The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a good model of this trend, I think. They had a large territory, with many languages, relgions and ethnic identities. It held together reasonably well while control was broad but not deep. In the 1800's, in the post-Napoleonic era, control tightened which set off revolutions (notably 1848) which caused the empire to exert even more control and institute widespread use of secret police. It was nothing but a steady decline from that point, until the Balkan Crisis in 1914 exploded and the resulting war swept the empire away.
Broad control worked for them. Depth of control was too much for them to handle with such a large and diverse territory.
A perfect example of this is michelle obama’s school lunch program, a one size fits all solution to a problem that helps no one, will NOT solve the problem, and is actually harmful to those who are forced to endure it.