Back Ryk Afrikaans إمبراطورية Arabic Imperiu AST İmperiya Azerbaijani ایمپیراتورلوق AZB Империя Bashkir Imperyo BCL Імперыя Byelorussian Империя Bulgarian সাম্রাজ্য Bengali/Bangla
 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
| Part of the Politics series |
| Basic forms of government |
|---|
| List of forms · List of countries |
 Politics portal |
| Part of the Politics series |
| Politics |
|---|
|
Politics portal |
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries".[1] The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) has political control over the peripheries.[2] Within an empire, different populations may have different sets of rights and may be governed differently.[3] The word "empire" derives from the Roman concept of imperium. Narrowly defined, an empire is a sovereign state whose head of state uses the title of "emperor" or "empress"; but not all states with aggregate territory under the rule of supreme authorities are called "empires" or are ruled by an emperor; nor have all self-described empires been accepted as such by contemporaries and historians (the Central African Empire of 1976 to 1979, and some Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in early England being examples).[a]
There have been "ancient and modern, centralized and decentralized, ultra-brutal and relatively benign" empires.[4] An important distinction has been between land empires made up solely of contiguous territories, such as the Austrian Empire or the Russian Empire; and those - based on sea-power - which include territories that are remote from the 'home' country of the empire, such as the Spanish Empire or the British Empire.[4]
Aside from the more formal usage, the concept of empire in popular thought is associated with such concepts as imperialism, colonialism, and globalization, with "imperialism" referring to the creation and maintenance of unequal relationships between nations and not necessarily the policy of a state headed by an emperor or empress. The word "empire" can also refer colloquially to a large-scale business enterprise (e.g. a transnational corporation), to a political organization controlled by a single individual (a political boss) or by a group (political bosses).[5] "Empire" is often used as a term to describe overpowering situations causing displeasure.[6]
- ^ Howe 2002, p. 30.
- ^ Reus-Smit, Christian (2013). Individual Rights and the Making of the International System. Cambridge University Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-521-85777-2.
- ^ Burbank & Cooper 2010, p. 8.
- ^ a b Howe 2002, p. 35.
- ^ "Empire". Oxford Dictionary Online. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
- ^ Howe 2002.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).