Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation in Brazil and South Africa

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Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation in Brazil and South Africa. By Evan S. Lieberman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 344p. $75.00 cloth, $24.99 paper.

Evan Lieberman has produced a first-rate work of comparative political economy. Just as importantly, he has done so by going boldly (and engagingly) where so few have gone before—into the tax state. Given how critical the capacity of a state to tax economic elites is to the provision of public goods, redistribution, and the promotion of development in general, it is indeed shocking to realize just how little attention this question has received from political scientists (there being as always some notable exceptions). Lieberman sets out to correct this gap not only by carefully and meticulously defining and measuring different tax states but also by providing a rich historical and comparative account of the rise and consolidation of the two very different tax states of South Africa and Brazil.