Imperial Legitimacy Research Articles

“Hard to find another woman like her”: Constantine’s Empress Fausta

ABSTRACT: Discussion of the Empress Fausta, wife of Constantine, has in the past concentrated largely on theories about her death. This article follows current trends on Late Antique empresses by examining the clues about her life and activities. It demonstrates her role in helping Constantine assert his imperial legitimacy, and suggests an involvement in church affairs and patronage of buildings. In all, she had more visibility in the public sphere than she is often credited with.

Portuguese Policy in Sri Lanka as a Reflection of the Emergence of 16th Century International Law

Abstract The colonial nature of international law has been a moot point in legal academia, which univocally suggests international law as an imperial instrument. Given these exergies, the question that this paper seeks to examine is how Portuguese encounters in the 16th century Sri Lanka reflects the seeds of international legal system dominated by European interests. The policy espoused by the Portuguese in Sri Lanka during their encounters with the Kotte kingdom raise the initial examples of unequal treaties, exclusion of sovereignty and the adoption of “puppet rulers”. This paper makes a critical inquiry in examining these elements parallel to the development of 16th century international law. The objective of this article lies in examining the trajectories that set the path for Portuguese imperial legitimacy of Kotte kingdom of Sri Lanka through a legal legitimacy. In analysing these historical factors, this article will discuss the emergence of the colonial international law.

“Barbarous Magnificence in Glass Cases”: The Imperial Treasury and Ottoman Self-Display at the Topkapı Palace

Abstract The Topkapı Palace and its treasures had long been a point of curiosity for Europeans, and when the doors of the Imperial Treasury finally opened for them in the mid-nineteenth century, the visitors—charged with Orientalist preconceptions—oscillate between admiration and disappointment. Capitalizing on the expertise they had gained in representing their artistic and cultural identity in world’s fairs, museums, and exhibitions, the Ottomans developed certain strategies for displaying their imperial heritage in the Topkapı Palace. During the reign of Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909), both the procedure for accessing the palace grounds and the tours became standardized, yet a sense of imperial privilege and exclusivity was deliberately maintained. During these choreographed tours, certain “self-Orientalizing” spectacles that mimicked the traditional palace ceremonies were performed for the foreign gaze. Yet the display of the treasury is more than simply a space curated for touristic purposes; the collection bears historic continuities and dynastic references that have been perpetuated as symbols of imperial legitimacy for centuries. Visual and textual sources of the period attest that the display strategies of the Imperial Treasury emphasized the authenticity of the collection and the venerableness of the dynasty by appropriating the Orientalist visual vocabulary.

Het verbleekte ideaal van de soldatenkeizer

With the rise of a mostly ceremonious palace emperorship in Late Antiquity, most emperors stopped leading armies in person and left the business of warfare in the hands of their generals. While this made the traditional ideal of the soldier emperor less important than it had been, we should not underestimate its enduring relevance as a cornerstone of imperial legitimacy in the eyes of influential interest groups. This article examines how five emperors from the late fourth and fifth centuries and from both halves of the Empire – Arcadius, Honorius, Theodosius II, Avitus and Majorian – continued to claim military prestige through panegyric, coinage, architecture and other media. Although only two of these rulers, Avitus and Majorian, were active as military commanders, the military representation of all five is characterized above all by similarities and continuity, while the failure of the first three to play an active military role prompted criticism from (at least some) Greco-Roman authors. Evidently, neither the complementary military prestige of generalissimos like Stilicho and Aëtius, nor the notion of imperial piety as a means to secure victory, could completely supplant long-established expectations that emperors should actively fight for their subjects.

Water Spirits of the Yangzi River and Imperial Power in Traditional China

Most research on the water spirits of the Yangzi has focused on popular worship and paid little attention to the Confucian discourse and its major role in establishing imperial legitimacy. Yet it is a crucial aspect to understand traditional politics in China. The water spirits of the Yangzi River and its tributaries and lakes were venerated, offered imperial sacrifices, and incorporated into codes of state ritual in traditional China. The canonized sacrifices to the water spirits of the Yangzi River basin symbolized the religious–political legitimacy of the imperial regimes. When an imperial court offered sacrifice to the water spirits of the Yangzi River basin incorporated by previous dynasties, this action demonstrated that the current court directly connected to past regimes and inherited the authority of sacrifice passed down from the ancient and the orthodox tradition of Confucian ritual classics. Since the majority of dynasty capitals in traditional China were located in the north with fewer rivers, worshipping water spirits of the Yangzi River basin would imply recognition and blessing from southern divinities. The practice of granting noble titles and temple plaques to those water spirits would further demonstrate the imperial courts’ control over the divine power. By communicating with and managing the water spirits of the Yangzi River, the imperial courts would also symbolize their political and military administration over the south and they are united, rather than divided, regimes.

Feasting and Reading: Some Suggestions on Approaching Banquet Scenes in Rhodanthe and Dosikles

This paper examines connections between Theodore Prodromos’ Rhodanthe and Dosikles and the production of space in Byzantium in the early twelfth century. Previously, Panagiotis Roilos (2005) has argued that banquet scenes in Rhodanthe and Dosikles may have worked as liminal spaces within the narrative of the text, allowing the satirization and parody of established codes of conduct and communication. We build upon Roilos’ work to propose that interplay between passagesdepicting feasting and performative contexts aligned with satirical elements within the text. This, we argue, rendered the humor and satire more explicit for the gathered audience. We locate the performance of Rhodanthe and Dosiklesin large halls in the households of a group involving the ex-empress Eirene Doukaina and her son-in-law Nikephoros Bryennios. Here we argue, the performance of the text contributed to the production of a space which challenged the emperor John II and his wife Piroska-Eirene’s monopoly on dynastic imperial legitimacy. The article is intended as a case study which raises broader research questions on the spatial dimensions of twelfth-century literature. Suggestions for further research on this topic are offered in our conclusion.

Daoists, the Imperial Cult of Sage-Kings, and Mongol Rule

Abstract This article demonstrates the central position that Daoists occupied in the representations of state power in north China under Mongol rule. In the mid-thirteenth century, Daoist Master Jiang Shanxin and his disciples, under Khubilai Khan’s patronage, actively rebuilt several temples of Confucian sage-kings in southern Shanxi province. Jiang Shanxin’s lineage was a product of dynamic interactions between the Mongol conquerors and local Chinese Daoists in which the two found common ground in sage-kings worship that had served to strengthen imperial legitimacy in previous dynasties. The strong Mongol-Daoist alliance in reordering the empire’s ritual space resulted in not just the revival of but also the creation of new ritual precedents for the Chinese imperial cult of sage-kings.

Solving world problems: the Indian women’s movement, global governance, and ‘the crisis of empire’, 1933–46

AbstractThis article examines global processes of decolonization through an analysis of Indian women’s interactions with world governance during the interwar ‘crisis of empire’. This distinct form of activism asserted anti-colonial claims through engagements with transnational civil society networks and the social work of the League of Nations and the International Labour Office. In doing so, it undermined imperial legitimacy, shifted the terms of liberal internationalism, and prepared the ground for later developments at the United Nations.

Beyond Utilitarianism: Nineteenth Century South Asian Economic Crises and Sleeman’s (1788-1856) Necessitarianism

Emerging out of eighteenth-century enlightenment, utilitarianism led a view of earth and human centric economic view of society, resulting not only in the formation of theories of racial superiority and legitimacy of imperialism, but also in the development of modern theories of economy grounded in Adam Smith (1723-1790), Malthus (1766-1834) and Recordo (1772-1823). However there were a few people those tried to fix the challenges beyond utility into the concept of instinctual and evolutionary necessity or priority. Sleeman (1788-1856) was one fundamental exponent of the theory against tyrant colonial economic policies to plunder the colonial subjects and destroy the colonized political elites. He not on challenged the Recordian theory of Revenue but also tried to convince the colonial policy makers for the development of a policy of agriculture, industry and taxation and revenue based on and keeping in considerations the needs and necessities and priorities of the colonized subjects.

Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire: Civil Wars, Panegyric, and the Construction of Legitimacy by Adrastos Omissi

Reviewed by: Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire: Civil Wars, Panegyric, and the Construction of Legitimacy by Adrastos Omissi Raymond Van Dam Adrastos Omissi. Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire: Civil Wars, Panegyric, and the Construction of Legitimacy. Oxford Studies in Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xxix, 348. $130.00. ISBN 978-0-19-882482-4. The initial transition from Augustus to his stepson Tiberius already revealed the flaws inherent in imperial succession: no popular sovereignty, no approval by the senate or acclamation by the army until after the announcement, not even direct inheritance of the throne by blood ties. Without a formal constitution, every succession was makeshift, with the potential for disputation and even direct challenges. The lack of accredited criteria for establishing the legitimacy of emperors was an inherent structural weakness in Roman rule. In his engaging study of usurpations Adrastos Omissi examines the construction of imperial legitimacy during the long fourth century from the accession of Diocletian in 284 to the death of Theodosius in 395. The starting point is his definition of usurpers. Omissi proposes two criteria: someone proclaimed emperor without the consent of a ruling emperor was a usurper, as well as someone who became emperor after assassinating his predecessor (34). This definition has the unexpected outcome of classifying most of the emperors during the fourth century as "usurpers." Omissi lists no fewer than twenty-six usurpers (315), including some of the best-known emperors: Diocletian, a military commander who had assisted the deaths of his predecessors; Constantine, whose proclamation by his father's troops was initially not acknowledged by the Augustus (senior emperor) Galerius; and Theodosius, whom soldiers had likewise apparently hailed as emperor before his official recognition by Gratian. The reigns of those three "usurpers" alone covered almost seventy percent of Omissi's selected period. The foundation of Omissi's narrative is the extant secular prose panegyrics. Orations are problematic sources. Even as Omissi acknowledges their flattery, he stresses the "authentic contemporary voice" of the orators (49). He also insists that the panegyrics reflected "a clearly articulated programme, the ultimate origins of which can only be the court itself" (53). In his perspective, the content represented the outlook of the emperors themselves. The "voice" of panegyrics articulated "the tenor of central propaganda" (170). [End Page 105] Omissi's chapters are organized around the predictable groupings of emperors and their rivals. Most of his narrative consists of meticulously close readings of the collection of Latin panegyrics for the Tetrarchs, Constantine, and Theodosius; the orations of Themistius, Libanius, and Symmachus about Constantine's sons, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian and his brother Valens, and Theodosius; and Julian's own orations about Constantius. The objective is to extract the agendas of the emperors and their court officials. Although these readings sometimes become lengthy paraphrases of the panegyrics, they can be very illuminating. In 321 the rhetorician Nazarius delivered a panegyric at Rome that defended Constantine's victory over Maxentius. For a battle that was nine years in the past, that validation seemed unnecessary. But another civil war was imminent, this time between Constantine and Licinius, and Omissi argues that Nazarius was instead "looking to justify a war to come" (150). Another perceptive discussion highlights Pacatus' misdirection in his panegyric welcoming Theodosius to Rome in 389. Apparently the murky circumstances of the emperor's accession one decade earlier were still a stain. But now, by defeating the "fallen usurper" Magnus Maximus, "Theodosius could not have been a usurper" (275). Victory in a civil war was the best sort of exoneration. Omissi's nuanced readings successfully integrate the panegyrics as one possible narrative of political history. But they are less successful as an analysis of political structures, primarily because his definition of usurpers is so inclusive, undifferentiated, and arbitrary. Maximinus was a legitimate Caesar (junior emperor) when his troops proclaimed him Augustus; Galerius acquiesced to his new rank. Julian was likewise a legitimate Caesar when his soldiers hailed him Augustus; this time Constantius chose to march against his cousin. Omissi lists only one of those Caesars as a usurper. Another odd example was the promotion of Valentinian II as an Augustus soon after the...

Empires of Charity: Imperial Legitimacy and Profitable Charity in Colonial Spanish America

Abstract This article investigates the institutionalization and the practices of charity that sustained imperial rule in the early modern Spanish Empire. The article proposes that the polycentric Spanish Empire of the 16th to 18th centuries faced a fundamental challenge in terms of justifying the extension of power beyond its original territory of legitimization through custom and (invented) history. This challenge was dealt with through recourse to an ideology of good governance in corporate society. It institutionalized differences across race/caste, urban/rural, professional, gender and other categories in collectives that held part of a layered and fragmented sovereignty. But unlike its modern successor empires and nation states, it did not have to rely systematically on the essentialization of difference. Thus, good governance could legitimize the extension of hegemony beyond the original territory of political legitimization and charity played a central role in this. A material caritative complex sui generis linked the moral economy of charity, which legitimized local elites, with their own financing needs and those of the imperial polity via the financial acumen of religious and charitable institutions.

Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius by James Flath

Reviewed by: Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius by James Flath Man Xu (bio) James Flath. Traces of the Sage: Monument, Materiality, and the First Temple of Confucius. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2016. xix, 290 pp. Hardcover $55.00, isbn 978-0-8248-5370-9. Inspired by the high-profile development of New Confucianism in contemporary China, scholars have been examining the history of Confucianism from a wide range of perspectives, among which the study of Confucianism and material culture has attracted the attention of a number of historians who are specialized in art, cultural, and social history. James Flath's interest in the study of museums, monuments, and heritage conservation sites gave rise to his research on the Kong Temple, the very first and most prominent monument to Confucius in China. By presenting the Kong Temple as a "thing" that possesses a "social life" and tracing its transitions and transformations (p. 2), his book, Traces of the Sage, not only enriches our knowledge of Confucianism but also contributes to understanding "how monuments achieve iconic status, how architecture engages its inhabitants through contingency, and how space and time intersect in the formation of place" (p. 196). Flath investigates "the cycle of repair, erosion, and rebuilding" (p. 2) of the Kong Temple from the ancient time to the present and structures his book in chronological order. The first part (chapters 2-4) studies the history of the temple in China's dynastic history and focuses on three themes: "Kong Temple as Structure," "Ritual as Material Culture," and "Kong Temple as Space." [End Page 57] Under each topic, Flath discusses the continuities and changes of the temple in three long-term periods: Han to Tang, Song to Yuan, and Ming-Qing eras. Centuries of construction and reconstruction of the Kong Temple staged the complicated conflict, negotiation, compromise, and cooperation between the Kong family, local elites, and government. Although the Han established Confucianism as an orthodox state ideology, the Kong Temple remained largely "an ancestral temple and memorial shrine" (p. 28). Official worship, sponsorship, and management were absent as a whole till the end of the Tang dynasty. The Kong Temple "emerged as symbol of imperial legitimacy" (p. 28) in the Song dynasty and was "inextricably tied into the system of rule" (p. 35) from the Ming onward. It retained the national prestige and expanded to a palace-like architecture featuring imperial building codes in late imperial China. Flath conceives the Kong Temple as a monumental complex as well as a sacred space. He explores the history and physical characteristics of the walls, gates, arches, courtyards, rooms, pavilions, steles, effigies, roofs, and interior decoration of the temple to show how classical antiquity sustained here in the long two millennia. "The ongoing processes of inscription, erosion, and reproduction and the active creation of separation and rank have produced an environment with profound associations and a clearly defined hierarchy" (p. 125). Furthermore, he interprets ritual as "an active culture of transaction and negotiation" (p. 52) and "constructive spatial hierarchy" (p. 76). In tracing the movement of skills and resources in the confinement of the temple, he scrutinizes ritual settings in spatial and material terms, presents the complexity of the architecture, and reveals the political implications of ritual performance. The second part of the book focuses on the development of the Kong Temple in modern and contemporary times. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, China suffered from foreign invasions and warlordism. The concern of imperial legitimacy and ritual propriety lost importance, and government sponsorship of the temple was no longer reliable. In tune with the modernization of the nation in the early twentieth century, the temple was subject to new systems of heritage management and political exploitation. Scholars, national government, warlords, and Japanese occupiers interpreted the temple's culture differently and manipulated it to serve various political purposes. In the mid-twentieth century, the newly established communist government appreciated the temple's heritage and historical value and made tentative progress toward conservation. However, the formal protection came to an end during the Cultural Revolution, when the Kong Temple's continuity with the past was criticized...

La circulación de noticias del extranjero y la construcción de los ideales imperiales: los traductores españoles de Aḥmad al-Manṣūr

During the reign of Aḥmad al-Manṣūr (1578-1603), a good deal of news and information about European political and religious affairs circulated in Morocco and was used in official discourses generated in the Moroccan court. This information was transmitted in part by a range of European agents from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands, but the key figure in its reception and use in the Moroccan court was the Spanish translator, who worked alongside al-Manṣūr’s secretaries and other chancellery officials. Foreign news, as relayed by the Spanish translator, was adapted into different royal discourses and was used along with other strategies of representation to reinforce al-Manṣūr’s claims to sovereign and imperial legitimacy before Muslim and Christian audiences

La Guerra de Malvinas: solidaridad desde México

During the Latin American dictatorships in the seventies and early eighties, Mexico was home to a set of solidarity networks. The Malvinas War constituted a critical moment that shed light on some of these networks woven by Mexican and South American exiles. This article examines the role of these solidarity networks through documentation created by the different political trends of the Argentinean exile, as well as from articles, chronicles and editorials published in Mexican newspapers and magazines. The Malvinas War unleashed strong controversies on various issues of leftist thought and action: the character of the antidictatorial fight, the legitimacy of territorial sovereignty claims, imperialism, nationalism, and popular democracy. This article portrays these discussions; highlights the reach and scope of condemnations made against the State terrorism enforced by the Argentinean Armed Forces; and displays the impact of the Malvinas War in the Mexican public opinion.

Colonial Geographies, Imperial Romances: Travels in Japan with Ellen Churchill Semple and Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

In 1911, geographer Ellen Churchill Semple and novelist Fannie Caldwell Macaulay departed on an eighteen-month tour around the world. Semple was planning to do fieldwork in Japan, where Macaulay had lived from 1902 to 1907. This paper examines the texts that Semple and Macaulay produced as a result of their experiences in Japan: two articles published in geographical journals by Semple and Macaulay's novelsThe Lady of the DecorationandThe Lady and Sada San. Travel and travel writing were one of the key ways in which white women manifested their cultural authority. Although their texts had very different purposes and audiences, Semple and Macaulay both drew upon and contributed to Orientalist discourses. In both cases, the women's authority ultimately derived from their positions as representatives of white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant American culture, and their work helped reinforce U.S. power and the legitimacy of imperialism. By producing texts that criticized those aspects of non-Western societies that diverged from Western norms and praising those areas in which they conformed, they affirmed the superiority of Western, and specifically American, culture.

An Archaeology of History: The Wang Mang Nine Temples from Early Imperial China as Reconstructed by History and by Archaeology

In this paper, I examine the relationship between the construction of history by the textual history of early imperial China and by Chinese archaeology in the second half of the twentieth century, considering how these two fields of scholarship were directed by ideologies of the Chinese government. The locus for this investigation is the complex of imperial ancestral temples constructed by the emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 CE) for his brief interregnum dynasty. Although this group of buildings is described in the official dynastic history, compiled only fifty years after its construction, as having nine temple buildings with specific ancestors ascribed to each, its archaeological excavation in the late 1950s instead revealed twelve temples in a carefully organized plan. The discrepancy between the original construction of the temple complex and its subsequent revision in textual history is revealing in terms of the relationship between received tradition and individual action in the context of establishing imperial legitimacy, whereas the modern attempts to reconcile the discrepancy between textual history and excavated history are indicative of the relationship between Chinese archaeology of that period and the nationalist revision of history.

Empire for Liberty. A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz; Imperium. Geschichte und Theorie eines politischen Systems; Demokratie und Imperium. Die Vereinigten Staaten zwischen Fundamentalismus, Liberalismus und Populismus

Empire for Liberty. A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz; Imperium. Geschichte und Theorie eines politischen Systems; Demokratie und Imperium. Die Vereinigten Staaten zwischen Fundamentalismus, Liberalismus und Populismus

Repeating Islands of Resistance: Redefining Security in Militarized Landscapes

Social movements near American military bases have been increasingly successful at opposing the continue militarization of their home communities. Focusing on groups from Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i and Okinawa –as well as the global “No Bases” network – this paper examines how social movements in presently colonized places organize their multi-scalar activism to challenge the legitimacy of militarism. While the American state views many of these places as sacrifice areas for an imperial national security, these organizations resist this banal colonialism through campaigns for a localization of sovereignty and a redefinition of security. Inspired by strategies of decentralized organization, affinity, direct action and mutual aid these ‘newest social movements’ are not merely petitioning the imperial state for greater access to rights through a politics of demand, but are engaged with creating secure physical and social environments through struggles for local self-determination, demilitarization, and environmental decontamination. Through their activism these organizations challenge not only the legitimacy of contemporary imperialism, but also the notion that the nation-state is the proper institution (and scale) to define rights, sovereignty, health and security.

Repeating Islands of Resistance: Redefining Security in Militarized Landscapes

Social movements near American military bases have been increasingly successful at opposing the continue militarization of their home communities. Focusing on groups from Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i and Okinawa –as well as the global “No Bases” network – this paper examines how social movements in presently colonized places organize their multi-scalar activism to challenge the legitimacy of militarism. While the American state views many of these places as sacrifice areas for an imperial national security, these organizations resist this banal colonialism through campaigns for a localization of sovereignty and a redefinition of security. Inspired by strategies of decentralized organization, affinity, direct action and mutual aid these ‘newest social movements’ are not merely petitioning the imperial state for greater access to rights through a politics of demand, but are engaged with creating secure physical and social environments through struggles for local self-determination, demilitarization, and environmental decontamination. Through their activism these organizations challenge not only the legitimacy of contemporary imperialism, but also the notion that the nation-state is the proper institution (and scale) to define rights, sovereignty, health and security.

The Challenge & Complexities of Nation-State Sovereignty in the Era of 21st Century Internationalism

For hundreds of years since the enactment of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the nation-state has been the mainstay of the international system. The nation-state has witnessed the rise and fall of empires, wars, economic turmoil, and political chaos, yet through it all it has remained relatively stable. Nation-state also has a dark side in the guise of neo-colonialism and the subjection of millions of people through the invoking of political sovereignty as imperial legitimacy. However, nothing has challenged the core foundations of the nation-state then the emergence of globalization in the 21st century. In many respects, globalization has superseded the governmental ability of the nation-state by circumventing it through the integration of commerce, finance, trade, and technology. No longer is the nation-state the conduit by which TNC’s (Trans National Corporation), Diplomats, NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organization), and Supranational organizations must filter through in order to operate in and around its geographical sphere. The legitimacy of the state was its cloak of sovereignty which gave it card Blanche in the international system. The presence of globalization has had an evolutionary impact upon the way nations govern, communicate, negotiate, and interact with each other. These impacts are both positive and negative. In terms of positive attributes, the technological advancements due to globalization has improved commerce through increased FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in economically challenged nations, targeted infrastructure development, advanced literacy, inspired democratic movements via social networks, and created emerging middle class in rising powerhouses such as India and China. The negative effects of globalization is that it has pulled and tugged at the local, social, and economical moral fabrics of a nation-state which in turn causes unrest, financial meltdown, poverty, hunger, dissension, and interstate wars between ethnic, tribal, and religious groups due to the inability of the current structure of the nation-state to effectively harness its destructive elements. In essence, the purpose of this research is to examine the challenges of globalization to the political validity of the nation-state in the 21st century and to create a new political construct of national sovereignty that recognizes the importance of the nation-state and its stability of the international order.