Chapter 8 expands on the theoretical implications for the study of state building, public safety, and taxation. It also discusses the security benefits that elites’ investment in strengthening the state has brought about in the region. Further, the final chapter addresses the sustainability of the state-building efforts discussed in the book and their potential consequences for other aspects of political and economic development.

The introductory chapter highlights the difficulty in engaging Latin American elites in the state-building enterprise, both historically and in the contemporary period, in spite of major crises. It introduces the puzzle by examining how the public-safety crisis in the region is different from previous patterns of violence: whereas historically business elites tended to benefit from state-led violence by eliminating competing political and economic projects, the new form of violence in democratic contexts affects them directly and more indiscriminately. Chapter 1 also discusses the stakes involved in successfully engaging elites in contemporary state building through taxation for public-safety purposes, as well as the book’s contributions to the literatures on state building, taxation, and public safety.

Chapter 7 studies the case of Mexico, whose security situation has deteriorated dramatically over the last decade. It shows that, although a crisis-driven explanation would predict elites’ investment in strengthening the state, the federal government has not adopted – or even entertained – security taxes. Instead, this chapter shows how Mexican elites have been relatively less affected than their counterparts elsewhere in the region because of the geographic concentration of crime outside of Mexico City. This has translated into much less pressure on the federal government to address the public-safety situation. Consequently, elites’ impetus to invest in the fiscal strengthening of the state has been subdued at the national level and has taken place instead at the state level.