Navigating ‘taxation’ on the Congo River: the interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’

ABSTRACT

Based on comprehensive research among boat operators and navy personnel working on the Congo River (DRC), this article explores how assessments of ‘taxation’ are shaped by the interplay of legitimation and ‘officialisation’. As such, it draws upon and contributes to scholarly debates on taxpayers’ attitudes towards taxation. While boat operators resent having to pay a plethora of authorities, including the navy, along the Congo River, the article demonstrates how they locate these ‘taxes’ on a spectrum from more to less legitimate. These assessments are shaped by various factors: authorities’ legitimacy as ‘measured’ by their official mandate and importance; public and non-official service provision; and the deployment of symbols of ‘stateness’. In interaction, these factors legitimise and ‘officialise’ ‘taxes’ by the navy that are prohibited in legislation. These findings caution against the a priori use of the labels ‘official’ and ‘non-official’, emphasising the need to better grasp these notions’ emic understandings.

RÉSUMÉ

A partir d’une enquête de terrain auprès des armateurs et du personnel de marine travaillant sur le fleuve Congo (RDC), cet article montre comment les appréciations de « taxation » sont façonnées par l’interaction entre légitimation et « officialisation ». Ce faisant, cette contribution s’inscrit dans la littérature sur le comportement et les attitudes des contribuables face à la taxation. Bien que les armateurs soient souvent réticents à s’acquitter de taxes auprès de multiples pôles d’autorités, y compris les forces navales, ces prélèvements revêtent un caractère plus ou moins légitime à leurs yeux. De multiples facteurs dessinent les contours de ces appréciations : la légitimité des autorités taxatrices – mesurée en vertu de leur mandat officiel et de leur importance, la capacité de ces dernières à assurer des services publics et non officiels, ainsi que leur aptitude à afficher des symboles étatiques. En interagissant, ces facteurs rendent légitimes et « officielles » des « taxes » imposées par la marine qui sont prohibées par la loi. Cette contribution remet ainsi en question l’emploi a priori des labels « officiel » et « non officiel », tout en soulignant la nécessité d’appréhender ces notions d’un point de vue émique.

KEYWORDS:

• Taxation
• informality
• civil–military relations
• African state
• Democratic Republic of the Congo

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Régime fiscal
• informalité
• relations civilo-militaires
• État africain
• République démocratique du Congo

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Maria Eriksson Baaz is Professor at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, and a senior lecturer in International Politics at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her main research interests are in processes of militarisation, gendered dynamics of conflict and violence, informal taxation and post-colonial theory.

Ola Olsson is Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg. His main research interests are long-run economic development, economic growth, political economy and the economics of conflict. He is a former co-editor of Economic inquiry and the author of Essentials of advanced macroeconomic theory (Routledge, 2012).

Judith Verweijen is an FWO Postdoctoral Research Fellow based at Ghent University, Belgium. Her work is situated at the intersection of conflict studies, critical military studies and political ecology, and explores militarisation, conflict dynamics and armed mobilisation. She focuses on eastern DRC, where she has conducted intermittent fieldwork since 2010.

ORCID

Maria Eriksson Baaz http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7702-2000

Jidith Verweijen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4204-1172

Notes

1. Owing to security concerns, we have withheld the names of the research assistants.

2. Approximate price for buying 100–200 bags in the inland, consisting of an equal mix of fufu and maize.

3. The following ministries: (1) Transport; (2) Interior; (3) Environment; (4) Culture and Arts; (5) Economy and Commerce; (6) Finance; (7) Infrastructure, and (8) Defence.

4. Since the camp is too small to host all families, many rent housing from civilians around the camp.

5. ‘assister les navires, embarcations et aéronefs en détresse dans les eaux territoriales’. See Loi organique (2011).

Additional information

Funding

This article forms part of a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council, ‘Daily Bread, Daily Dread: Everyday Interactions Between Security Staff and Small-Scale Economic Operators in the DR Congo’ [grant number 348-2013-145].