The Financial History of War and Peace
How are wars financed, and how do wartime fiscal arrangements shape post-war political and economic orders? Recent geopolitical developments and rising tensions between global powers have put these questions back at the forefront of the policy agenda.
These questions have also long been central to economic and financial history. From the rise of the military-fiscal state in the early modern period to the financing of the World Wars, reparations, and the financial reconstruction of postwar economies, scholars have shown that war and peace both shape and are shaped by fiscal systems, public debt, monetary regimes, and international financial arrangements. In the current geopolitical context, there is a need to revisit these questions and to develop new historically grounded perspectives on the financial dimensions of war and peace and their long-term political and economic consequences.
This workshop, organised by the LSE Financial History Group, brings together researchers working on the financial history of war and peace to examine how fiscal systems and debt operate under conditions of conflict, coercion, and transition, and how they structure political and economic orders.
We welcome contributions addressing any aspect of the relationship between war finance, political order, and long-term economic change, across all historical periods and geographical contexts. We particularly encourage work that bridges eras, questions conventional periodisations of war and peace, or engages perspectives from multiple disciplines, including economic history, history, political science, finance, and economics. Contributions employing a wide range of methodological and theoretical approaches – including both qualitative and quantitative research – are equally welcome.
Proposed papers and presentations may address one or more of the following themese (though submissions are not limited to these topics):
· Military-fiscal states and war finance – Taxation, debt, monetary regimes, and mobilisation in wartime economies; the limits and capacities of states under conditions of war.
· From war to peace – Reparations, fiscal transition, reconstruction finance, debt restructuring, aid, and the reconfiguration of revenue systems, debt regimes, and financial institutions after conflict.
· Colonial and postcolonial fiscal legacies – Imperial war finance, colonial taxation, and the persistence of wartime fiscal structures in postcolonial states.
· Cold War and post-Cold War transformations – Changes in the financing of war and peace across the mid- to late-twentieth century, including the role of international financial institutions, external lending, and new forms of intervention.
· Non-state and hybrid fiscal-military orders – Armed groups, rebel governance, extraction, humanitarian finance, and other forms of war finance that challenge our understanding of fiscal capacity and sovereignty.
· Comparative and global perspectives – Contributions that move beyond single cases to explore broader patterns, divergences, and continuities across regions and periods,
The workshop will take place in-person at the LSE on 19 June 2026. Participants will be asked to circulate short papers or extended abstracts in advance, and presentations on the day will be brief, with ample time reserved for collective discussion.
Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs where possible, using available research funds. Subject to available funding, we anticipate offering travel bursaries to support UK-based and international PhD students and early career researchers. Further details will be provided to successful applicants. Please indicate in your application whether you require financial support to attend the workshop.
Please submit an abstract of 300-500 words, outlining the paper’s central argument, sources, and contribution, by 22 March 2026 using this form: https://forms.gle/FjXbPvf2ouarUKHZA
Accepted participants will be notified by 1 April 2026.
09:00–09:15am: Welcome
09:15–10:45am: Financing wars in Renaissance Europe
Oliver Volckart (LSE), “The Holy Roman Empire at Bay: financing the defence against the Ottomans, c. 1560-1610”
Margherita Criveller (University of Milan), “Political entanglements. A network study on contracts, power, and defection in Renaissance Italy’s warfare market”
10:45–11:00am: Coffee
11:00–12:30pm: The financial consequences of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
Patrick O’Brien (LSE), “Warfare, the British fiscal state, and the Industrial Revolution”
David Teeters (LSE), “Delta: household sector financialisation and the winning British model of war finance”
12:30–1:30pm: Lunch
1:30–3:45pm: War, financial markets, and fiscal capacity in the 19th century
Saumitra Jha (Stanford Graduate School of Business), “Markets under siege: how differences in political beliefs can move financial markets”
Pantelis Kammas (Panteion University), “Mobilization episodes and fiscal capacity: evidence from the 19th century”
Aristeidis Grivokostopoulos (LSE), “From war finance to fiscal supervision: seniority structures and debt restructuring in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Greece, 1870–1907”
3:45–4:00: Coffee
4:00–5:30pm: Banking and finance under the Nazi Occupation
Maylis Avaro (Trinity College Dublin), “Exploiting the war: reforms of the French banking system under the Vichy regime”
Olga Christodoulaki (Independent scholar), “The price of gold in wartime: a barometer of Greek expectations during the Nazi Occupation”
5:30–6:15pm: The fiscal foundations of modern peacebuilding
Matthew Benson-Strohmayer (LSE), “Predatory peace: fiscal statebuilding after the Cold War”
7:15pm: Conference dinner (by invitation)
Organisers: Matthew Benson-Strohmayer, LSE; Olivier Accominotti, LSE; Pamfili Antipa, LSE; Albrecht Ritschl, LSE; and Max-Stefan Schulze, LSE
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