Tocqueville versus Weber

Abstract

Ajay Mehrotra has afforded us an opportunity to better appreciate and understand the development of state capacity in modern U.S. history. With detailed research findings and a well-organized narrative, he focuses on the elaboration of revenue generation and management systems appropriate and adequate to the growing responsibilities and commitments of the national government in the early twentieth century. It is the burden of Mehrotra's argument that “bureaucratic professionals” were as important a part of the “fiscal revolution” in modern U.S. politics as were changing governmental structures and evolving events and contingencies. Using World War I as his case study, Mehrotra seeks to refine and extend the narrative of organizational change and the rise of the modern state in the United States.