The launch event for Dr Tasha Fairfield’s new book, Private Wealth and Public Revenue in Latin America, will take place next Wednesday (13th May) at 18:30 in 32L.G.03 (Lincoln’s Inn Fields).

About the book:

Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business’s instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization.

• In Chile, business’s multiple sources of instrumental power, including cohesion and ties to right parties, kept substantial tax increases off the agenda.
• In Argentina, weaker business power facilitated significant reform, although specific sectors, including finance and agriculture, occasionally had instrumental and/or structural power to defend their interests.
• In Bolivia, popular mobilization counterbalanced the power of economic elites, who were much stronger than in Argentina but weaker than in Chile.

The book’s in-depth, medium-N case analysis and close attention to policymaking processes contribute insights on business power and prospects for redistribution in unequal democracies.

About the launch:

Dr Tasha Fairfield is Assistant Professor in International Development and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Government.

She holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and degrees in physics from Harvard and Stanford.

She will be discussing the issues surrounding her book with Dr Robert Falkner, from the Department of International Relations and Professor David Soskice from the Department of Government.

Chairing the event will be Ken Shadlen, Professor of Development Studies in International Development.

All are welcome. Those without affiliation to LSE are asked to RSVP to K.McDonald@lse.ac.uk by the afternoon of Tuesday 12th May.