The Political Systems of Empires

Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351477154
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Winner of the prestigious MacIver Award when it was first published, this remains a towering work of modern political sociology, especially of macrosociology. Its main objective is comparative analysis of political commonalities found in different societies, both historical and present. The book seeks to find some pattern or laws in the structure and development of such systems. The imaginative use of data helps to bring order into what might otherwise be considered a speculative volume.
The purpose of The Political Systems of Empires is to apply sociological concepts to the analysis of historical societies through the comparative analysis of a special type of political system. This analysis does not purport to be historical or descriptive. Its main objective is comparative analysis of political commonalities found in different societies. The book seeks to find some pattern or laws in the structure and development of such systems.

TWO

Conditions of Perpetuation of the Political Systems of the Historical Bureaucratic Empires

Plan of Part Two

The preceding discussion has indicated the main problems which will be our concern in the following chapters. Having substantiated the hypothesis which explains the prerequisites for the development of the political systems of the historical bureaucratic empires, we must now investigate the conditions necessary for the perpetuation of these systems. This investigation will first involve analyzing the main differences among the societies studied here; the principal features of the political systems of the centralized bureaucratic empires; and the nature of political powers—i.e., policies of the rulers and political activities of the major groups. We shall attempt to determine the relations between these differences and the variations of the basic characteristics in their societies’ structure. That is, we shall analyze the extent to which the political sphere developed autonomy within them; the degree to which they differentiated their groups’ social structures; the intensity of the regulative problems consequent on such differentiation; and the scopes of the autonomous mechanisms.

Second, we must investigate the conditions under which these variations tend to be conducive to the continuous functioning of the political systems, and the conditions under which they tend to under-mine this continuity.

7

The Policies of the Rulers

[1] The Problems of Perpetuating the Political Systems

At the close of Chapter 6, we raised the subject of the conditions necessary for the perpetuation and continuity of the political systems of the historical bureaucratic societies. We saw that this continuity was not given or insured by the conditions necessary for the development of these political systems, nor by the initial institutionalization of their principal features instead, it was largely dependent on the social and political orientations of the rulers and of the major groups and their principal features. Instead, it was largely dependent on the social political orientations became manifested in the political struggle—in the political activities and organizations that arose in these societies. Therefore, we now should proceed to analyze this political struggle; to describe its chief participants and their political orientations, organizations, and activities; and to examine the ways that their participation affected both the structures of the various political institutions, and the continuity of the political systems, of the historical bureaucratic empires.

Let us begin by examining the framework of the political struggle in the historical bureaucratic polities, and by enumerating its main participants. These were the rulers arrayed against the major groups and strata—the bureaucracy, the aristocracy, the professional, religious, and cultural elites, the upper urban groups (especially the merchants and burghers), the middle and lower urban groups, the landed gentry, and the peasantry.

The actual framework for the political struggle was supplied, in most of the societies studied, by the policies of the rulers. Of course, these policies did not grow in a social vacuum; and in Chapter 6 we analyzed the principal social conditions influencing their development. Nevertheless, these policies usually constituted the most active and dynamic elements in the political process. They shaped the environment and setting to which other groups had to adjust and/or react-even though these groups were only rarely passive in the political struggle.

It is appropriate here to describe briefly the rulers and the political elites in these societies; the description will in some measure recapitulate points made in preceding chapters. In most of the countries examined, the political elites consisted of the ruler-king or emperor, his leading advisers and personal retainers, court officials, and (to some extent) heads of the different bureaucratic services.

The members of political elites—as distinct from all the upper strata of the country (the aristocracy, gentry, and bureaucracy)—were not selected according to rigid or formal criteria. They were recruited from many different social strata, like the aristocracy, some of the middle class, religious groups, and even the peasantry. In some cases (in Europe, Egypt, and Sassanid Persia, and, to a lesser degree, in Byzantium and China), the monarchs came from old, aristocratic royal families. In others (e.g., Rome, and—again, only to some extent—Byzantium and China), they also often came from different strata as usurpers or war lords.

Whatever its origin, the political elite was distinct from all social groups—including, in some measure, the bureaucracy to which some of its members belonged—by virtue of its specifically political outlook, aims, and behavior. It upheld and promoted the autonomy of the political sphere and of political goals already described and analyzed.

[2] The Major Objectives of the Rulers

What were the foremost objectives of the policies of the rulers and the political elites in the societies studied?

The respective concrete goals of rulers of the various historical bureaucratic societies varied greatly. They included territorial unification and expansion, conquest, enrichment of the polity, economic development, and maintaining or expanding a given cultural pattern.

Obviously, their objectives always incorporated what may be called the universal or basic goals of any ruler—namely, maintaining his own position of power against any opponents, and insuring the possibility of mobilizing resources for his own needs. But whatever the rulers’ concrete aims, the rulers usually envisaged and implemented these aims as autonomous political goals of a unified, centralized polity. This very fact affected the nature of the rulers’ general political orientations and the nature of their concrete aims and policies. Any specific goal or objective of the rulers of these societies may not have differed, in its concrete details, from similar aims of patrimonial or feudal rulers. But the rulers of the historical bureaucratic societies, to be able to implement their goals, were forced—by virtue of their positions within the structures of their societies and their general political orientations —to evolve some new, additional general goals. These provided the framework within which their more concrete policies and aims developed.

The first general goal was to establish and maintain a unified and centralized polity and the ruler’s sovereignty over it. At certain historical stages of these societies, establishing of such a polity might have been a major goal in itself. In other stages, the continuous maintenance of the polity constituted an important goal.

Then, the rulers of the historical bureaucratic societies developed special orientations with regard to mobilizing resources. Their objective was to acquire the certainty that they could obtain continuous and independent recruitment of resources from various strata in the society. These rulers were, as we have seen, usually not interested only in implementing any one policy or concrete goal. In addition, they were concerned with the possibility of executing their policies continuously according to their changing needs and at their own discretion. Their raison d’être—in their battles with traditional feudal or patrimonial elements—was based largely on their abilities to implement continuously various policies, and to maintain a unified, centralized political framework, and their flexibility in choosing policies and concrete goals. Moreover, the rulers needed a constant supply of resources to maintain the administrative machinery, which constituted one basis of their strength and the main medium for the continuous execution of their policies.

As a result of their objectives and of their structural positions in the societies, the rulers of historical bureaucratic empires always had a basic interest in the continuous and independent mobilization of resources from other groups and strata. That is, they were interested in a mobilization which would be largely independent both of the fixed ascriptive rights and duties of these groups and strata, and of the wishes of their members.

This interest was manifest in the rulers’ desire either to concentrate most resources in their own hands (e.g., by storing goods and money and accumulating state property), or to further the development of various types of free-floating, mobile resources not tied to any ascrip-tive groups and thus able to be freely accumulated and exchanged. These resources could then be controlled and utilized at the ruler’s discretion. In all the societies studied, the monarchs owned some “private” or feudal properties and resources; yet these were insufficient, and the rulers were continually confronted by the need to mobilize additional resources. Obviously, the more developed and differentiated the social structure, the more difficult it was for the rulers to monopolize all the needed resources. Thus, their ability to control continuously the free-floating resources became more crucial. They therefore endeavored to create situations in which such resources were continuously available, and wherein they could fully control and mobilize these resources whenever necessary for their own purposes.

The ruler of the centralized bureaucratic polity could realize his political objectives only in so far as there existed, in the society, power and resources that were neither entirely dependent on other groups, nor committed to their use, nor obtainable only through their good will. Although the rulers occasionally might have utilized such embedded and committed resources, continued reliance on them would necessarily have entailed the loss of the rulers’ independence, and of their ability to formulate freely their aims and goals and to pursue their policies. Unlike rulers of many primitive patrimonial or feudal systems, the rulers of the bureaucratic polities were not willing to be merely the strongest and “first” among rulers or owners of similar clan or patrimonial units. Instead, these rulers strove to concentrate in their own hands, the main centers of power and control in the society.

The rulers and the bureaucracy united, when their respective in-terests did not conflict, to insure the continuous existence of free-float-ing resources of various kinds and their continuous control over them. They attempted to prevent any one group or stratum within the society from controlling the use of free-floating resources—whether wealth, prestige, communication, or political power and support itself —sufficiently to be able to challenge the rulers’ control of them.

Because of this, the rulers and the bureaucracy in these polities always tended to regulate, make dependent on themselves, or reduce all other centers of power, thus minimizing their chances of becoming entirely autonomous or of monopolizing resources in the society. The rulers always tried to create strategic positions for themselves that would enable them to control most of the available resources. Max Weber has pointed out that every bureaucratic administration characteristically tries to “level out” various social differences. It is important, however, to note that this tendency is not limited to the bureaucratic administration; it occurs also, and perhaps mostly, in the political elites of bureaucratic polities ([I] Weber, 1922, pp. 650 ff.). To summarize, the rulers of these polities exhibited a triple tendency:

1. They were interested in promoting free resources and in freeing resources from commitments to particularistic-ascriptive groups
2. They did not want these resources to develop beyond limits appropriate to their own traditional legitimation
3. They tried to control these resources—to commit them, as it were, to their own uses

Obviously, the respective degrees of success attained by the rulers’ efforts varied greatly. However, most of these societies share some general tendencies in these directions. The exceptions are marginal patrimonial societies (like that existing, to some extent, in Sassanid Persia), and in cases during periods of disintegration of the bureaucratic polities.

All the aims and policies discussed illustrate the general tendency, common to the rulers of the historical bureaucratic polities, to develop a relatively high level of generalization of power. These rulers needed and desired to attain a state of affairs wherein political power—at least, the power potentially at their disposal—could be generalized, extended with relative freedom from traditionalistic restriction, and applied to various goals in accordance with the rulers’ interests and considerations.

This tendency toward establishing a certain level of generalization of power is the single most universal characteristic of the rulers’ policy orientations. It organized their activities in a pattern which distinguished them from the activities of rulers of less differentiated types of polity. However, this tendency was limited (as we shall discuss in greater detail) by the traditional elements inherent in the rulers’ structural situations and orientations. This limitation makes the policies of these rulers distinct from those of more differentiated—especially, modern—societies.

[3] The Social Setting of the Implementation of the Rulers’ Aims

To understand how the general tendencies and goals of the rulers were translated into concrete policies, we must recall the environment in which they were articulated and executed. The rulers’ basic aims had to be realized in societies whose development of free-floating resources was limited. This limitation was imposed, first, by the great preponderance that different types of natural or semi-natural economy had in agriculture. This preponderance involved many consequences for the extent of economic development and expansion, the degree of social mobility, and the possible emergence of new strata and groups. It set obvious bounds to the creation of fluid resources and to the possibility of exchanging and accumulating means of exchange. These bounds constitute a principal difference between the historical bureaucratic systems and modern societies; in the latter, all economic activities and mechanisms tend to be focused around market exchange.

Second, despite all the inroads made by criteria of universalism and achievement, the social structures of these societies were still, as was indicated earlier, predominantly based on ascriptive criteria and hierarchically stratified. However, the basic traditional resources or poli-cal support available to the various elites and other politically and socially active groups was greatly limited by the conditions mentioned.

The low level of differentiation in the social structure was not the only factor that limited the implementation of these policies of the rulers that were directed to furthering free resources. Limitations were also imposed by some of the rulers’ own orientations—especially by their identification with many ascriptive and traditional aspects of their societies’ social organizations and values, and by their strong emphasis on their traditional legitimation.

The actual policies of the ruling elites, and their viscissitudes, can be understood only in relation to all these conditions.

The degrees of social differentiation and free-floating resources varied from society to society. Thus, the policies of their ruling elites also differed in concrete details, even when some of their basic aims were similar. These differences will be considered when we analyze the manifestations of these policies in various social spheres.

Then we shall describe, in rather more detail, the principal policies undertaken by the rulers of the historical bureaucratic polities. Many elements of these policies can also be found in other types of political systems—in feudal, patrimonial, or even modern ones. At this stage of our analysis, we shall not consider the question of which of these policies are endemic to the historical bureaucratic polities; we shall proceed directly to the rulers’ policies in the major institutional fields-economics, stratification, religion and education, law, and the political field itself. We shall determine how, and to what extent, the rulers’ general political aims and tendencies were manifested in these policies, and which kinds of policies the rulers employed to implement their aims.

[4] Policies of the Rulers in the Economic Field

A. Principal Characteristics

The rulers had three basic and constant objectives in the economic sphere. The first was to monopolize, or at least insure the possibility of rapidly mobilizing sufficient economic and manpower resources to make it certain that any of their goals and policies would be constantly implemented and that their services would be maintained. The second main aim was the continuous control and regulation of economic resources. The rulers’ third important objective was to maintain their political control over different groups in the society, as they frequently did, through utilizing various economic policies.

These goals could be implemented through a great variety of concrete policies and means. Basically, the rulers used the following means to realize them: (1) direct conscription of labor and promotion of state enterprises; (2) taxation; and (3) various financial monetary measures and policies.

We shall now consider the main economic policies and measures employed by the rulers of the historical bureaucratic societies, and the ways they served to achieve the rulers’ economic goals.

First, let us deal with the ways the rulers solved the problem of making resources available to themselves. They had two possible alternatives: to accumulate them directly; or to encourage various...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Transaction Edition
• Preface to the First Paperback Edition
• Preface
• ONE Conditions of Development of the Political Systems of the Historical Bureaucratic Empires
• TWO Conditions of Perpetuation of the Political Systems of the Historical Bureaucratic Empires
• Appendix
• Index