3.1 Conflict and taxation - Gauthier Marchais
Channel: UNU-WIDER
Date: 2023-09-25

During violent conflicts, taxation in its various forms provides an important perspective into how political actors govern territories under their control, form relationships with local populations and businesses, mobilize financial resources to support their war efforts and sustain local political order during wartime. These relationships are, in turn, central to understanding the potential for an armed group—or the incumbent government—to transition from the military structures formed during conflict to organizations capable of providing (and financing) public goods, mobilizing revenue legitimately, building bureaucracies and institutions of governance and maintaining peace in the aftermath of the conflict. This session will explore new questions about the types of tax and revenue systems established by different state and non-state actors in wartime, their relationship to governance and political order during conflict, and their implications for institutional trajectories and processes of state formation and state capacity after conflict.