State Capacity and the Rise of the Modern Nation State with Mark Koyama

Garrett Petersen and Mark Koyama discuss the rise of modern nation-states in various regions, and why some states developed more state capacity than others going into the twentieth century on this episode of Economics Detective Radio. They discuss Europe’s transition away from a feudal system ruled in a decentralized way by monarchs who held power based on their personal relationships with local lords, the development of state capacity in Asia, and why Meiji Japan was able to develop its state capacity much faster than Qing Dynasty China.