We pay, we act?

Abstract

Abstract Fiscal contract theory proposes that governments’ need for taxation can foster revenue bargaining and government accountability through popular collective action, tax resistance, and political pressure. This chapter investigates this potential micro-level taxation-collective action link among small-scale revenue providers—women informal market traders—in seven markets in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The study shows that taxation can motivate collective organizing and action among the traders through experiences of economic hardship and lack of reciprocity, but also shows that the traders experience significant power-related barriers to collective action constraining their capacity for collective engagement. Nonetheless, women in some markets display a greater capacity for collective action. This is the case in markets where a trader or an external organization deliberately acts as a cultivator of social trust, community, and organizational capabilities among the women. This supports the women’s collective engagement and, in some instances, their collective attempts to bargain with local authorities.