Taxes as Tools or Threat for Political Elites

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Do elites see taxes and fiscal development as tools to be used and refined or threats that should be deterred and discouraged? In what circumstances are elites able to use fiscal policies to their benefit? And are there differences in elite composition and control that make them more likely to embrace or reject developing the fiscal state? This panel brings together papers that use new cases and sources of data to examine these central questions in a diverse selection of geographical and temporal settings.

Beramendi et al. examine how the composition of economic elites in US states determine variations in fiscal development. Cansunar and Baydar theorize that elites can use fiscal policies to target and weaken minority groups and use rich, historical Turkish data to test this hypothesis. Paulsen turns to variations in suffrage extension and taxation types across Norwegian municipalities to investigate when economic elites are able to limit the fiscal impact of more inclusive political institutions. Ward focuses on the experience of non-elite actors that are faced with a new tax and asks when they are likely to accept or protest such a fiscal evolution.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Chair

• David Stasavage New York University

Discussants

• Pablo Beramendi Duke University

• Lucy E. S. Martin University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Homogenizing the High Street - Berfin Baydar, Duke University; Asli Cansunar, University of Washington

• Intra-elite Competition and Fiscal Development in the U.S. States - Melissa Ziegler Rogers, Claremont Graduate University; Pablo Beramendi, Duke University; Traviss Cassidy, University of Michigan; Mark Dincecco, University of Michigan

• Local Democracy and Taxation Types - Tine N Paulsen, University of Southern California

• “An Affront and Disgrace": The Symbolic Burden of New Taxes - Daisy Ward, University of Texas at Austin