CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2026
| Author | Resti, Jacopo |
|---|---|
| Title | The Fiscal Mirage: Taxation without state-building in limited access orders (the case of Sudan) |
| Summary | This dissertation investigates why taxation in certain polities does not produce the institutional development expected by fiscal-contract theory, and how taxation instead operates as an instrument of rule within Limited Access Orders (LAOs). The central empirical focus is Sudan, selected as a deviant yet potentially typical case of “taxation without state-building.” The study integrates LAO theory, fiscal sociology, and tax morale to propose a composite explanation that links structural legacies, fiscal politics and instruments, and everyday taxpayer experience. The theoretical core identifies four structural decoupling mechanisms that sever taxation from state-building: (1) colonial tax legacies; (2) the predominance of indirect taxation; (3) the availability of external rents; and (4) intra-elite competition. These mechanisms operate cumulatively and mutually reinforce one another, explaining why revenue mobilisation often fails to generate impersonal administrative capacity or broad-based accountability. Building on these mechanisms, the dissertation elaborates the “Sudanese cycle”: coercive fragmentation induces fiscal recentralization; centralized revenues are used for discretionary rent distribution to elites, SOEs and paramilitary clients; rent distribution intensifies elite competition; elite competition feeds back into further coercive fragmentation. This loop constitutes a short-run equilibrium that stabilizes elite coalitions by monetising loyalty, while in the long run it seeds fragility as non-state armed actors and patronage networks accumulate resources and autonomy. The argument highlights how the LAO doorstep conditions are inverted in Sudan: legal predictability becomes predictable privilege, organisations endure in form but are hollowed or infiltrated, and the consolidation of violence is deliberately avoided through delegation. Methodologically, the research combines an in-depth qualitative case study on Sudan—using archival research, document analysis, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, and field observation across macro, meso and micro levels—with a macro-comparative econometric component across 51 African countries (1998–2019). The qualitative chapters process-trace historical institutional embedding, document the meso-level instruments of fiscal gatekeeping under al-Bashir (1989-2019), and give voice to taxpayers to illuminate how overlapping formal and informal extractions shape tax morale, the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, and tax bargaining, the strategic interactions and mutual behaviour adjustments between taxpayers and tax authorities. The econometric analysis tests the ‘taxation without state-building’ argument at continental scale, showing that tax efforts over the last decades had minimal if not negative effects on government effectiveness and accountability scores. Empirical findings demonstrate that fiscal centralization, discretion and rent distribution hollow associational channels, subjugate the population and depress tax morale, perpetuating a limited access order. These dynamics are mirrored in taxpayers experience of tripled extraction—state levies, customary and religious obligations, without commensurate capacity, responsiveness, or transparency. Under shocks that reduce external rents, the equilibrium unravels: tax resistance, escalated coercive taxation in the peripheries, and the empowerment of fealty elites creates rival power centres and precipitates violent breakdown. Ultimately, taxation in LAOs cannot be understood as a failed pathway to state-building, but as a functional equilibrium of survival politics. Recognizing this reframes both future research and policy debates: it shifts attention from what such states lack to what they do, and why. |
| Supervisor | Large, Daniel |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2026/resti_jacopo.pdf |
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