Greed and Contingency: State Fiscal Crises and Imperial Failure in Early Modern Europe1
Why do states lose the capacity to finance the expansionist military policies, economic development strategies, or domestic spending initiatives they once supported? The path‐dependent models offered by fiscal‐military, rational choice, and geopolitical theorists are evaluated in comparison with an elite conflict model of contingent historical change. The latter model is found to be better able to explain territorial and fiscal stagnation and decline as well as imperial expansion in the cases of early modern Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Britain.