The New Rome?

Professor Charles Maier of Harvard University discusses the decades old question of whether the United States is actually an empire -- or is merely a reasonable facsimile -- in his new book, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors.

In Maier's view, Rome remains the most convincing model for discussing the United States because foreign conquest changed it from a republic to an empire. It retained eviscerated republican institutions like the Senate, but power shifted to the emperor, and voting became plebiscitary. According to this view, the US is not yet an empire because its domestic politics haven't yet become Bonapartist. But perhaps it is on the way. There has been a slippage of power from the legislature to the executive, from open discussion to expert control, and from the politics of political parties to the politics of religious and other groups. According to the Bush doctrine of the "unitary executive," the president as commander in chief has supreme power and does not have to be accountable to Congress for its exercise...

Another recurring theme of empire is the psychological satisfactions it provides: heroism, glory, valor, honor, opportunity of service for elite groups, vicarious identification for the masses. It has been seen as an antidote to decadence. Maier has little to say by way of moral evaluation of empire. He writes, that is, as a political scientist or sociologist, not as a political philosopher. He does not consider the role of ideas as influences on forms of rule. This results in a defective discussion of reasons for empire and of imperial collapse. Empires, as Thucydides realized long ago, arise from a belief in the right to rule, and collapse when that belief wanes. To be sure, there is a strong ideological element in the current US drive for empire, especially among neoconservatives in the academy and Washington think tanks. It is based on the belief that the West is best, and will only be secure if the Western way becomes the universal norm. Those who resist the embrace of the West are thought to be savages and must be persuaded, or forced, to recognize the error of their ways. This is classic European imperial-speak, and it is heard in Washington today. However, the doctrine of Western superiority has not yet crystalized into an overt imperial ideology. It lacks the nineteenth-century, as well as the Nazi, ingredient of racism, without which it is difficult to justify rule without consent, though the Soviets managed it for a time.