State-Building and Tax Regimes in Central America. By Aaron Schneider. (Cambridge University Press, 2012.)

2014 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. E8
Author(s):  
Hillel David Soifer
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
State Building ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Tax Regimes

State-Building and Tax Regimes in Central America. By Aaron Schneider. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 260p. $90.00.

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1144-1146
Author(s):  
Gerald M. Easter
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Central America ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Charles Tilly ◽  
Tax Regimes ◽  
The Status

After a long period waiting in the wings, the Fisc (the state treasury, or the larger system of public finance) has returned to center stage in comparative politics. During this time, fiscal sociologist Joseph Schumpeter was more likely to be cited for his “creative destruction” thesis, than for his “crisis of the tax state” analysis. While the “return to the state” dates back to the late 1970s, it still took another decade before taxation became a monograph headliner, with influential works by Margaret Levi (Of Rule and Revenue, 1988), Charles Tilly (Coercion, Capital and European States: AD 990–1992, 1992) and Sven Steinmo (Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State, 1996). Since then, tax policy and extractive capacity have increasingly come to be recognized by comparativists as central to state-building projects, thus confirming Edmund Burke's old adage that “the revenue of the state is the state.” As part of this fiscal revival in comparative politics, Aaron Schneider has rightfully earned the status as leading expert on Central America with his new book, State-Building and Tax Regimes in Central America.

Response to Gerald M. Easter's review of State-Building and Tax Regimes in Central America

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1146-1146
Author(s):  
Aaron Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Central America ◽  
State Building ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Central Americans ◽  
North Americans ◽  
Fiscal Sociology ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Tax Regimes ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
Core Points

This valuable review of my book identifies core points and three potential areas of deepening: newly emerging elites, additional cases, and the challenge of fiscal sociology research in Central America. I address each in turn. As noted, contemporary elites share many characteristics with traditional elites, who are accurately described as incestuous, exclusive, and self-perpetuating. Some of the newly emerging elites are indeed drawn from the very families and networks that produced prior generations of elites. This evolution has been usefully described in ethnographic work by Central Americans such as Marta Casaús Arzú and North Americans such as Jeffrey Paige. They note that despite continuities, there are important differences in contemporary elites, perhaps because of the democratic regimes in which they operate, and especially because of their location atop transnationally integrated production processes. Still, while this structural position produces both conflicts and coincidences of interest with traditional elite actors, the precise pattern of intraelite relations is the outcome of contingent social processes captured by the dimensions of cohesion and dominance. Different combinations of cohesion and dominance in intraelite relations serve as a useful beginning to the analysis of tax-regime outcomes.

scholarly journals The T-shaped “axe” from Northeast Honduras: Observations on chronology and function of a pre Columbian stone tool

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Healy ◽  
Daniel Savage
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Central America ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
University Museum ◽  
And Function ◽  
Bay Islands

This paper provides a description and analysis of a distinctive type of pre-Columbian stone tool, usually termed a T-shaped axe, found almost exclusively in Northeast Honduras, Central America. There have been very few detailed or technical studies of lithics from Honduras. Early archaeological research and the current understanding of the regional prehistory are included, with Northeast Honduras viewed as a frontier zone located between the Mesoamerican and Isthmo-Columbian culture areas. Our study examines, in particular, a collection of these tools curated today at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA). The 39 (whole and fragmentary) specimens were collected between 1937 and 1939, from the Bay Islands, Northeast Honduras, but have never been published. This paper classifies the collection specimens into five varieties, based on morphology, with sample statistics, form dimensions, and illustrations provided for each. Manufacturing technology is primarily percussion flaking. The tool type is compared with similar specimens excavated and described from the Bay Islands and adjacent Honduran mainland, and with similar appearing implements from elsewhere in Central America. Insights about the possible age and function of these unusual, and distinctive, lithics are included. Based on preliminary macroscopic and microscopic analyses, it is concluded that the tools may have been employed as agricultural implements (hoes or spades), primarily for digging activities, rather than as axes or weapons used for cutting and slicing. It is most likely that these implements first appeared about 800 CE, and continued in use until at least 1400 CE. The tool type is most probably a local (not imported) product. More functional analysis is encouraged.

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