Empire and Order

March/April 2007 Historically Speaking 15 Thinking about Empire: A Forum FEW HISTORICAL TOPICS HAVE RECEIl ED MORE ATTENtion in recentyears than empire. In April 2003 we published aforum centered on Niall Ferguson's controversial argument that British imperialism on the whole contributed to the economic health of her colonies. Threeyears later, we revisit empire, but this time aroundwe solicited three very different takes on empire—-from Deepak LaI, Jan Nederveen Pieterse, and Charles Maier. We then asked three other scholars— Stephen Howe, HaroldJames, andAnthony Pagden—to comment. Empire and Order* Deepak LaI The Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume maintained that for any social life to exist you need order, which has three important aspects: securing life against violence, making sure that promises are kept, and ensuring some sort of stability of possessions through rules of property. Without these there cannot be social , let alone any economic life. Throughout world history, order has been gained and maintained in areas that have fallen into disorder mainly through the activities of empires . Given the confused discourse about our contemporary world order and the politically incorrect aura that surrounds the term, a definition of empire is needed. I still find Thucydides 's definition to be the clearest. He said that in its alliances during the Peloponnesian War, Sparta was a hegemon, because it only wanted to control the foreign policy of its allies , whereas Athens was an empire, because it wanted to control both domestic and foreign policy. Thus empires control both domestic and foreign policy, hegemons only foreign policy. Not all empires are the same. Machiavelli, for example, observed that the control of the domestic domain of an empire can take a number of forms. "When those states which have been acquired . . . are accustomed to live at liberty under their own laws, there are three ways of holding them. The first is to despoil them [as Genghis Khan did]. The second is to go there and live there in person, [as in the direct empires based on colonies]. And the third is to allow them to live under their own laws, taking tribute from them, * This essay is adapted from a plenary address given at the Historical Society's conference on Globalization, Empire, and Imperialism in Historical Perspective at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, June 3, 2006. A more expansive treatment of the topic appears in Professor Lai's In Praise of Empires: Globalisation and Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). "Arcus Marmoreus, omnium qui extant, antiquissimus, a Tito Vespasian . . ." in Giovanni Antonio Dosio, Cosmo Medici Duci Florentinor et Senens. . (Rome, 1569). Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University . and creating within the country a government composed of a few that will keep friendly to you [as in the indirect empires of Rome and Britain]."1 Direct and indirect empires are more stable than empires based merely on plunder. Even the Mongols had to move to the other two forms of controlling their new domains, and in choosing between direct and indirect empire, chose the latter. Wherever imperial power has been exercised, indirect empire has always been preferred, because it is less cosdy for the métropole. But most empires have been a mixture. The Roman and British Empires were mixtures. Because of the genie of selfdetermination let loose by Woodrow Wilson, direct empire is ruled out today. I would argue that America is an indirect empire that seeks to control both domestic and foreign policy throughout large parts of the world. What happened to Europe after the breakdown of the Roman Empire is especially instructive , as it has resonance in what we see today in many parts of Africa and the Middle East. Once the imperial order breaks down there is great disorder. This is how Samuel Finer, the distinguished Oxford historian of government, has described the economic consequences of the end of the Roman Empire: If a peasant ... in Gaul, or Spain, or northern Italy had been able to foresee the misery and exploitation that was to befall his grandchildren and their grandchildren on and on and on for the next five hundred years, he would have been singularly spiritiess—and widess too—if he had not rushed to...