This dialogue might strike some readers as more amicable than critical, as the two books concur on core assumptions about the comparative politics of taxation and state building. They both prefer a macrosocial analytical framework to explain political institutional outcomes, focus on elite motives and actions as the main causal factor, and provide a historically grounded analysis. Also, both books advance recent scholarship on a neofiscal sociology in comparative state-building theory. Aaron Schneider's review, however, does note two underdeveloped themes in my study of postcommunist tax states, which rightly deserve response.

The first theme is the role of international actors in tax politics in postcommunist states. The study is indeed focused on domestic influences. In contrast, Schneider's study systematically incorporates a causal role for international actors in tax policy reform to good effect. I have considered the external factor and concluded that the record is mixed, with notable variations among the cases. There have been three waves of tax reform in Eastern Europe: 1) the initial capitalist-style tax reforms accompanying macrostructural reform, 2) the European Union accession reforms of indirect sales taxes, and 3) the flat-tax and rate-slashing reforms of direct personal and corporate income taxes. The first wave was welcomed and assisted by Western advisers, but not forced. Hungary took the lead in this type of tax reform in 1988, before communism fell! Instead, there existed a domestic consensus that market-making structural reform required a capitalist-style tax system. It was more “institutional mimicry” than “international pressure.” Similarly, the third wave of “flat” tax reforms was caused by the fiscal dysfunctions of transition economies (low tax morale, weak tax administration, poor economic capitalization). It was again an example of institutional mimicry, but in this case copying from the postcommunist East, not from the capitalist West. There was, in fact, much criticism from influential Western actors about these radical rate-cutting reforms. Only the second wave of tax reform included a forcefully shaping role for international actors, at least to those postcommunist countries seeking EU admission. But even here, the adoption of EU-dictated reforms was often delayed and incomplete. Moreover, after joining the EU, these countries artfully shifted domestic-influenced tax breaks from indirect to direct taxes, thus beyond EU oversight.

The second theme is that the study's theoretical findings would be enhanced by a wider comparison. The study employs a focused case-study approach, highlighting variant macroinstitutional outcomes observable across the postcommunist realm—“contractual” versus “predatory” states. The project originally included a more general multicase overview comparison, which was dropped at the revision stage. I simply was not comfortable with the extent of data pruning necessary in order to fit all the analytical categories. It was not that the analytical concepts are particular to the cases. Rather, it was a matter of choice regarding inevitable trade-offs entailed with multi-n and small-n comparisons. A more stripped-down political-economy approach could be applied to a larger set of postcommunist cases (which Scott Gehlbach already has done well in his 2009 book, Representation through Taxation: Revenue, Politics, and Development in Postcommunist States). Capital, Coercion, and Postcommunist States instead opted for a contextually richer, fiscal sociology approach, in which a pathdependent, multistage analytical framework was better suited for in-depth comparison of two exemplary cases with distinct ideal-typical outcomes. The book is certainly not shy about making theoretical claims regarding postcommunist state building, but it is cautious about grander theoretical overreaching with the empirical findings.