories of development generally take the line that "economics is not
everything", let alone "the only thing", and charge development theory and practice with

17. "economism". The present author is among them, and this opens for a chance to explore some
limitations of that critical approach.
Usually the critique of economics in the development process takes two different forms:
[1] When economics is used as consequence, effect: the critique would be that the goal is not a
well-functioning economy, in the black at household, company, country levels, with high and
robust growth rates to ensure that it stays that way. The goal is not rich countries, companies,
families, but humanly rich individuals. The goal is human development, with nature
development (ecological balance as a minimum), social development and world development.
Homo mensura, humans are the measures of all things, not something else like an economic
system abstracted from human beings. We could expand that concept to include nature
development, with a focus on life, vita mensura. Even Protagoras can be improved upon.
[2] When economics is used as condition, cause: the critique points to many other factors
conditioning development, also when development is conceived of in a narrow, economic, sense.
Nature with its limits, is certainly one; so is the motivation structure in the human Self, in turn
conditioned by culture. The location of individuals, households, companies, countries in social
and world structures matters. None of these factors, or syndromes of factors, is sufficient. But
they are all necessary conditions, meaning that economic development is certainly a necessary,
but not sufficient condition for development.
If E is a set of necessary economic conditions for development, D; then this means that D implies
E. But then we also have that -E (the negation of any one of the conditions in E) implies -D, and
the negation of D is what we mean by "de-development. What we have to do is evidently to try
to identify some of these factors or components of E, leaning on reasonable accounts of the
decline and fall of economies, even big economies.
This is not a return to any primacy of economics, so dear to liberal/conservative and marxist
development schools. But economic factors must be taken explicitly into account. In the
eagerness to show that economics is neither everything nor the only thing, many critics read as if
economics is nothing. The cut between necessary and sufficient is too sharp, like much of
Cartesian/Aristotelian logic. But it points in the right direction.
In that case, following this simple logic above, all we need is a list of economic factors that play
at least a subsidiary, contributing role to development. We can then hypothesize that the negation
of any factor, singly or combined, on this list would cause de-development. No doubt this is one
approach.
Below is an exercise for seven factors found useful in development studies, four of them non-
economic and three economic.
Generally, however, this is not the way out. We are always dealing with syndromes of factors.
The above logic is too simple. The negation of one factor may be inconsequential if there is
enough momentum from the remaining factors. But the negation of a whole syndrome matters.
Empirical studies, like our mini-studies, may tell. Moreover, by studying de-development we

18. may benefit from other discourses that include non-economic factors, and that may have some
impact on the positive study of development.
Let us look at how some factors--like hard work, savings, greed, inconsiderateness and Q/P, C/N,
F/R, explained below--work their crooked ways into this messy field.
Hard work. If production factors are hard to arrive at, the processing difficult and the distribution
tiring, then hard work is needed, at least for economic development. But if the factors are easily
available, processing is unnecessary, and consumption is on the spot or nearby, where is the
necessity for hard work? Or, is development defined so that the necessity of "hard work" is a
tautology, making the British Midlands rather than South Pacific Islands "normal"? Is
development theory conditioned by the British Midlands? If so, is that not driving imperialism
too far?
No doubt Kant worked hard to produce his master-pieces, so did Beethoven. But could it be that
we define as an indicator of development only that which has "hard work" as a price? That the
type of kindness, for instance, that seems to come more easily to women than to men, and could
be seen as a criterion of real human development, does not count if it comes easily, naturally?
Savings. If we live on the margin savings serve as a hedge against such calamities as hunger and
disease, and for investment to grow further. But imagine a life with neither hunger and disease
next door, nor with any compulsion to grow further. Like a welfare state with those worries
removed. Then, why do we need savings? Do we de-develop without them? No, their absence
would only be a sufficient condition for de-development if we want more development, or to
remove worries. The general logic still holds, only that "savings", like "hard work", fit the wet,
cold, foggy British Midlands with little or no welfare state better than a South Pacific island with
mutual rights and obligations intact.
Greed. Economic activity steered by need rather than by greed leads to a replacement rather than
to a growth economy. The element of greed guarantees a continued search for higher growth. But
greed may also come about as a consequence rather than as a condition for hard work and
savings. Greed answers the question, why do I continue working so hard, and saving so much,
when I have all I need? We can choose to see this like the former US President Reagan once did,
"greed and corruption are the price we pay for a free society". Or we can see it as de-
development. Only by defining development as economic growth, and not as satisfaction, do we
escape a de-development conclusion. In that case we would look at people becoming less greedy
as an indicator of coming crisis. And again, only if we prefer a rich society with nasty people in
it to a poor society with nice people. Do we?
Inconsiderateness. Economic activity, like medical activity, has side-effects and side-causes,
externalities. Some of them are negative, like the greed just mentioned. To go ahead with
growth-oriented economic activity a certain blindness to these negative externalities is needed,
with shallow justifications, like "the good end justifies the bad means", "eggs must be cracked to
make an omelette", or "this will sort itself out in the longer run".

19. The argument might be that if we really should take into account all negative side-effects then
we would never do anything but resign ourselves to our miserable fate. The argument is, of
course, a non sequitur: externalities could be taken into consideration from the very beginning, as
is done today routinely with some ecological externalities. Potentially this would yield more, not
less development. The problem is, however, that economists admit only a very narrow range of
externalities.
Q/P, the ratio of quality to price for a product. The higher Q/P, the higher the probability of a
deal. And, the more deals, the more growth. But does it follow that if we decrease quality and/or
increase prices, then we are on the road to de-development? Can anything be gained by
decreasing the quality, meaning functional adequacy, cultural adequacy and sustainability? Well,
there is planned obsolescence (low sustainability) as a strategy to sustain production, and with
that employment. In the same vein, increasing prices can also be seen as a strategy to decrease
market activity in order to cool the economy. Again the answer is not so simple. It all depends.
On what? That also depends.
C/N. This is the ratio of culture to nature in a product. Is a product mainly culture, like a CD, or
matter, like blueberries? The higher the degree of processing, the better. More revenue can be
made at higher levels of C/N, degree of processing. Does that mean that a move downward
ushers in de-development? Or, could there be something positive in "back to nature", correcting
for too much culture? It all depends. On what, also depends.
F/R. This is the ratio of the finance economy to the real economy. It should be neither too high,
nor too low. Does that mean that shifts toward finance economy, as speculation, or toward real
economy as a subsistence economy, is catastrophic? Probably not for a shorter period of time.
But to live in pure speculation or subsistence forever is a different matter. It all depends.
The conclusion is not so clear. But the first four are indicative of a development theory seriously
biased by a hard geography and by a hard bourgeoisie insensitive to the suffering of the inner,
the outer proletariat, and nature. The other three, however, particularly when combined, are
probably crucial.
4. Toward an economic theory of de-development: Twenty factors
Easier because falsification is easier than verification. We could proceed inductively, extracting
factors from each of the ten cases, or deductively, presenting a scheme of such factors, using
them to comment on the cases. The author started inductively to identify factors, and proceeded
deductively to present the findings. We are dealing with post-, not pre-dictions anyhow.
We first divided the world into two parts, the "country in a process of de-development" vs.
"foreign countries/abroad/the context". Self vs. Others, in other words. They relate to each other
economically, and also militarily, politically, culturally.
And then we cut into the countries in six different ways:
- humans vs. environment, a rather key inter-face;

20. - natives vs. foreigners, as foreigners may play a crucial role both for development and de-
development;
- center/elites vs. periphery/people, roughly in terms of power - normative/contractual/coercive -
and privilege;
- primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of economic activity, meaning extraction from nature,
processing, distribution, adding to the tertiary sector professional/cultural activities;
- production factors: nature, labor, capital, technology, management, (N, L; C, T, M), and their
availability;
- deep culture, cosmology, for motivation patterns and adequacy.
Given this scheme a necessary condition for development is balance/adequacy for all six divides.
But that formula is vacuous if we do not know a priori what that means. In hindsight it is easy to
draw the conclusion that there was serious imbalance, but at that time it may already be too late;
the decline may be self-reinforcing, irreversible. We should be able to tell in advance.
Twenty hypotheses about de-development, decline and fall:
De-development will take place as a consequence of:
First divide, Self vs. Other: Bad division of labor
I,1: long-term accumulation of foreign debt,
I,2: long-term accumulation of negative externality balances
I,3: excessive military costs keeping other countries at bay
I,4: long-term exploitation of Periphery by political hegemons
I,5: cultural imitation and absence of creativity
Second divide, humans vs. environment: Imbalance
II,6: depletion from extraction
II,7: pollution from processing, distribution and consumption
II,8: general deterioration of diversity/symbiosis, of maturity
Third divide, natives vs. foreigners: Bad division of labor
III,9: long term accumulation of debt to foreigners

21. III,10: long term accumulation of negative externality balances
Fourth divide, elites vs. people: Bad division of labor
IV,11: long-term exploitation of the people by the elites
IV,12: excessive miliary costs keeping other people at bay
Fifth divide, primary/secondary/tertiary sectors: Imbalance
V,13: neglecting one or more sectors
V,14: foreigners controlling one or more sectors
Sixth divide, production factors: Insufficient availability of
VI,15: nature, internally, through import, or processed abroad
VI,16: labor, internally, foreign workers, or working abroad
VI,17: capital, internally, foreign investors, or invested abroad
VI,18: technology, endogenous, or imported from abroad
VI,19: management, elite, people, or imported from abroad
Seventh divide, deep culture: Inadequate motivation pattern
VII,20: deep culture, too expansionist, or too contractive
But how do we know that a country is de-developing, what are the criteria, as distinct from
factors/causes/conditions? If the divides above are the independent variables, and the 20
hypotheses are the mechanisms, then what are the dependent variables?
Here "sustainability" or the classical "reproducibility" enters: when the economy is no longer
sustainable/reproducible. A human being can take stock of his/her wellness every morning: am I
the same, better off or worse off than yesterday morning? - knowing very well that successive
"worse-offs" spell illness, decline and fall, possibly impending death. An economy, a company
or a country, takes stock at the end of the year and arrives at the same conclusion. Thus,
"expenses exceed revenues" is not a reason for decline, it is a criterion of decline. "Expansion
brought economic benefits but incurred military costs, and the latter exceeded the former" is not
a reason either, only a way of spelling out that budget more clearly. A possible cause might be
that the country was too expansionist (hypothesis VII,20 above), and then start inquiring more
deeply into the reasons why.

22. Massive migration out of the country, or at least out of the cities, by elites or people, is also a
criterion rather than a reason, or rather a reading of how elites or people read the situation: the
system is doomed. And the same applies to spiritual migration: the body is still in the system,
performing its tasks, but halfheartedly since the spirit is anywhere else. Both elites and people
are observing rather than participating, drawing conclusions for themselves rather than for
society, assessing the right time to leave, to jump the sinking ship.
Demralization, in other words. And, as the saying goes, will the last person leaving please turn
off the lights - -
5. Ten mini-studies
5.1. Case 1: The Decline and Fall of the West Roman Empire
The reader will find on the next page (Diagram I) an effort by the present author to summarize
much of the literature on the Roman Empire and to go one step further. As the Roman Empire
became model for other empires, at least in the West, its decline also became archetype for other
declines, defining the discourse. One more example of how the Roman Empire has survived its
own demise, dominating our thinking even about the death of empires.
The diagram is divided into three columns. To the right are five indicators/criteria of decline and
fall, break-down, failure to be sustainable/reproducible. As mentioned above, we could also talk
about dependent variables. The extreme Other, the barbarians, are increasingly successful
militarily. The society militarizes to the point that even the emperors are military men. A strict
command/control ethos permeates society with rigidity and lack of creativity, except, possibly,
on the battle-field. People lose interest and faith. The more imaginative escape to another habitat,
the countryside, building alternative societies like the villa romana, thereby also escaping state
taxation and the ecological depletion of the soil. Long before that they have become observers
rather than participants. What happens in society happens because of "them", never because of
"us".
Obviously these five criteria are interrelated in circular loops; they serve as each other's
conditions and consequences. These may also be the only five factors visible to the members of
society at that time, the causes, and the root causes, being invisible. "Native theory" would
cluster around these criteria, to the point of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy about decline.
In the second column, in the middle of the diagram, the reasons/causes are indicated, but as a
hypothetical flow chart, not as a list of factors. The basic divides used are between elites and
people (here called proletariat), and between natives and foreigners (here called barbarians). The
economic model of society is based on the two answers to one question: how does surplus flow
to the materially non-productive elites, engaged in political/military leadership, and in cultural
production, only. The two answers are: through territorial expansion, conquest, plunder, exacting
taxes from the external proletariat (Toynbee), the barbarians; and through slave-based
production, paying the slaves little or nothing, living off the added value produced by the slaves,
or the internal proletariat in general.

23. No wonder that barbarians and slaves protested, counter-attacked, revolted. To contain the
protests two approaches were used. There were the military campaigns against both. But there
were also positive approaches. For the proletariat there was the famous panem et circenses, bread
and circus, welfare state and entertainment. And for the barbarians co-optation into the elite, the
state and the army. In both cases the idea must have been to give them vested interest in the
continuation of the Roman Empire. As they were given channels of mobility into the coveted
elit, the elite expanded, became more foreign and more costly to maintain, generating more
conquest and exploitation to become sustainable.
The system worked as long as it worked, meaning as long as there was a reasonable balance in
the flow chart. The system was remarkably stable, for centuries, and also remarkably fragile, in a
state of unstable equilibrium. The implication was that when decline really started it was
irreversible. Or so it seemed.
In the first column there is an effort to look for the root causes of the whole phenomenon,
locating them in the deep culture of the Roman Empire. The cosmology was centrifugal. That
they had not only the right, but even the duty to expand was taken for granted. They saw their
own conquest, plunder and exploitation as the best that could happen to the barbarians and the
proletariat, probably including the gladiators sacrificed for entertainment purposes. Their whole
history from the beginnings around -750 bears testimony to an expansionist or centrifugal
mentality, pushing the limes outward; to the British Highlands, the Rhine-Danube and the
Euphrates, with an army of 600,000.
In that column there are also two competing cosmologies, barbarian and Christian. The
"barbarians" were smaller groups, probably more centripetal in their basic orientation. However,
exposed to the contagious expansionism of the Roman Empire, including being co-opted, the
Carolingians, the Vikings, and the Franks of the Crusades became no strangers to expansion.
And the Christians, not only inner-oriented but other world-oriented in their search for a New
Kingdom, became converts to expansionism as Christianity became religio lecita in the Roman
Empire (+313). The incorporation succeeded. The Christian successor systems were also
expansionist, hence also subject to decline and fall.
And that may be the basic key: expansionism in the deep culture leads to expansion without stop
signals leads to counter-forces leads to decline leads to fall after the outer limits have been
reached and transgressed. There are in-between mechanisms as indicated in the second column.
But the basic conclusion remains that the cause of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was
its expansionist deep culture, never questioning expansionism as such.
>From this it does not follow that "contractionism" is the answer. The historical successor was
the manorial system, and then the feudal system, and many of the units were very small. The
totality, the "medieval system", did not prove sustainability either. Without trade, self-reliant in
principle, spending huge amounts of resources on what today would be called ritual, like
tournaments, parties, religious ceremonies, they over-used natural resources till the environment
could sustain neither itself, nor them. Cultivating the mountainsides did not help much either.

24. So the serfs left, headed for the city-states and positions at the bottom of artisanry. Ultimately the
knights left too, and became troubadours, robbers and pirates, or artisans, burghers.
In retrospect, how could the Western Roman Empire have been saved, have been made
sustainable? Here is one formula/answer:
- by exploiting nature in Italy and North Africa less;
- by exploiting the inner proletariat less;
- by conquering and exploiting the barbarians less;
- by keeping a lid on the growth of the elite sector;
- by turning more towards spiritual and away from material values. No doubt this combination
would have worked. But then the Roman Empire would not have been the Roman Empire, but
closer to its successor system in the Middle Ages. A futile speculation.
A more profound question is why the Roman Empire should be made sustainable at all. The
answer is probably affirmative for those training their eyes on the elites and their achievements,
negative for those more concerned with what happened to nature, the proletariat and the
barbarians. There is something to learn from that about the concept of sustainability. What is so
great about sustainability? And - sustainability for whom? Against whom?
5.2 Case 2: The Decline and Fall of the East Roman Empire
This was essentially the Balkans and "Little Asia", Turkey. But they behaved as if they were the
Roman Empire after the division was final in +395 and particularly after West Rome fell in
+476. They had their own identity centered on Constantinople, the old Byzants, built by
Constantin the Great in +330, and on Orthodox Christianity. The Great Schism of +1054
between the Western (Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) Churches added the religious to the
political division, solidifying the faultline through Europe. Losing Asia Minor, and Jerusalem!,
to the Seljuq Turks gave rise to the Crusades 1095-1291 that also hit East Rome.
Economically the loss of land meant loss of agriculture, making them dependent on food imports
from the outside. Having no ships the trade had to be done by others. To the West they had three
competitors, Genova, Venezia and Ragusa (Dubrovnik). What remained for East Rome to do was
statecraft, playing Genova and Venezia against each other, giving Venezia concessions to import
goods free of duty. Already in 1347 the situation was so critical that the Emperor conducted his
wedding in ceramics, not in gold and silver. Finally they were encircled by the Ottomans, and the
1453 conquest by the Ottoman Mohammed II of Constantinople under Constantin XI
Palaeologus was only the final death blow.
Past capital and prestige may impress satellites but not the competitors. If the primary sector
declines then other sectors have to function to compensate. But they had neither industry, nor
crafts, nor trade; only statecraft. To entrust primary and tertiary sectors not only to foreigners but

25. to foreign countries did not work. The miracle is that the empire nonetheless lasted a thousand
years till finally the bells tolled in 1453.
5.3 Case 3: The Decline and Fall of the Arab Empires
We are essentially talking of the Caliphate, the rulership of Islam by a leader who is both
temporal and spiritual. Soon after the death of the Prophet the Caliphate split into the Umayyads,
ruling from Damascus, and the Abassids ruling from Baghdad. The Abassids massacred the
Umayyads in +750, but some found the way to Spain and continued as the Western Caliphate of
Córdoba +712. The Abassids were massacred in +1258 in Baghdad during the Crusades by an
alliance of Christians and Genghiz Khan's grandson, Hulaku. Under the Fatimids the center
moved to Cairo, taken over by the Abassids in +1171.
In Cairo the Mamelukes, originally slaves brought to Egypt by Fatimid caliphs, were ruling as a
warrior caste of landlords with private armies. Economically Mameluke sultans, chosen from the
ranks of the warriors seem to have been particularly inept. First, there was the problem of origin,
celebrating the rise from slaves to rulers, maybe enjoying the fruits rather than cultivating them.
Second, there was the problem of warriors being better at destruction and ruling than at
construction and serving, whether the latter is done from the primary, secondary or tertiary
sectors of the society. Being inadequate as farmers and traders the whole economy suffered a
serious decline from a commercial and monetary economy to a subsistence economy. Local
chiefs got feudal rights, meaning thy were more interested in squeezing surplus out of theie serfs
than in economic growth. The Portuguese Vasco da Gama, +1497-99, captured the trade between
Africa and India.
And in 1517 the death blow came when the Ottomans, following their Constantinople success,
conquered Cairo. One lesson seems to be never to leave key sectors to foreigners or/and the
military.
5.4 Case 4: The Decline and Fall of Spain (la decadencia)
Few countries have had such access to wealth through theft, after the conquest of most of
South/Central America from 1492 onwards, and then wasted it so quickly, as Spain during the
decadencia 1620-1690. After the genocide on the dominant indigenous peoples, the Aztecs and
the Incas, the rest was up for grabs, including precious metals and jewels. The flow into Spain
from the Colonies, mainly through Sevilla, was continuous. And yet, by the end of the 17th
century little remained. How? Why?
The general explanation seems to be that an economy based on industry and commerce did not
fit into an economy based on feudal agriculture and colonialism. The latter two blended easily,
being based on the same concepts of dominio, ownership, of land for agriculture or mining, and
of people, as serfs and slaves. There is no need for innovation beyond control to ensure
maximum gain. And no search for markets either as the wealth piled up at the feet of the hidalgo,
the grande, and the church.

26. This was being and having rather than becoming. Why should a rich Spanish grande make
anything that could be bought from those who had the skills? With that ethos the Spanish never
develop those skills, a fact that pleased their competitors in the Italian and Low Countries city-
states, and in England, enormously. Experts from their competitors were even invited to make
cannon balls, and the trade went to such major enemies as the British. The Spanish gladly gave
away more challenges than they stole gold. By 1898-1902 the fall was completed by the USA
walking into their downtrodden imperial shoes in the Pacific and the Caribbean.
The lesson seems to be never to give away challenging work; if you do you will suffer serious
consequences.
5.5 Case 5: The Decline and Fall of the Italian city-states
The economic decline of Italy, like for Spain, was during the 17th century. Italy was not the
primary beneficiary of Spanish "don't manufacture, buy" policies. The major beneficiaries were
England, France and the Low Countries. And the net result at the end of the 17th century was
clear and similar to Spain:
"From being a developed country, mainly importing primary products and exporting
manufactured good and services /banking and shipping/, Italy had become an underdeveloped
country, mainly importing manufactured articles and services and exporting primary products".
But not for Spanish reasons. They did no pay sufficient attention to Q/P, quality over price. The
quality of Italian textiles was still excellent. But there was the problem of price. The Italian
prices became too high, for three reasons:
- excessive control by the guilds, tying Italian manufacturers to old-fashioned production and
organization;
- the pressure of taxation in the Italian states;
- labor costs too high relative to other countries.
But behind these well-known factors something else was lurking.
Thus, could it be that they were the victims of their own tremendous success in earlier centuries?
That they considered themselves to be basically invulnerable, having nothing to learn where
production and organization are concerned? Could it be that the city states and labor also felt that
way, that the textile industry was so secure that they could easily take on more taxation and still
pay higher wages? The result was the end of "her career as a country, once depressed and
overpopulated".
The lesson seems to be never rest on one's laurels, to watch both Q and P, and remember:
customers are treacherous people! They may vary both Q and P so as to arrive at a better Q/P
themselves.

27. 5.6 Case 6: The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire
There were beginnings before 1453, but the real rise and expansion came after that fall of the
Byzantine Empire. Having conquered Syria and Egypt, Sultan Selim I also assumed the
Caliphate, ruling over major parts of Asia, Europe and Africa. But in the 18th-19th centuries the
Ottomans lost to Russia in the Russo-Turkish wars that lasted almost two centuries, and also lost
Greece and Egypt. The Balkan wars (1912-13) and World War I (1914-1918) led to the
beginning of the end in 1918.
Much of the warfare was with military defeat, but much of the dynamic was economic. Three
basic factors are known to us.
First, the Ottomans created an elite corps of civil servants and military, the Janissaries, based on
war captives and abducted Christian youths from the Balkans, marched far away from their
families and raised by the Ottoman State. The Janissaries had the power to make and unmake
sultans. There were some similarities with the Mamelukes in Egypt, rightly or wrongly suspected
of disloyalty. In +1826 the Janissaries were massacred by Sultan Mahmud II in their barracks;
fifteen years after the founder of modern Egypt, Mohammed Ali, had done the same to the
Mamelukes.
Second, Ottoman society was long on religion, government, war and agriculture, but short on
industry and trade. A dangerous formation in a period when European empires developed
industry and trade. Consequently the status as industrialist and trader had to be filled by
foreigners, among them Armenians. Jews evicted from Spain had played important roles
financing the Ottoman Empire, and Europe beyond that. When the natives fail to learn and
change, the tasks and fruits of modernity accrue to foreigners and foreign countries instead.
Classical.
5.7 Case 7: The Decline and Fall of the Chinese Ch'ing Dynasty
The fascinating account by Ping-Ti Ho will be used in the following, with the usual caveat that
reliance on one author always is dangerous. His account starts describing the wealth of China at
the end of the Ming (1368-1644) and the beginning of the Ch'ing (1644-1912) dynasties, with
fabulous accumulation in some families, with long-distance and inter-regional trade, and with
guild-halls in commercial centers.
And then came five reasons for decline from the 18th century, culminating in the Taiping/Great
Peace rebellion 1850-64:
- the best way of getting rich was to buy the privilege of selling staples, like salt and tea, under
government monopoly;
- the profit was not reinvested in commercial and industrial enterprises that were less profitable
than money-lending and tax-farming. Rich people preferred to buy official ranks and titles and
encouraged their sons to become degree-holders; in addition conspicuous consumption played a
role;

28. - with no primogeniture wealth was shared within families and clans, meaning that there was no
great accumulation at one point;
- Confucian values rewarded the learned and studious, not the hardworking merchant.
Philosophy prevailed over technology;
- the most powerful economic control was exercised by the State, giving a choice between
bureaucratic capitalism (the solution during the Kuomintang dynasty) and bureaucratic
collectivism (the solution during the Communist dynasty).
Lesson: hard work, savings, greed and inconsiderateness on the top led to an economic growth
insensitive to stop signals. The Age of the Merchant; followed by the Age of the People as
Sarkar predicted, the Communist dynasty. With its decline and fall.
5.8 Case 8: The Decline and Fall of the British Empire
The UK was the Center and exemplar par excellence of archetypical modern Western
imperialism modeled on the Roman Empire. On the next page (Diagram II) is an effort to
summarize some thinking on the problems of imperialism, and to go one step further. The
diagram is similar to Diagram I for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Similar
phenomena demand similar models.
There are some differences, relating to "modernization".
The materially nonproductive elite now divides into state bureaucrats, corporation capitalists and
intellectuals, all three at national and transnational levels. Modernity differentiates, but also
integrates across borders. The native protest against geopolitical expansion, and the inner
proletariat protest against capitalist socio-economic expansion, have Roman Empire dimensions.
Military and police punishment expeditions in the colonies join with welfare, entertainment and
sport strategies to placate the inner proletariat. A costly system, in a precarious balance.
The centrifugal cosmology of the modern West is then held responsible as the root cause,
defining expansion as normal and natural. There are challenges from such non-Western
cosmologies as Buddhism, and to some extent Hinduism, both found attractive by less
expansionist Westerners, particularly by women. And there are sectarian countertrends within
the West, like the Green movement.
The outcome was inevitable: the system collapsed. By the 1960s colonialism was almost gone.
But the British economy made up for lost markets in the EU/ACP system. And the major threat
to common people was not the loss of empire, but the loss of welfare.
Lesson: don't have empires, also for your own sake. You may get into trouble. But the fall of
empire may be your new beginning.
5.9 Case 9: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire

29. The problem of the Soviet Union may not have been too much planning, but too little. With, say,
400 people in gosplan and the socialist planning commissions, planning for 400 million in the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the 400 were obviously over-challenged and the 400 million
under-challenged. But even this key externality, challenge, did not enter their planning. They had
very narrow visions of the economy, just bringing production factors together to produce, with
little or no attention given to distribution and consumption. The plans were production plans.
And countless externalities were left unattended, eg.,
- in nature: depletion and pollution, including toxic pollution;
- in humans: boredom, withdrawal, apathy, general demoralization; - in society: a top-heavy,
centralized, non-participatory society run by the Russian nation controlling other nations, the city
controlling the countryside, the bourgeoisie the proletariat, and the bourgeoisie having nothing to
buy because the C/N was too low;
- in world: a confrontational foreign policy run by the Soviet Union controlling and intervening
in satellite countries;
- in time: a rigidity making social change very difficult;
- in culture: linear marxist visions, the Stufengang, on rigid narrow tracks, and a basic
contradiction between myth and reality.
With such matters left unattended tensions accumulated. The society did not produce enough
surplus to bribe everybody and lost the Stalinist nerve to suppress. Due to low level international
trade they could not do what capitalism is good at, exporting negative externalities, like toxins,
letting others abroad suffer.
Accumulated pollution led to diseases, adding to the general demoralization. Topheaviness
deprived them of initiative which also was largely forbidden. Confrontations led to a very costly
arms race. Rigidity and linearity deprived them of hope. Finallly, the fall was imported from
other, peripheral, socialist countries.
Lesson: socialism, better at material basic needs, pays less attention to externalities, does not
export them, and breaks down.
5.10 Case 10: The Coming Decline and Fall of the US empire
Let us try the three economic factors on the US economy:
SYNDROME DIAGNOSIS THERAPY
Q/P no dignity for workers; respect for skilled work
syndrome bad or no trade unions; company+national unions

30. very short term contracts more life-long contracts
bad pay means no respect higher minimum salary
bad CEO/worker income ratio improve the income ratio
low level education improve lower education
disastrous media, TV moratorium on some media
boring, degrading work increase challenge level
bad health, absenteeism social security for all
junk workers, junk work go in for quality in both
C/N profit above challenge go in for both
syndrome low C/N exports (not arms) increase the level
high C/N imports reindustralization
too much military work liberate R&D from military
too much secrecy lift the secrecy
L cheap, no T-incentive make Labor less cheap
CEOs C&M- not T-oriented more engineers as CEO
CEOs too much power flatter organization
R&D far from marketing decrease distance
excessively free trade selective protectionism
junk work, junk products go in for quality in both
F/R CEOs C&M- not T-oriented moratorium on some CBAs
syndrome quarterly reports onger time perspectives
finance-trading too easy make it more difficult
too much speculation money incentive for production
junk products, junk finance go in for quality in both

31. Cardinal shortcomings of the mainstream US economy:
Q/P syndrome: inattention to quality of labor; inattention to unemployment as reason for L-
intensive, T-extensive production;
GNP does not reflect quality, only quantity of products marketed; economists underestimate the
significance of the working class
C/N syndrome: inattention to degree of processing, "it does not matter whether we make potato-
chips or micro-chips"; inattention to spin-off effects; GNP does not reflect degree of processing;
overemphasis on free market and trade regardless of product level.
F/R syndrome: inattention to the F and R difference; GNP does not reflect difference between F
and R; economists overestimate the significance of economists, and serve their own capitalist
class
Key blocks: class society; greed/inconsiderateness; media power; expansionism; militarism;
patriarchy; CEO'ism; serving dividend interests of stock-holders, not of workers; extremist
economism.
As the therapies are unacceptable, the prognosis is military and finance economy because Q/P
and C/N are too low to compete, crash of finance economy because F/R is too high, recession,
depression.
6. Summary: Twenty factors, Ten mini-studies and Five reflections
DECLINE AND FALL: AN OVERVIEW
In [4] above twenty factors in the life-cycle of an empire were explored, and in [5] above ten
mini-studies were presented.
This table is an effort to summarize the findings:
West East Arab Spanish Italian Ottoman Ch'ing English Soviet USA No.
Rome Rome Empi- Empire Dynasty Yes
res deca- city- Empire Empire Empire
dencia states
1 No Yes No No No Yes No Yes No Yes 4
2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 10
3 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes 7
4 No Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No 3

32. 5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Y/N 9.5
6 Yes No No No No No No No No Yes 2
7 Yes No No No No No No No Yes Yes 3
8 Yes No No No No No No No Yes No 2
9 No Yes No No No Yes Yes No No No 3
10 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes 8
11 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 8
12 Yes No No No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes 5
13 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes 8
14 Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No No No 5
15 Yes Yes No No No No No Yes No No 3
16 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No 6
17 Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No No No 5
18 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Y/N 8.5
19 No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes 9
20 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes 9
Yes 17 16 13 8 5 15 10 11 11 12 118
YES: a major issue NO: a minor issue, or none Y/N: Yes and No
The vertical reading informs us how narrow or broad the causation behind decline and fall was
for each mini-study; and the horizontal reading informs us about the relative prevalence of the
factors. Both readings will be used for the reflections.
Needless to say all 200 judgments are problematic. Each cell could easily be the subject of one or
more books (some of them have already been written). But the focus here is on the pattern more
than on any single judgment. The assumption is that even if each judgment is not very robust,
conclusions based on patterns may be.
Here are the five reflections, with care and reservations:

33. [1] No single factor theory has emerged. No single factor, with score 10 and score 0 for all
others, explains the decline and fall of all. No. 2, "long term accumulation of negative externality
balance" has scote 10, but it is not alone. The narrowest syndrome, for Italian city-states, has five
of the ten factors operating, and in the broadest syndromes, for the two Roman Empires, 17 and
16 of the 20 factors respectively have been recognized.
[2] We are not dealing with tautologies.
Factor No. 2 may sound close to a tautology, but there is content in "long term", "negative", and
"externality". The short term may not be that dangerous. Strong positive side-effects of economic
activity may balance the negative externalities. Implied is also that monetized parts of the
economy, internalities like the national account balance, are not the only factors that count. But a
factor like "elite demoralization", certainly present in all of them at some time, would have been
a part of the description, even definition of decline and fall, and not have explained anything.
[3] There is a causal syndrome with a clear message/logic.
If we draw the line at score 9 four factors (Nos. 2-5-19-20) account for 37.5 of the 200
connections, or 19%; not very high. But if we draw the line at score 8, a causal syndrome of
eight factors (Nos. 2-5-10-11-13-18-19-20), or 40% of the 20 factors, we can account for 70/118
= 59% of the connections identified.
That syndrome can now be summarized as follows:
- a division of labor whereby foreign countries, and/or foreigners inside one's own country, take
over the most challenging and interesting and developing tasks, given the historical situation;
- a deficit in creativity related to a deficit in technology and good management, including
foresight and innovation;
- one or several sectors of the economy neglected or lagging;
- and, at the same time, expansionism as ideology/cosmology, exploiting foreign countries and/or
one's own people inviting negative, destructive reactions.
Clearly, if the system "took a sabbatical" and rested to restore itself, then some deficits may be
rectified. Thus, it looks as if the combination of economic deficits with expansionist immodesty
summarizes this syndrome. Obviously, if the elites are unable to manage, suppress their own
people, leaving important tasks to foreign countries and/or foreigners rather than to their own
people, then the end must be near. Where is the source of renewal in that case? No internal
challenge-response dynamics?
[4] The systems vary in the scope of the explanatory basis; some (like the Roman Empires)
having a very broad base, others (like the Italian city-states) a more narrow base. This, however,
is certainly also a function of the lore that has developed in the historiography of the decline and
fall of the systems: the more people and disciplines involved, the more factors. Some appear

34. over-explained: the oldest for the reasons given, and the most recent because they are parts of
contemporary debate. Some others that fall between these two chairs may be under-explained.
There is a methodological danger here: whoever searches sufficiently long for any factor will
probably finally identify also that one.
[5] The broader the base of factors, the more inevitable an impending death, the narower the
base, the less inevitable. A sick empire is like a sick human being: the more pathologies, the
more inevitable and hence more acceptable the death. There is nothing that can be done anyhow.
To sustain is to prolong suffering, not vitality. To speed up the decline for the two Roman
Empires, giving space for others, appears more rational than artificial longevity.
On the other hand, Spain and Italy might have been sustained using simple measures, like more
self-reliance and more willingness to take on new challenges for Spain, and labor market
flexibility and entrepreneurial freedom for Italy. The measures would have saved millions, and
generations, from centuries of decline.
The first conclusion from all of this is obvious: the pathologies have to be nipped in the bud, at
an early stage, and above all before they spread like metastases. Sustainability presupposes
sufficient health to be able to resist multiple shocks from syndromes. A high level of immuno-
deficiency is catastrophic.
The second conclusion is equally obvious: in some cases the system may have come to a point of
no return. The system is not sustainable, regardless of how strong the desire for eternal life, or a
more modest lease on eternity, might be. Like for human beings the system may be headed for
what is often referred to as natural death, close to the concept of "acceptable death". The system
has completed its life-curve (single-peaked in the Occident), and there is no clear successor. And
the end is due to a broad syndrome of causes, not one single cause for which a remedy might be
found.
The third conclusion is more problematic. Sustainability is a part of the issue. But is
sustainability itself sustainable? Or, is another concept knocking on the door: euthanasia for
societies?
7. A mini-theory of rats, of sinking ships and of new ships
These are ten stories of sinking ships, and ships usually harbor rats known to leave sinking ships.
But who are the rats, and what do they do after leaving the sinking ship? They probably do not
leave to drown, but possibly to find a new ship and a new life?
The immediate answer would be to find a new ship, although some rats may prefer dignified
suicide to a life in the ruins of their own creation. There are exceptions like the captain of the
sinking ship, the last one to leave even at the risk of joining the ship on its way down. Like ship
captain, like captain of the state ship, the head of state. In principle. But in fact he often prefers
escape and ends up as a monarch in exile, unable to find new ships. Better a life in faded
splendor than death or suicide.