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This chapter challenges the neoliberal-influenced conceptualization of “the state,” whose society-centered assumptions dominated postcommunist studies to the detriment of the early research agenda. As an alternative, it proposes a state-centered approach based on Schumpeterian fiscal sociology and Tillyesque political development. The chapter begins with an overview of the neoliberal paradigm's basic assumptions about human nature, society, and the state. It then considers the critique of neoliberalism, focusing on one conceptual alternative to the neoliberal state: the “captured state.” It also discusses the political economy approach to taxation in postcommunist states and compares it with the political institutions approach, the political culture approach, and the political development approach. Finally, it explains the assumptions of fiscal sociology as a framework for understanding the origin and character of the postcommunist state.

This chapter examines what it calls “new deliberative assemblies” carried out by state-level government agencies from the perspective of fiscal sociology. In particular, it conceptualizes the new deliberative assemblies as a form of consultation between states and citizens by focusing on the case of California in the late twentieth century. After discussing the paradox of participation, the chapter considers the fiscal sociology of consultation. It then describes anticipatory consultation and innovative forms of consultation and goes on to explore the impact of fiscal bargains struck in the Progressive Era on the evolution of consultation in California and New York. It also looks at the Great Consultation and the fiscal theory of democratization and concludes by assessing the implications of new deliberative assemblies for public participation.

This book examines the competition between postcommunist states and societal actors over the redistribution of capital and coercion. Focusing on Poland and Russia, it considers the process whereby power, after the collapse of communism, was forced to devise new means of accessing wealth, which, in turn, affected state–society relations. Poland and Russia began the transition from similar starting points but soon ended up on different transition paths, leading to different postcommunist places. Drawing on fiscal sociology, the book explains this divergence by analyzing the interconnected stages of state building. Topics range from the comparative politics of taxation to the systemic fiscal crisis that triggered communism's collapse, the politics of tax reform, how the state interacted with society in the transitional tax regime, state fiscal capacity, and the reconfiguration of state–society relations.

This chapter discusses the case of the United States in the 19th century, as part of a more general investigation of how the boundaries that define creditworthiness are delineated in democratic regimes. At the time, the creditworthiness of U.S. citizens was assessed and conceptualized on an individual basis, but this was a political construction, deriving from the nature of the polity, which was decentralized. As a consequence of political decentralization, and specifically fiscal decentralization, bankers strived to gain the support of local political authorities to construct boundaries around the allocation of credit which could be attached to sound banking. In the states of the North, where state governments were democratic, this dynamic was very different than in the states of the South, where relationships between banks and state authorities, relationships grounded in the slave economy, were more exclusionary.