The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe c.1200–1815

Fiscal states in sub-Saharan Africa: conceptualization and empirical trends

“…The body of literature on fiscal states within the field of economic history is substantial (e.g., Bonney 1999;Dincecco 2011;Johnson and Koyama 2014;O'Brien 2011;Yun-Casalilla 2012), but despite prolific application of the term and continuous discussion of 'the fiscal state in Africa' (Albers et al 2020;Frankema and Booth 2019;Moore 2021;Waris 2018) there is little focus on (re)assessing and (re)defining the concept as it has entered new realms. Few scholars have directly examined whether states in low-income countries have developed from tax states (provided that they qualified as such-that is, are able to extract and collect taxes from citizens) to fiscal states.…”

“…Taxation is intimately linked with state-building. Fiscal sociology has produced many historical analytical narratives that describe the concurrent political and economic processes that led to the emergence of the fiscal state (Bonney 1999;He 2013;O'Brien 2011;O'Brien and Hunt 2007;Yun-Casalilla 2012). Schumpeter's (1918Schumpeter's ( [1954) seminal work 'The Crisis of the Tax State' marked the advent of the fiscal sociology literature.…”

“…Combined, governments' capacity to borrow, their power to tax, and the interaction between taxation and loan constraints became central to the powers of the modern state (Bonney 1999).…”

“…To illustrate, the search in Scopus on 'fiscal state*' produced 1,258 1 search results, which were reduced to 190 sources after our reference searches. However, most of these do not engage the fiscal state concept analytically, but refer more or less in passing to 'the rise of the fiscal state' literature, including references such as Bonney (1999), O'Brien (2011), Yun-Casalilla (2012), He (2013), and Torres Sánchez (2007. For the review of fiscal state understandings, we rely only on sources that apply the concept in a manner in which attributes can be discerned.…”

Recaudación de rentas, control contable y ejecución del gasto

“…El éxito indiscutible del planteamiento británico, organizado teóricamente alrededor del concepto de Estado fiscal-militar -basado en el incremento de la eficiencia en la recaudación de rentas y en la ejecución del gasto para alcanzar con ello los objetivos militares del Estado-, contribuyó a extender sus principios como objeto de deseo común para todas las monarquías europeas del Antiguo Régimen. Progresivamente, en la mayor parte de los casos nacionales, se asistiría al proceso irrefrenable de su imposición en la práctica durante distintas fases del siglo XVIII e incluso a principios del XIX (Bonney, 1999;Storrs, 2008;Bowen et al, 2013: 239-274). La formación de los Estados fiscales de la Edad Moderna aparece entonces como el resultado de este tipo de presiones, que tampoco son exclusivas, pues se combinan con la búsqueda de nuevos recursos, la expansión comercial u otros fines distintos a la guerra (Yun-Casalilla y O'Brien, 2012).…”