Wars and State-Making Reconsidered - The Rise of the Developmental State*

Abstract

This article argues that the term “fiscal-military state” is a misnomer, particularly when applied to one of the paradigmatic cases of early modern state formation, Britain. Britain devoted a significantly smaller proportion of government revenues to military expenses than any other European state. Moreover, its overall expenditure included important non-military elements and massive investment in colonial development, a fact that standard accounts fail to take into consideration. The existing fiscal historiography also ignores large swaths of other types of state activity. Finally, the article argues that the British state—and quite probably other early modern states—was not forged in warfare. If war did not make the British state, this would explain why the British state was less narrowly focused on making war.