A Phantom State, or an Imaginary Empire ("Northern" motives)

The article deal with an important and, as it still appears to be, an actual problem of the Imperial State Form of Government. In historical retrospect the author considers the main aspects and tendencies inherent in both the very idea of the imperial form of government and the methods of its implementation. He makes detailed analyses of such a historical and legal phenomenon as "Nomos of the Empire", its legal and institutional substance and process. The Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and other imperial formations amounted to a uniform phenomenon in the political and legal history of Europe. Unlike an ancient Polis or City-State, which existed in a confined space, an Empire is aimed at infinity and is unwilling to accept solid borders. Given that, its origins were found in the localized units such as "family", "home", "yard," etc., "a state" being the largest of them. A territorial and national character of the State stood in the way of unlimited ambitions of the Empire. Here two principles collided - locality and expansion. At the legal level this collision resulted in the struggle of sovereignties, the Empire rejected sovereignties as well as territorial boundaries. An imperial idea prevailed over real relationships in politics demonstrating a powerful volitional impulse and spatial passionarity. The Imperial Nomos was not only a form of law-making, it combined in itself the normative features and elements of decisionism and imperativeness, and this inevitably led to a revival of authoritarian and dictatorial forms of government: "the Empire cannot be weak." The complexity of the Imperial form of government prevents attributing the Empire to forms of Government, forms of a state structure or political regimes. However, this form retains its relevance and effectiveness s far.

Empire, locus, rule, law, power, legitimacy, State, monarchy, democracy, sovereignty, estate, political myth, dynasty, legality

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