Title: The Political Economy of Taxation and Resource Mobilisation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract: The process of tax collection is one of the most powerful lenses in political
economy to assess the distribution of power and the legitimacy of the state
and of powerful interest groups in civil society. The collection of tax not only
requires substantial coercive power, but more importantly requires a state to
be legitimate since the vast majority of tax is collected when there is a high
level of voluntary compliance (Levi, 1988). Douglass North, for instance,
defines the state in terms of taxation powers: “. . . an organization with a
comparative advantage in violence, extending over a geographic area whose
boundaries are determined by its power to tax constituents” (North, 1981:
21). Long before that Edmund Burke remarked: “Revenue is the chief
preoccupation of the state. Nay more it is the state” (quoted in O’Brien
(2001: 25).
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-05-11
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 3
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