Edgar Kiser
Biographic Data
| ID | 3630264 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Edgar Kiser |
| GIVEN NAMES | Edgar |
| FAMILY NAME | Kiser |
| SIGNATURE | KISER E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Washington |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 542 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1986 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution
Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives
The Bureaucratization of States: Toward an Analytical Weberianism
State coercion, moral attitudes, and tax compliance: Evidence from a national factorial survey experiment of income tax evasion
Emerging Trends in the Political Economy of Taxation
This essay briefly summarizes recent work and suggests future directions in the study of taxation. We analyze the determinants of total tax revenue, tax structure, tax administration, and the relationship between taxation and spending. In the section on total tax revenue, we look at the effects of democracy, debates a possible ceiling on total revenue, and whether less developed and Asian countries will catch up with revenue extraction in the dev…
Legitimate authorities and rational taxpayers: An investigation of voluntary compliance and method effects in a survey experiment of income tax evasion
In order to collect the revenue necessary to fund public goods, a state is often required to both deter tax evasion and encourage voluntary tax compliance on the part of its citizens. While most prior research has focused on explaining tax evasion with standard economic model parameters, there has been growing interest in identifying the determinants of voluntary compliance. We build on this work by proposing a legitimacy-based model of tax compl…
War, Social Causes and Consequences
African Patrimonialism in Historical Perspective: Assessing Decentralized and Privatized Tax Administration
One of the most important political legacies of colonialism in Africa has been the reliance on the model of centralized bureaucratic administration, which has had disastrous consequences for African state-building. Like the colonial systems before them, these centralized bureaucracies have not functioned effectively. One of the main problems is a loose coupling between the formal bureaucratic structure of these states and the informal patrimonial…
Comparative-Historical Methodology in Political Sociology
The Perils of Privatization: How the Characteristics of Principals Affected Tax Farming in the Roman Republic and Empire
Almost all premodern states and empires used privatized tax collection. Roman history is a good research site for the study of tax farming because it provides ample variation on its extent and effectiveness while controlling for many other factors. Tax farming began in the early Republic, was expanded but became more exploitative in the late Republic, and then was abolished for some types of taxes and was more centrally controlled for others in t…
Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade
Mann's microfoundations: Addressing neo-Weberian dilemmas
Most historical sociologists study macro-level outcomes, explain them using macro-level causes, and test their arguments using macro-level data. Although all of these scholars realize that individual action brought about these outcomes, and few believe that these individuals are either just bearers of social structure or cultural dopes, explicit discussions of individual motivation and action are rare in historical sociology.
Reply to Zhao: Early Chinese Bureaucratization in Comparative Perspective: Reply to Zhao
War and Bureaucratization in Qin China: Exploring an Anomalous Case
Why did a partially bureaucratized administrative system develop in Qin China about two millennia before it did in European states? In this paper, comparative historical arguments about war and state-making are combined with agency theory to answer this question. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras that preceded the Qin unification of China created the necessary conditions for bureaucratization by weakening the aristocracy, creating a b…
Taxation and Voting Rights in Medieval England and France
We explore the relationship between voting rights and taxation in medieval England and France. We hypothesize that voting was a wealth-enhancing institution formed by the ruler in order to facilitate profitable joint projects with subjects. We predict when voting rights and tax payments will be linked to each other, as well as to the projects inducing them, and when they will become separated. We classify taxes into three types: customary, consen…
The Hinges of History: State-Making and Revolt in Early Modern France
The formation of early modem states-combining increases in taxation, warfare, and administrative centralization-was often violently opposed by subjects. A game theoretic model of strategic interactions between rulers and subjects is developed to more fully specify the relationship between state-making and revolt in France between 1515 and 1789. Quantitative analyses of revolts throughout France are combined with a brief case study of revolts in G…
Determinants of the Growth of the State: War and Taxation in Early Modern France and England
Although the causal impact of war on state-making in the early modern era is now widely accepted, there is less consensus about the way in which war affects levels of taxation, and the factors that might strengthen or weaken the relationship. Two questions can be posed: Do individual wars produce immediate effects on taxes, or is the cumulative effect of long periods of warfare more important? How do variations in administrative capacity and the …
Revolution and State Structure: The Bureaucratization of Tax Administration in Early Modern England and France
This article explores the relationship between revolution and the bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France. Revolution produces bureaucratization only when the monitoring capacity of states is developed enough to make bureaucratic organization more efficient than alternatives such as tax farming and collection by local notables. As monitoring capacity varies across types of taxes and levels of administration, sta…
Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of Ideology
Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology: An Illustration from State Policy Implementation
As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theor…
The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics
In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the use‐fulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic ap‐proaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify both the causal relations and the causal mechanisms that account for social outcomes. This article offers some philosophical and theo‐retical justifications for the use of general theory in historical analy‐sis and contends that general theory guides …
Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution
The Revival of Narrative in Historical Sociology: What Rational Choice Theory can Contribute
Ruler Autonomy and War in Early Modern Western Europe
Following Kant, many scholars have argued that rulers often benefit more from war than do their subjects, and thus that rulers with more autonomy from subjects will initiate more wars. They usually test this argument by focusing on whether democratic states are less prone to initiate wars than autocracies, and generally find little or no relationship. These are not adequate tests of the general argument, since they turn both ruler autonomy and th…
The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England. Hilton L. Root
The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology
The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years. Arguments against general theoretical models have proliferated, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized. The growing convergence of sociology and history has led to a decline in the use of general theories. This article begins with a description and analys…
The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics
In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the use‐fulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic ap‐proaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify both the causal relations and the causal mechanisms that account for social outcomes. This article offers some philosophical and theo‐retical justifications for the use of general theory in historical analy‐sis and contends that general theory guides …
Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology: An Illustration from State Policy Implementation
As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theor…
War and Bureaucratization in Qin China: Exploring an Anomalous Case
Why did a partially bureaucratized administrative system develop in Qin China about two millennia before it did in European states? In this paper, comparative historical arguments about war and state-making are combined with agency theory to answer this question. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States eras that preceded the Qin unification of China created the necessary conditions for bureaucratization by weakening the aristocracy, creating a b…
Markets and Hierarchies in Early Modern Tax Systems: A Principal-Agent Analysis
Bureaucracy and Efficiency: An Analysis of Taxation in Early Modern Prussia
We use agency theory to analyze the development of the tax collection system in Prussia between 1640 and 1806. The Prussian tax system was one of the most efficient in early modern Europe. Scholars have argued that (1) the Prussian tax administration was highly bureaucratic, and (2) its efficiency was due primarily to its bureaucratic characteristics. We challenge both propositions. We show that the Prussian tax system deviatedfrom the bureaucrat…
The Revival of Narrative in Historical Sociology: What Rational Choice Theory can Contribute
The Hinges of History: State-Making and Revolt in Early Modern France
The formation of early modem states-combining increases in taxation, warfare, and administrative centralization-was often violently opposed by subjects. A game theoretic model of strategic interactions between rulers and subjects is developed to more fully specify the relationship between state-making and revolt in France between 1515 and 1789. Quantitative analyses of revolts throughout France are combined with a brief case study of revolts in G…
Determinants of the Growth of the State: War and Taxation in Early Modern France and England
Although the causal impact of war on state-making in the early modern era is now widely accepted, there is less consensus about the way in which war affects levels of taxation, and the factors that might strengthen or weaken the relationship. Two questions can be posed: Do individual wars produce immediate effects on taxes, or is the cumulative effect of long periods of warfare more important? How do variations in administrative capacity and the …
Revolution and State Structure: The Bureaucratization of Tax Administration in Early Modern England and France
This article explores the relationship between revolution and the bureaucratization of tax administration in early modern England and France. Revolution produces bureaucratization only when the monitoring capacity of states is developed enough to make bureaucratic organization more efficient than alternatives such as tax farming and collection by local notables. As monitoring capacity varies across types of taxes and levels of administration, sta…
Determinants of the Amount and Type of Corruption in State Fiscal Bureaucracies: An Analysis of Late Imperial China
A principal-agent model of relations between rulers and state officials is used to derive several propositions concerning the amount and type of corruption in state bureaucracies. The model is applied to the fiscal bureaucracies of Ming and Qing China, focusing on how problems rulers faced measuring taxable assets and monitoring and sanctioning state tax collectors resulted in a high level of corruption. Attempts by Ming and Qing rulers to reform…
The Origins of Democracy in England
This article uses a rational choice model of the origins of democracy to analyze the political history of medieval England from the Norman conquest to the Hundred Years War. Why did a country just taken over by a ruler more autocratic than his predecessors develop a political system increasingly dominated by the rule of law and protodemocratic institutions? The authors argue that protodemocratic institutions such as the Magna Carta, Parliament, a…
Ruler Autonomy and War in Early Modern Western Europe
Following Kant, many scholars have argued that rulers often benefit more from war than do their subjects, and thus that rulers with more autonomy from subjects will initiate more wars. They usually test this argument by focusing on whether democratic states are less prone to initiate wars than autocracies, and generally find little or no relationship. These are not adequate tests of the general argument, since they turn both ruler autonomy and th…
Could Privatization Increase the Efficiency of Tax Administration in Less‐Developed Countries
In spite of the fact that state tax collection systems in less‐developed countries generally are characterized by high levels of tax evasion and official corruption, little experimentation with privatized tax collection has occurred in these countries. This is due in part to: (1) The fact that the literature on privatization has not focused on tax collection, and (2) the existence of prevalent misconceptions regarding the effects of privatized ta…
Changes in the Core of the World-System and the Production of Utopian Literature in Great Britain and the United States, 1883-1975
This paper explores changes in the number of utopian novels published in Great Britain and the United States between 1883 and 1975 from a world-system perspective. A time-series analysis indicates that the publication of utopian literature was affected by changes in the world economy and by changes in the organization of the core of the world-system. On the basis of these findings, we argue that the world-system perspective represents a promising…
Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of Ideology
Taxation and Voting Rights in Medieval England and France
We explore the relationship between voting rights and taxation in medieval England and France. We hypothesize that voting was a wealth-enhancing institution formed by the ruler in order to facilitate profitable joint projects with subjects. We predict when voting rights and tax payments will be linked to each other, as well as to the projects inducing them, and when they will become separated. We classify taxes into three types: customary, consen…
The Formation of State Policy in Western European Absolutisms: A Comparison of England and France
Rational Choice Versus Cultural Explanations of the Efficiency of the Prussian Tax System
We are told that a people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. I see but one major difficulty with this assumption, namely that a society of true Christians would no longer be a society of men.... Each man would fulfill his duty; the people would be subject to the laws; the leaders would be just and moderate, the magistrates would be upright and incorruptible.... -Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1762]1987:224
Structural Roots of Visions of the Future: World-System Crisis and Stability and the Production of Utopian Literature in the United States, 1883-1975
This paper examines the linkages among the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of the world-system by looking at changes in the publication of two types of utopian novels in the United States. We argue that positive and negative visions of the future (eutopian and dystopian literature, respectively) can be treated as aspects of the ideological dimension of the world-system. As part of such an interrelated system, the volume of utopias…
African Patrimonialism in Historical Perspective: Assessing Decentralized and Privatized Tax Administration
One of the most important political legacies of colonialism in Africa has been the reliance on the model of centralized bureaucratic administration, which has had disastrous consequences for African state-building. Like the colonial systems before them, these centralized bureaucracies have not functioned effectively. One of the main problems is a loose coupling between the formal bureaucratic structure of these states and the informal patrimonial…
What Can Sociological Theories Predict? Comment on Collins, Kuran, and Tilly
Legitimate authorities and rational taxpayers: An investigation of voluntary compliance and method effects in a survey experiment of income tax evasion
In order to collect the revenue necessary to fund public goods, a state is often required to both deter tax evasion and encourage voluntary tax compliance on the part of its citizens. While most prior research has focused on explaining tax evasion with standard economic model parameters, there has been growing interest in identifying the determinants of voluntary compliance. We build on this work by proposing a legitimacy-based model of tax compl…
State coercion, moral attitudes, and tax compliance: Evidence from a national factorial survey experiment of income tax evasion
The Perils of Privatization: How the Characteristics of Principals Affected Tax Farming in the Roman Republic and Empire
Almost all premodern states and empires used privatized tax collection. Roman history is a good research site for the study of tax farming because it provides ample variation on its extent and effectiveness while controlling for many other factors. Tax farming began in the early Republic, was expanded but became more exploitative in the late Republic, and then was abolished for some types of taxes and was more centrally controlled for others in t…
Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of Ideology
The Formation of State Policy in Western European Absolutisms: A Comparison of England and France
Changes in the Core of the World-System and the Production of Utopian Literature in Great Britain and the United States, 1883-1975
This paper explores changes in the number of utopian novels published in Great Britain and the United States between 1883 and 1975 from a world-system perspective. A time-series analysis indicates that the publication of utopian literature was affected by changes in the world economy and by changes in the organization of the core of the world-system. On the basis of these findings, we argue that the world-system perspective represents a promising…
Dimensions of Science Fiction
Changing Boundaries of the Political: Essays on the Evolving Balance between the State and Society, Public and Private in Europe
Structural Roots of Visions of the Future: World-System Crisis and Stability and the Production of Utopian Literature in the United States, 1883-1975
This paper examines the linkages among the ideological, political, and economic dimensions of the world-system by looking at changes in the publication of two types of utopian novels in the United States. We argue that positive and negative visions of the future (eutopian and dystopian literature, respectively) can be treated as aspects of the ideological dimension of the world-system. As part of such an interrelated system, the volume of utopias…
Books in review
The Many Correlates of State Power
Revolution in the Development of Capitalism: The Coming of the English Revolution
The Origins of Democracy in England
This article uses a rational choice model of the origins of democracy to analyze the political history of medieval England from the Norman conquest to the Hundred Years War. Why did a country just taken over by a ruler more autocratic than his predecessors develop a political system increasingly dominated by the rule of law and protodemocratic institutions? The authors argue that protodemocratic institutions such as the Magna Carta, Parliament, a…
The Role of General Theory in Comparative-Historical Sociology
The methodological foundations of comparative-historical sociology have been transformed dramatically in recent years. Arguments against general theoretical models have proliferated, while the complexity and uniqueness of historical events and the virtues of inductive methods have been emphasized. The growing convergence of sociology and history has led to a decline in the use of general theories. This article begins with a description and analys…
Determinants of the Amount and Type of Corruption in State Fiscal Bureaucracies: An Analysis of Late Imperial China
A principal-agent model of relations between rulers and state officials is used to derive several propositions concerning the amount and type of corruption in state bureaucracies. The model is applied to the fiscal bureaucracies of Ming and Qing China, focusing on how problems rulers faced measuring taxable assets and monitoring and sanctioning state tax collectors resulted in a high level of corruption. Attempts by Ming and Qing rulers to reform…
Could Privatization Increase the Efficiency of Tax Administration in Less‐Developed Countries
In spite of the fact that state tax collection systems in less‐developed countries generally are characterized by high levels of tax evasion and official corruption, little experimentation with privatized tax collection has occurred in these countries. This is due in part to: (1) The fact that the literature on privatization has not focused on tax collection, and (2) the existence of prevalent misconceptions regarding the effects of privatized ta…
Bureaucracy and Efficiency: An Analysis of Taxation in Early Modern Prussia
We use agency theory to analyze the development of the tax collection system in Prussia between 1640 and 1806. The Prussian tax system was one of the most efficient in early modern Europe. Scholars have argued that (1) the Prussian tax administration was highly bureaucratic, and (2) its efficiency was due primarily to its bureaucratic characteristics. We challenge both propositions. We show that the Prussian tax system deviatedfrom the bureaucrat…
Markets and Hierarchies in Early Modern Tax Systems: A Principal-Agent Analysis
Ruler Autonomy and War in Early Modern Western Europe
Following Kant, many scholars have argued that rulers often benefit more from war than do their subjects, and thus that rulers with more autonomy from subjects will initiate more wars. They usually test this argument by focusing on whether democratic states are less prone to initiate wars than autocracies, and generally find little or no relationship. These are not adequate tests of the general argument, since they turn both ruler autonomy and th…
The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England. Hilton L. Root
Rational Choice Versus Cultural Explanations of the Efficiency of the Prussian Tax System
We are told that a people of true Christians would form the most perfect society imaginable. I see but one major difficulty with this assumption, namely that a society of true Christians would no longer be a society of men.... Each man would fulfill his duty; the people would be subject to the laws; the leaders would be just and moderate, the magistrates would be upright and incorruptible.... -Jean-Jacques Rousseau [1762]1987:224
What Can Sociological Theories Predict? Comment on Collins, Kuran, and Tilly
The Revival of Narrative in Historical Sociology: What Rational Choice Theory can Contribute
Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution
The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics
In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the use‐fulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic ap‐proaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify both the causal relations and the causal mechanisms that account for social outcomes. This article offers some philosophical and theo‐retical justifications for the use of general theory in historical analy‐sis and contends that general theory guides …
Recent Developments in Marxist Theories of Ideology
Comparing Varieties of Agency Theory in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology: An Illustration from State Policy Implementation
As rational choice theory has moved from economics into political science and sociology, it has been dramatically transformed. The intellectual diffusion of agency theory illustrates this process. Agency theory is a general model of social relations involving the delegation of authority, and generally resulting in problems of control, which has been applied to a broad range of substantive contexts. This paper analyzes applications of agency theor…
Determinants of the Growth of the State: War and Taxation in Early Modern France and England
Although the causal impact of war on state-making in the early modern era is now widely accepted, there is less consensus about the way in which war affects levels of taxation, and the factors that might strengthen or weaken the relationship. Two questions can be posed: Do individual wars produce immediate effects on taxes, or is the cumulative effect of long periods of warfare more important? How do variations in administrative capacity and the …
Political science (32 works) · Economics (29 works) · Law (24 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Politics (20 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Philosophy (11 works) · Social science (11 works) · Law (10 works)