Anarchy and Empire: World-Conquerors and International Systems

Abstract Why are some international systems characterized by stable multipolarity while elsewhere conquest produces universal empires? We explain this variation through contrasting the conventional story of the consolidation of multipolar anarchy in Europe against the Ottoman conquest of the Near East and the Manchu conquest of greater China. Both the Ottomans and the Manchus developed the capacity for systemic conquest via hybridizing steppe and sedentary military techniques. Furthermore, both surmounted the legitimation gradient of conquest. The Ottomans and Manchus used cultural statecraft to prevent balancing coalitions and encourage bandwagoning and collaboration. Cultural statecraft comprised strategies of co-opting preexisting symbols of imperial rule and employing multivocal legitimacy strategies to sequentially appeal to multiple segmented audiences. In Europe, both military obstacles and religious confessional ideational divisions frustrated would-be conquerors. Multipolar anarchy is thus a contingent outcome in international politics rather than a constant, which can be extinguished by militarily powerful and culturally agile “world conquerors.”