From Papal Bulls to Policy Briefs: Scriptural Justifications of Empire Across Five Centuries

Résumé

This article reads a long series of documents – from 15th-century Papal Bulls on "discovery" and slavery to contemporary policy briefs on "stability", "governance" and "development" – as a continuous scriptural apparatus of empire. I treat these texts not as transparent descriptions of reality but as ritual instruments that license dispossession.