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Different Paths to the Modern State in Europe: The Interaction Between Warfare, Economic Structure, and Political Regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2013

K. KIVANÇ KARAMAN  and
ŞEVKET PAMUK
K. KIVANÇ KARAMAN*
Affiliation:
Boğaziçi University
ŞEVKET PAMUK*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
*
K. Kıvanç Karaman is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul (kivanc.karaman@boun.edu.tr).
Şevket Pamuk is Professor, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (s.pamuk@lse.ac.uk).
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Abstract

Theoretical work on taxation and state-building borrows heavily from early modern European experience. While a number of European states increased centralized tax revenues during this period, for others revenues stagnated or even declined and these variations have motivated alternative arguments for the determinants of fiscal and state capacity. This study reviews the arguments concerning the three determinants that have received most attention, namely warfare, economic structure, and political regime, and tests them by making use of a new and comprehensive tax revenue dataset. Our main finding is that these three determinants worked in interaction with each other. Specifically, when under pressure of war, it was representative regimes in more urbanized-commercial economies and authoritarian regimes in more rural-agrarian economies that tended to better aggregate domestic interests towards state-building.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 107 , Issue 3 , August 2013 , pp. 603 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

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