This article studies the impact of neoliberal globalisation on the relative strength of different social actors and on the relations between these actors and the state in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. In particular, the article analyses the responses of large domestic capitalists to the new global environment and to the new policies implemented, as well as the effect of these policies on public servants (who have traditionally been an influential political force, at least in Costa Rica). The paper makes two basic claims. First, globalisation has had some common effects on the politico-economic structures of Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, despite the vastly different historical trajectory of state–society relations in the two countries. In both countries, there has been an increasing concentration and financialisation of capital and a weakening of the state bureaucracy. Second, these changes in the politico-economic structure have imposed new, country-specific constraints for the consolidation of the neoliberal economic model, signalling the need to introduce institutional reforms in the near future.