Nomadic Empires

14 September 2005, 0009 EDT

I’ve been dusting off a long dormant paper on nomadic empires and international-relations theory. While doing so, I came across this discussion of one pathway of pre-modern Central Asian state formation.

The centrifugal tendencies of the tribes and the nomad’s natural anarchical inclinations, could be contained only by successful campaigns for booty waged against “outsiders”. This is the paradox inherent in nomadic state-formations, which gives them an ephemeral appearance. A successful nomadic, empire-builder (cf. Attila) forges a nomadic empire with seemingly lightning speed and rules it with absolute power. But, this same state may appear to crumble and disappear with the same rapidity with which it came into existence….

– P.B. Golden, “Imperial Ideology and the Sources of Political Unity Amongst the Pre-Cinggisid Nomads of Western Eurasia,” Archivum Eurasie Medii Aevi II (1982), p. 49.

Lessons? I have no idea. Maybe Nathan Hamm or another Central Asia watcher could comment on any contemporary relevance.

While I’m at it: a bleg. If anyone knows about relevant transliteration systems (e.g., Chinggis vs. Genghis) – or knows anyone who does – I could use some help making the quotations and names I use in the paper consistent.

Oh, and if a specific collaborator of mine happens to be reading the blog and wonders: “why is Dan working on this and not our joint piece,” the answer is that the paper is to be presented at a conference later this month, and I’ll be back on our project in a day or two.

Filed as: nomads

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.