Varieties of Empire: Historical Sociological Considerations

Across the social sciences, empires tend to be understood as pre-modern phenomena even as they continue into modernity. Empires in the modern period are elided from consideration as ‘modern’ by being presented as appendages of nation-states, destined to disappear as modernity achieves its ‘mature’ and essential form as an international system of states. Further, empires – despite their different characteristics – are consistently defined in terms of their commonalities across time and place. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to draw increasing attention to the colonial histories constitutive of European overseas empires as developing a distinct type of empire; an empire of extraction. These empires are seen as different in substance from empires of incorporation such as the Ottoman, the Chinese, and the Mughal empires. Questions are also raised about whether the Soviet Union should be considered as an empire and of which type. This session invites papers examining differences between empires and discussing the historical sociological implications of those differences.