Suchergebnisse

One of the mainstays of political sociology and political science for generationshas been debate about the conditions under which onepolicy regime—that is, a distinct mix of public policies—is replaced by another. For instance, a vast literature seeks to identify the factors that caused the shift from orthodox to Keynesian policy regimes in the United States and Europe after the Second World War, as well as the shift during the 1980s to more conservative neoliberal policy regimes (e.g., Campbell 1998; Gourevitch 1986; Hall 1989, 1992;Weir and Skocpol 1985). Similarly, scholars have argued about whether the process through which regime shifts occur is a slow and incremental one, driven by bureaucratic inertia, muddling through, and path-dependent constraints, or a rapid and abrupt one, sparked by cataclysmic events like war that trigger sharp breaks with past policies (e.g., Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Hall 1993; Krasner 1984; Lindblom 1959; Pierson 1993, 1994). Regime shifts have also captured the imagination of historical sociologists who have recognized that history is marked by critical turning points that differentiate among relatively stable time periods and that this requires scholars to carefully identify historically specific patterns among variables (Abbott 1988, 1992, 1997; Isaac 1997).

Despite recent developments in "fiscal sociology" (i.e. the sociological analysis of taxation and public finances), few efforts have been made to synthesize scholarly developments in the field. This is particularly surprising because much of the literature on the determinants of taxation bears directly on the debates in political sociology about the social, political, institutional, and other determinants of government policy. This essay reviews and integrates the literature on tax policy formation and relates it to these general debates. It also explores some of the important but often neglected effects that taxation has on such phenomena as political revolution, state building, economic organization, labor force participation, and philanthropy. Thus, this essay demonstrates the significance and reviews recent developments in fiscal sociology.

The state has different institutional capacities for providing finance capital to industrial sectors in different countries. This helps to explain the commercial nuclear energy sector's collapse in the United States and its success in France. Argues that to understand the state's ability to plan industrial development an analysis of its control over the processes of both internal and external capital formation is required. (Original abstract--Amended)