The Power Configurations of the Central Civilization/World System in the Eighth Century

Abstract

This paper is the fifteenth in a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of reference. The codings are done using a nominal variable, polarity, with seven available values: nonpolarity, multipolarity, tripolarity, bipolarity, (nonhegemonic) unipolarity, hegemony and empire. Previous articles in the series have examined the Indic system 550 BC-AD 1800, the Far Eastern 1025 BC – AD 1850, the Southwest Asian c 2700 – 1500 BC, the Northeast African c. 2625-1500 BC. The Northeast African and Southwest Asian systems and sequences merged c. 1500 BC to form the Central system. A previous article has coded this system from 1500 BC to 700 BC, and previous papers have examined the system from AD 1200 to date. In the current paper, the Central system’s power structure is coded at 10-year intervals 1100-1200. The century is entirely multipolar, although there is significant turnover among actors and churning of borders. The Power Configurations of the Central Civilization/ World System in the Twelfth Century This paper is the fifteenth a series in which the political careers of civilizations/world systems receive snapshot codings of their overall power structures at feasible intervals. The narratives are produced by collating histories with large frames of reference. The codings are done using a nominal variable, polarity, with seven available values: nonpolarity, multipolarity, tripolarity, bipolarity, (nonhegemonic) unipolarity, hegemony and empire. Previous articles in the series have examined the Indic system 550 BC-AD 1800, the Far Eastern 1025 BC – AD 1850, the Southwest Asian c 2700 – 1500 BC, the Northeast African c. 2625-1500 BC. The Northeast African and Southwest Asian systems and sequences merged c. 1500 BC to form the Central system. A previous article has coded this system from 1500 BC to 700 BC (Wilkinson, 2004), and previous papers have examined the system from AD 1200 to date. In the current paper, the Central system’s power structure is coded at 10-year intervals 1100-1200. The century is entirely multipolar. This paper continues work in the making and analysis of data sequences for the power structures of world systems which has been previously published or presented to WHS sessions at ISA. The concept of the civilization/world system as fundamentally a politicomilitary network of cities (hence also a “civilization”), containing a plurality of cultures, polities and “identities,” and contained in a wider, more loosely linked world-economy or “oikumene,” has been previously developed (1992, 1993) and will not be elaborated here. Similarly, the “Central” world system, the specific target of this study, has been elsewhere (1987) identified and bounded, and thereby distinguished from its neighbors (with which it converged and merged in the modern era), such as the West African, East Asian, Indic and other world system; accordingly, only a brief discussion of boundary-drawing and of the 12th century boundaries of the Central system will be provided here SPATIAL BOUNDARIES OF THE CENTRAL CIVILIZATION/WORLD SYSTEM DURING THE 12TH CENTURY For the purposes of power structure analysis, which necessarily focuses upon politico-military networks (PMNs) and the interactions of the Powers therein, the spatial boundaries of a “world system” must be determined by the intensity of politico-military interactions between nodal points. Given that we begin examination of a PMN at the western fringe of the northwest sector of the continental Old World (e.g. Britain, France, Iberia, Morocco), it will readily be seen when we construct (below) a narrative of politico-military transactions that in the 12th century all of “Europe” --the northern fringe (Norway, Sweden, the Baltic lands), Central Europe, Italy, Eastern Europe with the Slavic lands, the Balkans—is part of the same system. So are North Africa and Egypt, Anatolia and Syria, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, northern Arabia, Iran, and even western Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea (spoken of here as the “East End” of the Central system during the period under study). THE CODING PROCESS Power configurations in the Central system were coded at 10-year intervals from AD 1100 to 1200. A narrative of political-power behavior was first constructed, and broken down by decades, so that the information provided for each decade describes such power behavior during that time period, and implies the coding, or change of coding, of the systemwide structure of power at the end of the decade; the coding applies, not to the entire decade, but to the single year by which it is dated. The codings employed were: nonpolarity, multipolarity, tripolarity, bipolarity, unipolarity (non-hegemonic), hegemony, and empire. A "nonpolarity" coding would be rejected for any period in which no "great power" behavior is detected. An "empire" coding is rejected for any period in which the vast majority of the system's territory and population is not under the control of a single centralized state. The historical narratives of great power interaction provide the evidence for distinguishing the other five "intermediate" codings of multipolarity, tripolarity, bipolarity, unipolarity and hegemony. A "hegemonic" coding would be produced by e.g. a single state making a claim that the rest acknowledged its supremacy, but only if such a solitary claim were combined with tributary, placatory, submissive, followership behaviors on the part of other states, especially former great powers. Where two or more states assert and evince such spheres of influence, of comparable dimensions, bipolar, tripolar and multipolar codings are appropriate, depending upon the numbers of such states and spheres. Evidence of non-hegemonic unipolarity would be found where e.g. only a single state makes supremacy claims, and manages to extend its sphere of influence disproportionately to that of any other state, but its claims are nonetheless resisted or ignored by many other states. Even without any explicit diplomatic or monumental claim, the recorded sphere and results of politico-military operations provides significant evidence of the relative status of states at various moments in the system's history. States become relevant to the power-structure coding process when they appear in the histories, ordinarily first in the histories of already established great powers, especially their neighbors, and cease to be relevant when they disappear from such histories, even their own. This is especially true of the "great powers" upon whose existence and relations the "intermediate" codings most depend. The general procedure adopted in this section is to provide a decade by decade historical recapitulation of the power politics of the Central world system (wars, domination, rivalry, rebellion). This narrative is used to derive a coding for the system's power structure at intervals of a decade. THE FIELD OF ACTION AND SYSTEM STRUCTURE OF THE CENTRAL SYSTEM IN AD 1100 (T.A. Lessman; not to scale) AD 1100 is in two ways idiosyncratic. There is a remarkable number of small powers worth mentioning because a few (Aragon, Venice, Serbia) will rise to greater stature, while many others will become targets of expansion or objects of contention (e.g. the Anatolian emirates and Levantine Crusader states). And there are a fair number of large states which will pass through rapid cycles of strength and weakness, into and out of great power status, by reason of intermittent paralysis caused by succession struggles and civil strife.