Building the Modern State in Developing Countries: Perceptions of Public Safety and (Un)willingness to Pay Taxes in Mexico*

IF 4.1 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Politics & Society Pub Date : 2020-08-11 DOI:10.1177/0032329220943848

Gustavo Flores-Macías, Mariano Sánchez-Talanquer

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引用次数: 6

Abstract

What is the relationship between taxation and public safety? Contrary to studies suggesting that personal victimization and heightened perceptions of insecurity increase pro-social attitudes and support for state intervention in the form of greater taxation, this article argues that such concerns decrease willingness to pay taxes to address public safety. It estimates what citizens are willing to pay to reduce crime, using an original representative survey conducted in Mexico and relying on the contingent valuation method to assess the value of nonmarket goods. Attitudes toward taxation are found to respond to subjective, sociotropic assessments of public safety rather than to actual risk or occurrences of individual victimization. These findings counter the conventional wisdom that demand for personal security enables greater extraction, a central proposition in classic accounts of state building. Showing that willingness to accept heavier taxation may be weakest among those who perceive the gravest need for security, the study adds precision to theories of fiscal exchange.

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在发展中国家建立现代国家:对墨西哥公共安全和(联合国)纳税意愿的看法*

税收和公共安全之间的关系是什么？研究表明，个人受害和不安全感的增强会增加亲社会的态度，并支持国家以增加税收的形式进行干预。与此相反，本文认为，这种担忧会降低为解决公共安全问题而纳税的意愿。它使用在墨西哥进行的一项具有代表性的原始调查，并依靠偶然估价方法来评估非市场商品的价值，从而估计公民愿意为减少犯罪而支付的费用。人们发现，对税收的态度是对公共安全的主观、反社会评估的反应，而不是对实际风险或个人受害事件的反应。这些发现反驳了传统观点，即对人身安全的需求可以实现更大的提取，这是国家建设经典描述中的核心命题。这项研究表明，在那些认为最需要安全的人中，接受更高税收的意愿可能最弱，这为财政交换理论增加了准确性。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Politics & Society Multiple-

CiteScore

5.00

自引率

4.20%

发文量

期刊介绍： Politics & Society is a peer-reviewed journal. All submitted papers are read by a rotating editorial board member. If a paper is deemed potentially publishable, it is sent to another board member, who, if agreeing that it is potentially publishable, sends it to a third board member. If and only if all three agree, the paper is sent to the entire editorial board for consideration at board meetings. The editorial board meets three times a year, and the board members who are present (usually between 9 and 14) make decisions through a deliberative process that also considers written reports from absent members. Unlike many journals which rely on 1–3 individual blind referee reports and a single editor with final say, the peers who decide whether to accept submitted work are thus the full editorial board of the journal, comprised of scholars from various disciplines, who discuss papers openly, with author names known, at meetings. Editors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when evaluating manuscripts and to recuse themselves from voting if such a potential exists.