Power and Space II: Maintaining Control
Power and Space II: Maintaining Control
Maintaining control once it had been established required rulers to pre-empt or suppress indigenous revolts, defend their frontiers against external threats, and prevent regional commanders, administrators, or elites breaking away from central control. The complexities of frontier defence reflected the ambiguous and unstable character of frontiers as geographical and sociological entities. For most of history, the object of control was demographic space: what mattered were population, resources, and communication networks and such physical spaces as these occupied, rather than physical space as such. The spatial extent of a ruler’s control was defined by the two dimensions of breadth and depth. Maintaining the breadth of control meant securing the frontiers against external attack and preventing regions inside the frontiers from breaking away. The spatial depth of control reflected the ability of rulers and their provincial subordinates to exercise systematic coercion across the land area contained within their frontiers.
Keywords: maintaining control, indigenous revolt, frontier, external threat, frontier defence, demographic space
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