Decentralization, Local Taxation and Citizenship in Senegal

Abstract

This article deals with the politics of revenue collection in a framework of decentralization, democratization and multiparty politics as experienced in the small village of Barkedji in the pastoral region of Senegal. In Senegal, revenue collection has recently been transferred from state administrators to locally elected councillors. Contrary to the assumption of the ‘good governance’ doctrine, this transfer of responsibility has not resulted in a strengthening of democratic structures where taxpayers demand (and gain) public services and more political representation in exchange for increasing taxes. In Barkedji, as elsewhere in Senegal, tax-compliance hit rock-bottom after tax collection became the responsibility of local councillors. Meanwhile other types of local institutions, with less clear state relations, are able to mobilize large amounts of revenue outside the normal tax channels for the provision of goods and service. These non-state institutions seem to have taken over as providers of political representation as well as suppliers of public goods and of access or rights to crucial local resources. The article explores the motivation among first-comers and newcomer populations to adopt or reject tax requirements to different types of organizations, and discusses the implications of this parallel tax collection for the exercise of public authority and the crafting of state and citizenry.