Recent scholarship has pointed out that the diffusion of nationalism is a global transformation steered by empires to consolidate and camouflage their power. This essay argues that empires strategically foster nationalism, but struggle to overcome the intrinsic tensions between maintaining imperial structure and building nation-states. Thus, empires’ behaviors associated with their fostering of nationalism lapsed into multiple levels that demanded different commitment and resources. Empires were eager to weaponize nationalist movements to weaken their geopolitical rivals, but were less interested in creating nation-states, and in general lacked motivation to sponsor nation-building for formerly oppressed nations. The tensions between maintaining imperial structures and fostering nationalism also bred empires’ internal reforms and competition among empires. Conservative empires were more reluctant and incapable of engaging with nationalism. The inter-empire competition caused the conventional formal empires to lose power to new hegemons that openly negated the political format of empire. Fostering nationalism also yielded consequences empires had not anticipated, which facilitated the global proliferation and empowerment of nationalism.
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