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Bellicist theories of comparative development predict increases in taxation as the result of military rivalries. Others claim that this causal relationship is contingent on particular geographical, institutional, and historical conditions. In this paper, we explore the conditional effects of military rivalries on taxation during the 19th and 20th centuries using time-series cross-section models. We hypothesize that international norms of territoriality, inter-state military alliances, and regime type will condition the direction and magnitude of the effect of rivalries on taxation. Our models suggest that from 1815 to 1945 the effects of rivalry on taxation were insignificant independently of these systemic, dyadic, and institutional factors. However, after 1945 when norms of territorial integrity consolidated, democracies with strong military allies responded to military pressures by lowering taxes in the short-term, reoriented public expenditures towards social spending, and ultimately increased taxes in the long run through a reconfiguration of the fiscal contract. Conversely, autocracies with strong allies responded to military pressures by increasing taxes in the short-term, capturing as much wealth as possible but failing to consolidate durable fiscal institutions.

The paper analyses the course of Dutch financial policy since the demise of Keynesian full employment. How did the public expenditure ratio, the tax burden, and the deficit develop in the last twenty-five years? Why did the government lose control over public spending in the period between 1977 and 1982, even though it proved possible to reduce spending continuously thereafter? Important explanatory variables in this context are economic growth and the ideological orientation of the government. In the 1990s, however, a literature on the common pool resource problem of public budgets developed which emphasizes the impact of the number of actors involved in financial policy-making as well as the institutional design of the budget process for public spending. Combining process tracing and intertemporal comparison, the study demonstrates how fiscal contracts were made and how they were stabilized through the working of the party system. It concludes that if other relevant variables are allowed for, fiscal contracts did have a moderating impact on public spending. ; In dem Papier wird die Finanzpolitik der Niederlande seit dem Ende der keynesianischen Vollbeschäftigungsphase analysiert. Wie haben sich die Staatsquote, die Abgabenquote und das Defizit in den vergangenen 25 Jahren entwickelt? Warum sind die Staatsausgaben in der Phase von 1977 bis 1982 praktisch unkontrolliert gewachsen, wenn es danach gelang, diese kontinuierlich zurück zu führen? Wichtige Erklärungsvariablen sind in diesem Zusammenhang natürlich das Wirtschaftswachstum und die ideologische Ausrichtung der Regierung. In den Neunzigerjahren hat sich eine Literatur zum Allmendeproblem des öffentlichen Haushaltes entwickelt, die zur Erklärung der Entwicklung der Staatsausgaben vor allem auf die Zahl der finanzpolitischen Akteure und die institutionelle Ausgestaltung des Haushaltsprozesses abstellt. Durch eine Kombination von Prozessanalyse und intertemporalen Vergleich wird gezeigt, wie finanzpolitische Vereinbarungen zu Stande kamen und wie sie durch die Funktionsweise des Parteiensystems stabilisiert wurden. Schließlich wird belegt, dass die in Koalitionsabkommen niedergelegten finanzpolitischen Absprachen unter Kontrolle anderer wichtiger Erklärungsvariablen einen mäßigenden Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der Staatsquote hatten.

How does the receipt of remittances shape recipients' attitudes towards taxation? We argue that remittances are likely to reduce support for the fiscal contract of taxes in exchange for public services because recipients rely less on the national economy and the state for their well-being. Remittance recipients can use the money sent by friends or family overseas to obtain public services in the private market instead of, or in addition to, tax-funded welfare services. In doing so, remittance recipients become detached from the national political community and develop a transactional relationship with the state whereby they pay licence fees, taxes and bribes to protect investment goods procured with remittances, making them less willing to support general taxation and more likely to approve of tax evasion and avoidance. We find strong support for our theory in analysis of survey data from Africa and Latin America. Our article contributes to knowledge of the micro-foundations of the fiscal contract and the political-economic effects of emigration and remittances on migrants' homelands.

"Tax, Politics, and the Social Contract in Africa" published on by Oxford University Press.

For decades, taxation has featured centrally on the international development agenda. In the 1990s, tax reforms to modernise tax systems were implemented under the auspices of international financial institutions. In the 2000s, taxation became linked to good governance, and in 2015, the Addis Action Agenda made taxation an integral part of the effort of reaching the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. Based on European state-building narratives, taxation is expected to enhance societies' political engagement around the use of tax revenues and to make states more accountable, leading to a fiscal contract. This dissertation studies this expectation in the case of Senegal. It asks whether, how and under what conditions taxation features in state-society accountability relations in Senegal, focussing specifically on the argument applied by societal actors demanding accountability from the state. With an interpretive approach and based on extensive fieldwork, interview data and a survey with informal, economic actors in Dakar, the dissertation finds that taxation only features to a limited extent. Where taxation does feature, its meaning is shaped by prominent institutional features of state-society accountability relations in Senegal such as network-based and electoral accountabilities. Theoretically, these findings provide important nuances to the fiscal contract theory that led to a reconceptualisation of the fiscal contract into two distinct concepts. Above all, the dissertation highlights the imperative of taking into consideration the contextual conditions that shape state-society accountability relations, the meaning of taxation and, hence, the potential and actual role of taxation in prompting more accountable governance.

The purpose of this paper, building on the so-called fiscal contract theory, published by Margaret Levi (1988, 1998) and Jeffrey F. Timmons (2005), is to investigate the nature of the relationship between the so-called tax morale and government legitimacy. More specifically, it discusses the important theories and empirical researches to highlight on the significance of the role of the government in influencing citizens' moral considerations during taxpaying. According to the fiscal contract theory, there is an unspoken agreement between taxpayers and the government to oblige the government to maintain services reflecting on collective needs and to oblige citizens to comply with the law, i.e. to pay their taxes. Thus, taxpaying is voluntary, but conditional. This paper relies on this theory when it argues that fiscal contract is rooted in citizens' responsibility for their community, inducing their tax morale. In other words, this bilateral agreement suggests, that tax morale, what is rooted in citizens' responsibility, is a significant factor of taxpaying motivations.

The objective of this paper is to analyse how contractual stabilization devices have evolved since the late 1990s, based on a survey of 20 countries and a review of the literature and evidence on stabilization clauses. Although fiscal stability is a commonly cited attribute of a desirable upstream petroleum regime, one of the commonly observed features of existing regimes is the lack of stability. The paper studies the major triggers that push host governments to revise the fiscal terms to which they originally agreed with investors; amongst various economic and political factors, one of the obvious drivers is the oil price. Chasing the price of oil, however, is a burdensome and inefficient strategy, as oil is an internationally traded commodity where short-term price volatility is the norm. The paper's three broad conclusions include: First, classical stabilization models have not been successful in practice; Second, the more modern clauses are more likely to treat changes in fiscal terms symmetrically, and may be equally beneficial to governments and oil companies; Third, modern stabilization clauses can allow policymakers to consider the overall tax system and its impact on revenue and growth, without worrying about the specific impact on the oil and gas sector, and without penalizing investors in the sector. Fiscal stability clauses in developing countries will remain a key feature of contractual agreements and oil and gas laws for years to come. However, the effectiveness of the more modern clauses in achieving the desired outcome remains as questionable as that of previous stability models, particularly in countries which continue to lack the administrative capability to enforce these mechanisms, and where government policy in general and investment laws and the judiciary in particular lack credibility.