Empire is back in fashion as a subject of academic study. This is true not only in history, but also in literature, anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines, including political science. In this book Alexander Motyl has attempted to move toward a theoretical framework to assess whether – and if so, which – laws govern the fate of empire. Adapting the earlier and now relatively fallow constructs of Johan Galtung, Karl Deutsch, and Rein Taagepera, Motyl has arrived at tentative theorizations of what causes empires to decline, fall, and, in certain circumstances, revive. Tentative, however, is the key word in his analysis. Virtually all of his major points are made with serious qualifications. His introduction acknowledges that all structural theories are “seriously flawed,” (p.5), while the rest of the book stresses the inescapable factor of unpredictability in international and domestic politics. Motyl’s overuse of the phrase “ceteris paribus” (meaning “all things being equal” or “if everything remains constant” – a concept that rarely describes international relations in any time or place) is decidedly unpretentious, for it describes almost every point his analysis makes. This renders the theoretical implications of his work weak, if not altogether meaningless. Such an equivocal analysis may not be out of step with the author’s modest goal “to make sense of the downward slope of their trajectories,” – he is definitely right about the inadequacies of international relations theory – but he fails to affirm any theoretical explanation for the collapse of empires.
Motyl’s practical examples illustrate his non-theory. He shares a number of good insights on an impressive array of the world’s empires (including Britain, Russia/USSR, Spain, Austria-Hungary, Wihelmine Germany, China, and the Incan, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires) in an effective and engaging manner that is rarely seen. He leaves out other possible imperial subjects, like Japan and Moghul India. He also fails to address the modish question of whether the United States today constitutes an empire and, as Paul Kennedy attempted to do fifteen years ago, to examine whether it faces decline. The biggest conclusion that this reader drew, however, is that the empires featured in Motyl’s study were so remarkably different that any theorization about them becomes so schematic and generalized that it is virtually meaningless. If they really were so diverse in their natures and histories, it seems eminently reasonable to suggest that a truly intelligent person could simply study the histories of several empires and draw unique, comparative conclusions about each one. Dominic Lieven has recently done this in his book, Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals.
Motyl is, however, relatively more successful and convincing in his last chapter, which focuses on imperial revivals. Moving sharply away from unsatisfying theories of imperial decline, he looks at hard empirical data assessing post-Soviet Russia’s chance to reconstitute an “imperial core.” Many facts militate in favor of his affirmation of that possibility. In economic, military, and organizational terms, Russia is strong in comparison to its fellow former Soviet republics. Huge populations of ethnic Russians, some of which are increasingly dissatisfied, live in the new neighboring countries. The Near Abroad’s continuing dependency on Moscow and Russia’s warmer relations with the West may enable it to secure more authority over the periphery without risking a destructive war. Aleksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus favors a closer political union with Moscow. Ceteris paribus, as it were, Russia’s imperial reemergence may seem to be a safe bet, but myriad unpredictable factors may yet toss a wrench into Motyl’s prediction. A sudden decline in Russia’s relations with the West, a faster than expected absorption of its Western neighbors into NATO and the European Union, or a sudden (and not unprecedented) domestic political crisis could do much to derail any movement in that direction. Russia’s non-victory in Chechnya may not have been a categorical defeat, but it nevertheless illustrates that Moscow is having enough trouble holding on to the Russian Federation’s separatist regions. The success of President Putin’s current policy of encouraging domestic social and economic development may also matter more to Russian elites than controlling Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Yet Motyl’s arguments are well made, and this portion of his work merits our attention.