The Conrad Demarest Model of Empire: Basic Principles

Empire: The term was first used in English in 1297 to indicate an extensive territory made up of formerly independent states. A further refinement might be to add that an empire is a politically unified state in which one people dominates its neighbors.

I.  Necessary preconditions for the rise of empires:

• state-level government
• high agricultural potential in the area
• an environmental mosaic
• several small states with no clearly dominant state (power vacuum)
• mutual antagonisms among those states
• adequate military resources

II. The primary reason a state succeeded in empire building was an ideology supporting personal identification with the state, empire, conquest, and militarism.

III.  The major rewards of empire:

1. economic rewards, reaped especially in the early years and redistributed to the elite and often to all levels of the citizenry
2. population increase, often supported by the government and its ideology

IV.  Empires fall because:

1. the ideology of expansion and conquest fueled attempts at conquest beyond practical limits
2. failure to continue conquest indefinitely and to continue to bring home its economic fruits eroded faith in the ideology that supported the empire
3. revolutions toppled the empire