How big can a space empire get?

In a world where travel is limited to the speed of light, reaching a different star, while not necessarily impossible, would be very time consuming. For an empire stretching across several solar systems, which has a centralized source of political power, this would pose a huge problem.

So here is my question, how could an empire maximize its size and how big could it possibly get without collapsing?

You may assume that this universe obeys to all of Einstein's laws (including time dilation while travelling, which is likely the most relevant effect) and that travelers can reach over 99% of c. There are a few factors that tie in here, what I would be interested in is an answer that answers how these various factors can be used to determine a likely maximum size.

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How big can a space empire get?

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