Parallel session
Conflict and taxation

Parallel 3.1 | Auditorium: Thursday, 7 September 2023: 11:00-12:30 (UTC+2)

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.

SESSION VIDEOS

Gauthier Marchais | IDS

Santiago Tobon | EAFIT

Anna D'Souza | Baruch College, City University of New York

Discussant: Håvard Nygård | Norad

COLLABORATORS

11:00-12:30 (UTC+2)

Patricia Justino | Chair

Professor Patricia Justino is a development economist who works at the interface between Development Economics and Political Science. She is a leading expert on political violence and development, and the co-founder and co-director of the Households in Conflict Network. She is currently Deputy Director at UNU-WIDER and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton, UK (on leave).

Gauthier Marchais | Presenter

Gauthier Marchais is a research fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.

Gauthier has worked on the effects of violent conflict on society, recently leading projects on the impact of violent conflict on education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gauthier also works on governance in contexts of violent conflict.

Santiago Tobon | Presenter

Santiago Tobon is a Professor of Economics at Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Colombia. During 2022, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. He is also affiliated with Innovations for Poverty Action—IPA, Evidence in Governance and Politics—EGAP (where he is also Co-Chair at the Crime Reduction and Police Accountability Priority Theme), J-PAL's Crime and Violence Initiative (as an invited researcher) and Households in Conflict Network—HiCN.

He is a development economist with a special interest in crime, violence, organized crime, and public policy. He uses experimental, quasi-experimental, and qualitative methods.

Anna D'Souza | Presenter

Anna D’Souza is an Associate Professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York. Her research examines food security, shocks, conflict, governance, and trade.

She has worked at the Economic Research Service (US Department of Agriculture), Johns Hopkins SAIS, the World Bank, and the Peace Corps. She has a BS in Finance and Economics (NYU) and an MS and PhD in Economics (UCLA).

Håvard Nygård | Discussant

Dr Håvard Mokleiv Nygård is Director of knowledge at Norad. Before coming to Norad he was a Senior researcher and Research director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).