Why did large, well-established empires like the russian and the ottoman empires struggle with the forces of modernity, while a small, secluded island nation like japan seemed to adapt so quickly and successfully?

There were numerous reasons as to why so large, well-established empires like the Russian and the Ottoman Empires were not able to quickly adapt and modernize in the way that much smaller nations did.

For starters, these two empires had very large territories. The vast territories meant that the laws and the modernization can not be implemented very well in all parts of the empire. Also, big problem was that in the borders of these empires lived people from lot of different ethnic and religious groups, which was largely making them empires where the people were not united, had different points of view, and different goals.

Japan on the other hand, is much smaller. The population of this nation had the same ethnic, religious, and cultural background, thus the nation was united in all aspects. That led to easy transformation and modernization of the society without any particular problems.

for starters, there is the structural trend of rising primary government expenditure as a share of gdp, which reached 36% in 2014, up from 22% in 1991. this increase reflected a political desire to address the poverty and inequality that had gone unaddressed during previous decades. to support the increase, brazil’s government increased taxes on consumption and promoted progress toward labor-market formalization. nonetheless, public investment, particularly in infrastructure, took a hit. in fact, with the exception of the 2005-2008 period, total investment as a share of gdp has remained below 20% since 1991.

a, he promoted disarmament