 Charles Lockhart, American and Swedish Tax Regimes: Cultural and Structural Roots The distinctive designs of American and Swedish tax regimes closely resemble the characteristics that would be expected from their mass and elite political cultures: individualistic and egalitarian/hierarchical, respectively. The relative influence of rival cultures among relevant organized members of a society¡¯s political elite offers a sound predictor of policy design. Explanations of policy design characteristics grow increasingly satisfactory the more thoroughly they draw on culture and the structure of broad political institutions, both in conjunction with historical contingencies. Yet culture and social structure make distinctive contributions to the process through which policy is designed. |