ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the political decision-making process and the modernisation of the state apparatus during the 19th century. It discusses the legal capacity of the states which acted either as a constraint on policymakers or enabled them to pursue and enforce a certain set of economic decisions. At the beginning of the 19th century, the region was divided up among the Austrian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Empire. The late 19th century and the remaining time up to the war saw a rise in protectionism, a growing share of state ownership in infrastructure, and a growing government share in gross domestic product (GDP). In Russia, where serfs belonged either to the state or to private persons and accounted for more than half the population at the beginning of the 19th century, the emancipation of state serfs started in the 1840s, and that of serfs in the private sector followed in 1861.
