Taxation and Authoritarian Resilience

Abstract

Taxation provides important inferences about the nature of non-oil authoritarian regimes. This article looks at taxation to understand the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s relationship to society. It finds that the party has maintained fiscal capacity through non-intrusive transactional taxes that allow it to deliver more services in wealthier areas where potential dissent is greatest. This model is reaching its limits because of its negative impacts on economic growth and social equity. Attempts to expand new taxation sources—such as property value taxes or progressive and comprehensive personal income taxes—are difficult because of the prior reliance on transactional taxes. As a result, the CCP will rationally continue to rely on inefficient and inequitable taxation because of the political costs of pursuing a modern taxation system. The China case is indicative of the fiscal dynamics of durable authoritarian regimes.

Notes

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