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SUMMARY:‘The Evolution of State Capacity in Early Modern Empires: The Mu
 ghal South Asian case 1556-1707’ - Dr Safya Morshed (Universidad Carlos 
 III de Madrid)
DTSTART:20260223T170000Z
DTEND:20260223T183000Z
UID:TALK243499@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Gareth Austin
DESCRIPTION:Title of the Book: Devolutionary Empire: Demystifying State F
 ormation in Mughal South Asia 1556-1707\nAbstract:\nEconomic historians ha
 ve long studied the impact of conflict on state formation\, yet the precol
 onial Indian subcontinent has received considerably less attention in this
  field\, and our understanding of non-colonial institutional paths of stat
 e development are limited. Through the lens of conflict\, this book studie
 s the Mughal empire to show a dynamic and localised institutional structur
 e which was less rigid than in other regions. The book demonstrates that t
 he Mughal government was under constant internal pressure which increased 
 significantly over the course of the 17th century. It shows that the Mugh
 al state’s institutions were designed to be flexible where the state str
 ucture changed significantly over the seventeenth century. The analysis de
 monstrates increasingly larger conflicts saw not a centralisation of the s
 tate\, but a localisation in the face of high administrative costs. A key 
 finding of the text is how pre-existing cultural and environmental diversi
 ty influenced the broader institutional development of government.\n  
   Chapter 5 of the book (on which the presentation is based) studies t
 he Mughal state’s personnel employment and recruitment practices and how
  this changed over the course of the dynasty. Using a dataset of over 10\,
 000 Mughal government appointments\, the chapter shows that the Mughal gov
 ernment went through a phenomenal restructuring over the course of the sev
 enteenth century. Whilst the total number of recorded officials seemed to 
 increase almost exponentially\, the total expenditure on Mughal officials 
 did not. Further analysis of the data demonstrates that the Mughal governm
 ent began hiring localised officials who were better equipped to manage th
 e disturbances ongoing in the regions where they were based. In the face o
 f conflict\, it is shown that the Mughal government did not centralise but
  rather decentralised as a mechanism of devolving control to decrease expe
 nses and increase administrative capacity. The chapter considers the benef
 its of centralisation relative to localisation (incorporation of local act
 ors into the state’s apparatus) to create a permeable institutional conn
 ection with local populations and societies\, hire skilled state officials
  and increase the administrative capacity of the state.
LOCATION:Audit Room\, King's College\, Cambridge: to receive zoom link ple
 ase subscribe at https://lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscribe/history-global-ec
 onomic-history at https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/event-series/global-economic-
 history
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