College students protest against West Pakistan’s ‘discriminatory attitude’ towards Bengali culture at a rally in Dhaka, 1953

For much of human history, emperors, kings and aristocrats have ruled the world, and these monarchies and empires have differed as greatly in their exercise of power and state organisation as they have in their ideologies and cultures. Persian monarchs, for instance, were non-hereditary, arbitrary and theocratic. Chinese emperors, on the other hand, were bureaucratic, humanistic and ideological. Russian kings were absolutists and autocratic; South Asian rulers were authoritarian, arbitrary and chaotic. Europe had feudal monarchs backed by powerful aristocracies and supported by the clergy. In all these cases, without exception, the rulers were unelected.

In terms of administrative structures and state organisation, these unelected rulers followed two broad models: the continental bureaucratic state and the state of laws. Old World Empires: Cultures of Power and Governance in Eurasia is an attempt to analyse the historical experiences of exercise of power and governance in different regions and across a wide span of time. The author, Ilhan Niaz, looks at the ruling classes of India, China, Persia, Europe, Turkey, Russia, Japan and the United Kingdom from a historical perspective in order to provide insights about the similarities and differences between the South Asian culture of power and governance and that of other countries.

The author focuses on the state as the basic structure or unit of his analysis and points out that, historically, the continental bureaucratic state has fared better than the state of laws in the exercise of power and in administering governance. The continental bureaucratic state is a complex of administrative hierarchy that culminates in a master or sovereign. The basic organising principle for such a state is that the territory and the people it governs are the property of the ruler. As instruments of legitimisation, this type of state uses religion or ideology through official intelligentsia and the clergy. The idea behind seeking philosophical or divine legitimacy is to keep rulers above the law as well as above the people they govern. On the other hand, the state of laws does not create a hierarchical societal structure; no one, including the ruler, is above the law, and the intellectual establishment is autonomous of the ruler’s control. Such a state comprises autonomous institutions which interact with each other and require considerable persuasive skills, popularity and wisdom to lead the society. The state structure in this model is a combination of private property, limited bureaucratic control and autonomous institutions. Decisions in a state of laws are made through institutions, not through the decree of an individual.

Though it may sound counter-intuitive to readers raised on a steady diet of democratic ideals and principles such as the rule of law, the continental bureaucratic state has been the most successful state in history as far as exercise of power and governance are concerned. In the Eurasian region, which is the focus of Ilhan Niaz’s research, all the major empires adopted some type of hierarchical configuration that operated through bureaucratic control and ideological or divine sanction. All the major empires discussed in the book – India, China, Persia, Europe, Ottoman Turkey, Russia, Japan and the UK – have implemented this model, almost always successfully. India, China and Persia had bureaucratic states which followed the continental tradition in its true letter and spirit whereas Europe went through a series of fluctuations, alternating between a bureaucratic state and a state of laws during different periods of its history.

Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, however, presented the most successful variant of the bureaucratic state, incorporating many features of the Persian and Chinese traditions and infusing them with a bureaucratic system of its own. That explains why the Ottomans were arguably one of the longest and most successful dynasties in the world. The book, therefore, devotes quite a lot of space to a discussion and analysis of Turkey under the Ottomans and after. Its detailed account sheds light on the origins of Turkish nationalism as well as reasons for Turkey’s desire to join the European Union through a process of secularisation, industrialisation and democratisation — all features of a state of laws.

Russia is another great power of the past which, quite like modern Turkey, is seeking to restore its lost glory. While it competed for international hegemony with other European powers throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, it is now facing a great deal of political and administrative difficulty during its transition towards becoming a state of laws.

The process of secularisation, industrialisation and democratisation has not been an easy and linear one anywhere in the world, even in continental Europe which today offers some of the best illustrations of a state of laws. Since after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, when the concept of a nation-state system emerged, secular democratic institutions have faced many hurdles in their evolution. The old ruling classes everywhere have created hindrances for emerging new classes. Wherever the new classes have supplanted the old ones, the process has, in fact, taken many centuries to complete.

By integrating the historical experiences of governance in eight different centres of civilisations, the author has made a valiant attempt to broaden the analytic and interpretive framework for the exercise of power and governance. The book’s main contribution, therefore, lies in that it provides a huge amount of historical detail and perspective to policymakers today so that they are able to understand the complex phenomenon of governance.

Those who want to – or are required to – govern others, must first know how governance evolved and was enforced in the past. The knowledge of history, after all, always provides depth, breadth and direction to our perspective about the past and our direction for the future. Political geography, similarly, helps in understanding region-specific trends and traditions which could be helpful in devising policies that are organic to the political history and the societal requirements of each region.

These trends and traditions, in their very early manifestations, were rooted in geography and environment. The challenges posed by nature – whether in terms of terrain or in terms of climate – were major factors in why states and their institutions have evolved differently in different regions of the world. Early state structures and administrative patterns resulted from the requirements to sustain and expand societies. Natural factors, therefore, constitute the primordial causes for what happened later.

As a society grows in numbers, its needs also grow — as do the requirements to create administrative structures and organising principles and ideologies to cater to those growing numbers and needs. As these numbers and needs start throwing up complex challenges, the simple solutions that once worked no longer remain effective. Complex problems require complex solutions. This is where Niaz’s research and analysis come in handy: they produce a detailed narrative of what worked in the past and what did not — how, why and where.

One of the main conclusions that the book seems to draw is that states based on those cultures of power which follow a continental bureaucratic model are extremely resilient. The main reason for their resilience is the concentration of all power in the executive which operates through appointed servants of the state and enjoys unquestioned claims to sovereignty. Another conclusion, which is derived from the first, is that arbitrary cultures of power are highly likely to be immune to changes. The state of laws, on the other hand, is a fragile plant that takes a long time to nurture and can be uprooted fairly easily — even in the contemporary world.

The author also busts the myth that the same kind of economic developments can create the same kind of state structures and institutions everywhere. That industrialisation will, on its own, make every part of the world as democratic and free as the West has become is a fantasy, writes Niaz. For democracy to take root in countries such as Pakistan, industrialisation has to be accompanied by a humanistic regard for the local culture and the social needs and aspirations of the people.

As a postcolonial state, Pakistan inherited its civil bureaucracy from the British Empire. Instead of taking measures to develop the statebuilding process, the bureaucracy superficially tried to control the newly independent state without an in-depth understanding of the people living in it. The result was extremely negative. One of the first issues that arose was a conflict over language: when the state imposed Urdu as the national language, people in East Pakistan rejected it. The bureaucratic actions ended up creating a gulf between the state and society, leading to a disintegration of Pakistan in 1971. Even in the post-1971 scenario, the bureaucratic mindset refused to change. The bureaucrats formulated policies that perpetuated state-society fissures, mainly because they were unable to unlearn what they had been taught at their British-era training academies.

Old World Empires reminds us that a state collapses if it remains impervious to the needs and aspirations of its people. There are several examples of this: the rule of law; a judicious use of authority; a system of checks and balances; a functional, pro-people democratic set-up and finally, a conscious understanding of history collectively guarantee that a state will prosper and endure.

Niaz’s book is an excellent academic and scholarly work. It will be useful for students of social sciences, in general, and those who want to understand the working of state institutions, in particular. By looking at how the Eurasian elites functioned, the book provides insights into the mind of Pakistan’s ruling establishment.

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This was originally published in Herald's March 2015 issue. To read more, subscribe to Herald in print.