State (de-)formation in practice: Bohemian fiscal-financial arrangements during the war of the Spanish succession

Abstract

This essay focuses on the consequences of fiscal-financial arrangements during the War of the Spanish Succession. Using the example of Bohemia in the Habsburg monarchy, I demonstrate that taxation and borrowing had integrative as well as disintegrative consequences, which come into view only from a perspective outside the court and when reconstructed from below the social elites. This essay’s focus on local actors and regional interlinkages offers new insights and a complementary perspective to the established field of state formation.