America: An Empire?

I participated in a very lively debate yesterday during my Introduction to World Politics course about the question of whether the United States can be characterized as an empire or not; the alternative being a hegemonic power. Several students took either position, citing examples as far reaching as the war in Iraq to McDonald's in East Asia to bolster their positions. The consensus settled on by the class, which coincides with my personal opinion, is that America cannot be described as an empire in the classical sense of the word but nevertheless acts with imperialistic tendencies in its foreign policy.

In order to truly break down the debate on both sides, one must first define what is meant by the term empire. In the traditional usage of the word, empire implies certain criteria that set it apart from other similar political systems. First and foremost, an empire has a spatial component to it: a territorial empire must span a conquered geographic area in which certain territories are peripheral to a core geographic area where political and economic power reside. Secondly, an empire explicitly wields political and economic power over the territories which it governs.

Colonial empires such as the British or Ottoman all had explicitly territorial ambitions. These were formal political systems in which several nations submitted to the political rule of another, more powerful nation; most often in pursuit of economic benefit. In September 2004, then U.S. Secretary of Defense stated that the United States was not imperialistic and never had been. I believe that the majority of US citizens would agree that the United States is not an empire and does not seek to become a territorial power. Being the undisputed hegemon of the world, the US does have to answer whether its activities have imperial overtones, and whether in fact the US is a new kind of empire.