Trajectories of State Transformation in China and Europe: The Significance of Empire, Its Presence or Absence to Explaining the Fiscal Choices of Small States and Empire

This paper suggests that both similarities and differences between Chinese and European states in the twentieth century can be better understood by considering the relevance of “empire” to understanding the challenges faced and capacities developed by states in China and Europe in the preceding thousand years.  The kinds of fiscal policies taken in a commercialized agrarian empire are starkly different from those elaborated in among far smaller states actively seeking to strengthen themselves domestically and to compete with each other.  Neither Chinese nor European trajectories of state transformation are “typical” of the world more generally; instead they represent two different and successful political paths into the twentieth century.