what is imperialism? defining empire
an empire is a political structure by which one community dominates other communities. so an empire is a thing—“a political structure”—but it is also a process, because dominating is an action. dominance has to be established, first; then it has to be maintained.
imperial affairs are issues that have to do with building, maintaining, and defending empires. we can give the name imperialism to the practices that make up imperial affairs, including the ideologies of empires—the thoughts and words that are used to justify the continued existence of empires.
an empire gathers benefits (social, economic, and otherwise) for the dominant community at the expense of the dominated communities; in other words, it helps an in-group by hurting out-groups. usually, there is a process of assimilation by which some of the dominated are given a chance to become the dominators. for some of this group, empire may be understood as a choice: are the benefits of joining a dominant community worth the costs of separation from indigenous community? but for most people in most empires, the choice of which side of the imperial power dynamic they are on has already been made for them.
all living beings act in complex environments, and any social process dealing with relationships between communities is infinitely complex. empires are no exception to this reality (one way in which societies are complex is that multiple empires can coexist). the fact that systems of domination are complex does not, however, mean that people can't make decisions about whether or not we want to live our lives in the ways empires force us to. we can give the name anti-imperialist to those who aim to subvert and destroy empires.
