00:01 Our regular
00:02 bi-monthly,
00:03 uh,
00:03 seminar on African Economics series.
00:06 Um,
00:07 my name is Andrew DoN.
00:08 For those of you who have not,
00:09 uh,
00:10 joined this before,
00:11 I'm the incoming chief economist.
00:13 Um,
00:13 we're delighted to have
00:15 Jim Robinson,
00:16 who is not new to a lot of you here.
00:18 Uh,
00:18 he's,
00:20 um,
00:21 been influential.
00:22 I think he has influenced a lot of our work in the World Bank.
00:25 Um,
00:26 so it's,
00:27 this is gonna be a continuation of that.
00:30 Uh,
00:30 but before I hand over to,
00:32 um,
00:33 to,
00:33 uh,
00:34 Jim and our discussion,
00:35 let me just
00:36 give a couple of remarks,
00:37 right?
00:38 Just to set the stage for this.
00:40 Um,
00:41 so the,
00:42 we all know that the development challenge for Africa remains
00:46 reducing extreme poverty,
00:47 which is pervasive,
00:49 um,
00:50 that,
00:51 you know,
00:52 34% of Africans live below $2.15.
00:57 Uh,
00:57 and that remains a major,
00:59 major obstacle challenge.
01:01 Tens of millions of children out of school.
01:03 Mills don't have decent healthcare.
01:06 Or access to
01:07 decent energy,
01:09 water and sanitation,
01:10 the,
01:10 the list is long,
01:11 right?
01:12 And for some states,
01:13 you know,
01:14 even just basic security is a problem.
01:16 So they are close to state collapses,
01:18 uh,
01:18 as we are watching,
01:20 uh,
01:20 unfolding in some places,
01:21 right.
01:22 At the same time,
01:23 these countries have signed on to this,
01:26 you know,
01:27 international development goals and also their own,
01:30 in their own,
01:30 you know,
01:31 in their own documents,
01:32 they have either development documents or these vision documents,
01:35 they have these ambitious goals
01:37 of trying to,
01:38 you know,
01:39 achieve either universal access to a lot of these services,
01:42 uh,
01:43 uh,
01:43 and at the same time reducing poverty,
01:46 um.
01:47 But
01:48 in the current context,
01:50 that requires enormous financing.
01:53 Um,
01:54 and the global financing conditions right now are really not favorable.
01:58 Interest rates are rising.
02:00 Debt levels are very high,
02:02 they don't have a lot of,
02:03 you know,
02:04 they've been shut out basically of this global financing,
02:06 uh,
02:07 um,
02:07 mechanisms,
02:09 um,
02:10 so they have to rely
02:12 on domestic resources,
02:14 that,
02:14 that's one space open to them,
02:17 uh,
02:17 in order to finance these ambitious goals,
02:19 and yet.
02:21 I mean,
02:21 we've,
02:22 in the bank,
02:22 we've done a lot of,
02:24 uh,
02:24 we've done a lot of analytical work and uh diagnosis around why,
02:29 you know,
02:29 domestic resource mobilization is not um
02:32 uh high in Africa,
02:34 um,
02:35 and often we run,
02:36 we come into these technical,
02:37 you know,
02:38 reasons,
02:38 corruption,
02:39 lack of capacity,
02:41 um,
02:42 you know,
02:42 administration issues,
02:43 effort,
02:43 and so on and so on,
02:44 right,
02:45 incentive mechanisms,
02:46 but
02:47 I think Jim is gonna share
02:49 with us another reason why we,
02:51 you know,
02:52 this,
02:52 this,
02:52 uh,
02:53 this,
02:53 uh,
02:53 um,
02:55 resource mobilization is lower in Africa.
02:58 Um,
02:59 so,
03:00 I'm keen to hear about this.
03:02 I'm sure a lot of you are.
03:03 So,
03:05 the way we will proceed,
03:06 we will give Jim about 40 minutes to present,
03:09 and then we're delighted to have two discussions who have been
03:12 doing a lot of research in this area as well.
03:15 Stui Kemani,
03:16 who is the senior economist in the research department of the,
03:19 uh,
03:19 the World Bank,
03:20 and Oye,
03:21 um,
03:22 Oye Bolana,
03:23 who is also in the research department.
03:25 So what we'll do is we'll have Jim present for 40 minutes
03:29 and then we will turn to our discussions who will have 5 to 10 minutes each.
03:33 And then we will
03:34 uh open up for conversation.
03:36 Um,
03:37 what I would urge all of you to do is,
03:39 as,
03:40 as Jim presents,
03:41 please go ahead and,
03:42 uh,
03:43 post your,
03:43 your comments,
03:45 uh,
03:45 but
03:46 ideally just stay on and then have your ques,
03:48 you know,
03:49 ask your questions towards the end.
03:51 Um,
03:51 so,
03:52 with that,
03:52 over to you,
03:53 Jim.
03:54 Brilliant,
03:54 OK,
03:55 thank you,
03:55 I'm sorry that I had technical problems and we're all starting late.
03:58 I should right,
03:59 oh gosh.
04:01 Um
04:04 Oh
04:05 gosh.
04:10 No
04:14 You can't display your shared,
04:15 let's see if I can.
04:17 OK.
04:19 How do I do this,
04:20 share screen?
04:23 Screen or uh who knows how,
04:25 I don't know how to use the software,
04:26 so it says I open share content and it says screen and application,
04:31 what do what do I do,
04:32 screen or application?
04:35 Let me have a go.
04:41 You can't display your shared content.
04:44 I don't know,
04:44 it does someone,
04:45 can someone give me permission to do this,
04:47 it doesn't look like I have permission to share the screen.
04:53 I mean,
04:54 uh,
04:54 James,
04:54 you should be able to,
04:55 but one moment,
04:56 let me just check on something,
04:57 but you should be able to share,
04:58 just,
04:59 uh,
04:59 if you could just share your screen.
05:04 Oh,
05:05 is it telling you that you need administration?
05:07 It
05:12 I don't know,
05:13 it says you can't display your shared content,
05:15 make sure you're allowed permission to share content and then try it again.
05:20 OK,
05:20 one moment.
05:21 Oops.
05:23 I
05:25 Is it screen or application?
05:28 Screen.
05:30 It should be screened.
05:32 OK,
05:33 and then it comes up and it says.
05:37 There's the screen.
05:38 I can see the screen here,
05:39 and when I click on and when I click on
05:42 share,
05:43 I,
05:43 I get this says you can't share,
05:45 you can't display your shared content.
05:47 Make sure you're allowed permission to share content and try again.
05:51 Yeah,
05:51 just try application then uh while I'll try and see if our IT folks can help.
05:55 It's.
05:57 This is the first time we are having the slides to someone
06:00 to display them for you.
06:04 Could you,
06:04 could you send,
06:05 send,
06:05 if you send the,
06:06 uh,
06:06 the slides with
06:08 not through Google Docs but just regular slides,
06:11 we can probably upload them for you.
06:13 I,
06:13 I think they're too heavy.
06:14 I sent them on an email.
06:16 To,
06:17 um
06:19 I sent them on an email to somebody,
06:22 was it Rose Claire
06:24 Pacabamba,
06:25 um.
06:27 Yes,
06:28 I sent them on an email to Rose Claire.
06:30 Uh,
06:30 so I tried downloading,
06:32 but then it's in Google Docs and it's asking for a sign in,
06:35 so I,
06:36 I don't have permission to do that.
06:38 OK,
06:38 but it's too heavy to email,
06:39 I guess that's why it didn't,
06:41 uh,
06:41 OK,
06:42 it didn't work,
06:43 uh.
06:44 Um,
06:46 OK,
06:46 Andrew.
06:51 I think I can give Andrew permission.
06:54 I tried to give you
06:55 permission,
06:56 Andrew.
07:01 Oh
07:08 Oh,
07:09 how frustrating.
07:18 Uh,
07:21 and so I can feel any document.
07:26 You can't see that by any chance,
07:27 can you?
07:30 No.
07:31 Too much to hope for.
07:33 OK.
07:35 Oh,
07:36 that's,
07:36 that's.
07:46 No,
07:46 it doesn't work,
07:47 yeah.
07:47 I don't know what's going on.
07:50 It does,
07:51 I don't know this software very well,
07:52 I'm sorry,
07:53 yeah.
07:58 It says I don't have permission to share anything.
08:03 Uh
08:11 There you go.
08:12 Oh,
08:12 OK.
08:14 OK,
08:15 but who's,
08:15 you're showing that,
08:16 are you?
08:23 OK,
08:23 so,
08:24 so somebody else is gonna move it,
08:25 are they,
08:26 is that the plan?
08:31 I thought,
08:31 hello,
08:32 can you hear me?
08:34 Yes,
08:35 it looks,
08:35 uh,
08:36 James,
08:36 it looks like you're the one who's sharing,
08:38 so you should be able to,
08:39 uh,
08:40 to move it up and down.
08:41 OK,
08:42 I don't know how to.
08:44 OK.
08:46 But I,
08:46 it doesn't,
08:47 I can't.
08:50 Does it,
08:50 is it moving?
08:52 Yes,
08:53 let's move up and down and see
08:56 moving,
08:56 is it?
08:56 Yes,
08:57 it is moving.
08:58 OK,
08:58 how weird.
08:58 All right,
08:59 so let's.
09:01 Let's um,
09:02 let's go,
09:02 alright,
09:02 so sorry for all the,
09:04 the,
09:04 the,
09:05 the,
09:05 the confusion,
09:06 alright,
09:06 great,
09:06 so
09:07 uh it's Andrew,
09:08 it's Andrew that is sharing,
09:09 OK,
09:09 that's fine,
09:10 no problem.
09:10 Andrew.
09:11 OK,
09:12 so I can't control it,
09:13 Andrew controls it,
09:15 is that right?
09:19 Yes.
09:20 OK,
09:21 all right,
09:21 so I'll tell Andrew,
09:22 all right,
09:22 great,
09:23 so,
09:23 OK,
09:24 thanks very much.
09:24 So let's just go to the first slide,
09:26 um
09:27 let's see how far I get.
09:28 So I think,
09:29 you know,
09:29 the big,
09:30 the big picture here is,
09:31 you know,
09:32 I think,
09:32 you know,
09:32 there's many things,
09:33 you know,
09:33 which Andrew started talking about,
09:35 you know,
09:36 concerning these issues that we sort of understand.
09:39 Uh,
09:39 but I think there's many things we don't understand,
09:41 and so I guess my big picture,
09:43 my sort of the,
09:44 this is the big picture agenda of the sort of intellectual
09:47 agenda
09:48 is kind of
09:49 trying to understand,
09:50 um,
09:51 the sort of deep history of,
09:53 of political institutions in Africa and the way that influences.
09:58 Current political institutions,
09:59 as I think it does,
10:00 and as I'll try to argue and you know,
10:02 I talk about a lot of different sorts of evidence in
10:04 the paper that I won't have a chance to get into,
10:06 but hopefully,
10:07 this will just kind of whet your appetite a bit.
10:10 And I've been very inspired,
10:12 you know,
10:12 over the years by the work of the,
10:14 you know,
10:14 the great historian Jan van Seena of Central Africa,
10:17 and here's,
10:17 you know,
10:18 here's a.
10:18 Quote from his book Paths in the Rainforest that sort of it,
10:21 it kind of inspired this whole project,
10:23 which is
10:24 the ability to refuse centralization while maintaining the necessary cohesion
10:29 amongst a myriad of autonomous units has been
10:31 the most original contribution of Western Bantu tradition
10:35 to the institutional history of the world.
10:38 So I don't think so.
10:39 Social scientists have really
10:41 figured this out yet,
10:42 they haven't lived up to this agenda that Vanine has set out,
10:45 and they haven't thought through
10:46 its implications.
10:47 And so,
10:48 so I,
10:49 this is a sort of
10:50 an attempt to think through
10:52 some of the implications and,
10:53 you know,
10:54 and talk about,
10:55 you know,
10:55 I'm not gonna talk too much about why Africans refused centralization,
11:00 but it's easy to document
11:01 that they did.
11:02 OK,
11:03 so for example,
11:03 on the next slide.
11:06 If you just
11:07 plot,
11:07 what do I mean by refused centralization?
11:09 I mean that
11:10 at the time of the scramble for Africa,
11:12 Africans lived in thousands and thousands of independent,
11:17 uh,
11:18 polities.
11:18 You know,
11:18 in eastern Nigeria,
11:19 there might have been 500
11:22 independent
11:22 polities.
11:23 OK,
11:23 so if.
11:24 You just take historical estimates of population,
11:26 1880,
11:27 round about the time of the scramble for Africa,
11:30 and then you divide them into these different layer,
11:33 different levels of um
11:35 jurisdictional hierarchy from the Murdoch
11:38 atlas,
11:38 which is some
11:39 kind of notion of stateness,
11:41 uh.
11:43 At most,
11:44 one third of Africans,
11:46 uh,
11:46 lived in what you would call what
11:48 anthropologists and historians would describe as states.
11:51 OK,
11:52 so,
11:52 so
11:53 there's
11:54 5.
11:56 If it's the highest level jurisdictional hierarchy,
11:58 only 4 polities,
11:59 they're all in North Africa,
12:01 uh,
12:01 not actually in sub-Saharan Africa.
12:03 The level
12:04 4
12:05 is,
12:05 you know,
12:05 there's 45 sub-Saharan African polities,
12:08 that's Rwanda,
12:09 Buganda,
12:10 you know,
12:11 Zulu,
12:12 uh,
12:13 you know,
12:13 Hausa,
12:14 the,
12:14 you know,
12:14 Kano,
12:15 uh,
12:16 Benin,
12:16 you know,
12:17 uh,
12:17 you know,
12:18 the,
12:18 uh,
12:18 the,
12:18 the,
12:18 the Ashanti.
12:19 So,
12:20 so
12:20 big
12:21 African states
12:22 there were,
12:22 you know,
12:23 but only about 25% of people were living in states like that in Africa.
12:26 The rest were living in much smaller scale
12:29 society,
12:30 so this is,
12:30 this is what Van Seena's
12:32 idea is about.
12:33 It's about,
12:34 that was intentional,
12:35 you know,
12:35 this is not some facet of kind of underdevelopment,
12:38 it's actually intentional,
12:39 because Africans refused
12:41 centralization,
12:42 and really this project,
12:43 you know,
12:44 today is just
12:45 talking about
12:46 some of the consequences of that
12:47 for
12:48 uh
12:49 for taxation.
12:50 But mostly,
12:50 of course,
12:50 I'm gonna have to convince you that
12:52 that
12:53 these traditional ideas about centralization in Africa
12:57 have actually
12:57 perpetuated themselves over time and they significantly
13:01 affect the kind of way people think about
13:03 power and legitimate authority
13:05 and the way they think about political
13:08 institutions.
13:08 OK,
13:09 so,
13:09 so on the next slide,
13:10 which is like the small agenda for today,
13:13 uh,
13:13 is,
13:14 um,
13:15 the next slide.
13:17 Please.
13:23 OK.
13:24 Andrew,
13:25 who's moving the slides?
13:28 Can you see it?
13:30 I can see it,
13:30 but I can't move it,
13:31 yeah,
13:31 so I can,
13:32 I can.
13:34 Oh goodness,
13:36 this is.
13:39 Is that?
13:41 Oh,
13:41 we lost it?
13:52 Yes,
13:53 OK,
13:53 can you see it now?
13:56 Yes.
13:58 Which,
13:58 so where,
13:59 where,
13:59 which slide are you on?
14:00 This one?
14:02 Uh,
14:02 I don't know,
14:02 I can't,
14:03 I don't know,
14:03 yeah.
14:04 Small picture.
14:05 Yes,
14:05 yes,
14:06 perfect.
14:06 OK,
14:07 alright,
14:07 so,
14:08 so I'm just,
14:09 you know,
14:09 there's many aspects of this that one could talk about,
14:12 uh,
14:12 but
14:13 I'm just gonna talk
14:14 today about the implications of this,
14:16 uh,
14:16 for,
14:17 for sort of taxation,
14:18 OK?
14:19 So
14:19 I think we know,
14:20 you know,
14:20 empirically,
14:21 uh,
14:21 African states,
14:23 uh,
14:24 tax,
14:24 you know.
14:25 They don't tax much relative to GDP per capita.
14:27 I think the,
14:28 I don't know what the World Bank thinks about this,
14:30 but I think the International Monetary Fund says,
14:32 you know,
14:32 15% of GDP is the sort of magic number.
14:35 And many African countries,
14:36 uh,
14:37 fall below that.
14:38 OK?
14:38 So,
14:39 so,
14:39 you know,
14:39 I think from a public finance perspective,
14:41 you think that,
14:42 you know,
14:43 the people lack
14:44 basic public goods,
14:46 and,
14:46 you know,
14:46 it's gonna be highly desirable from a normative.
14:48 Perspective,
14:49 to raise taxes and provide uh
14:51 more,
14:52 more public goods to deal with some of the problems that Andrew was,
14:55 was outlining at the start of the talk.
14:57 I think,
14:57 you know,
14:58 uh,
14:59 typical arguments for why that doesn't happen include,
15:02 you know,
15:02 uh
15:03 uh
15:04 citizens don't want to concede taxation with a history,
15:07 you know,
15:07 to states with a history of misallocating and diverting public monies.
15:12 Uh,
15:13 states which lack accountability,
15:14 and there's still quite a few of those in sub-Saharan Africa,
15:17 do not have the incentives to provide such public goods,
15:20 and you may also think that
15:22 African states,
15:23 you know,
15:23 however well-intentioned,
15:24 uh,
15:24 leaders are or rulers are,
15:26 they lack
15:27 just,
15:27 they just lack the bureaucratic capacity to raise revenues and spend them on,
15:31 uh,
15:32 uh,
15:32 efficiently on public goods.
15:34 So I think,
15:35 I think all of those,
15:36 I think all of those,
15:37 those,
15:38 those factors are.
15:38 Are
15:39 important,
15:39 so I don't,
15:40 don't want to be,
15:41 I don't wanna be interpreted as saying these are not important,
15:43 I think they are,
15:44 and there's plenty of evidence.
15:45 But what I wanna do is advance a new argument,
15:47 uh,
15:48 and I'm gonna show you some evidence
15:49 from Sierra Leone,
15:51 uh,
15:51 to kind of
15:52 lead you into that new argument.
15:54 OK,
15:54 so we go to the next slide,
15:56 we see that,
15:57 um.
16:11 OK,
16:12 no,
16:12 wrong,
16:12 wrong direction.
16:17 OK,
16:17 alright,
16:18 so
16:19 let me look at
16:20 attitudes of Sierra Leoneans to,
16:22 um,
16:22 why Sierra Leoneans?
16:23 Well,
16:23 because I got a lot of these orig,
16:25 these ideas originally when I was working in Sierra Leone,
16:28 so,
16:28 so,
16:28 so that's,
16:29 that's why,
16:29 you know,
16:30 uh,
16:30 and I'm gonna come back and talk about Sierra Leone later if I get,
16:33 get a chance,
16:34 OK?
16:34 So,
16:35 uh,
16:35 uh,
16:36 so,
16:36 so
16:36 let's look at the attitudes of Sierra Leoneans towards uh taxation,
16:40 OK,
16:41 so,
16:41 so,
16:42 you know,
16:42 uh,
16:42 it turns out,
16:43 and I think we can all agree,
16:44 uh,
16:44 that public good provision is pretty awful.
16:46 Uh,
16:47 in Sierra Leone,
16:48 uh,
16:48 uh,
16:48 it's much better than it is,
16:50 it much,
16:50 it's much better than it used to be,
16:52 you know,
16:52 partially thanks to the World Bank.
16:53 Uh,
16:54 and let's see what Sierra Leoneans think about taxation.
16:57 OK,
16:57 so on the next slide I just reproduced some data
17:00 on
17:00 from the last round of the AfroBarometer,
17:03 uh,
17:03 on
17:04 Sierra Leoneans' attitude towards taxation.
17:06 So,
17:06 so
17:07 only about 10 to 15% of Sierra Leoneans think the government should tax more,
17:11 uh,
17:12 and,
17:12 you know,
17:12 47% of rural.
17:14 People and 24% of urban people think it should tax less.
17:18 OK,
17:18 so,
17:19 so,
17:19 so that,
17:20 you know,
17:20 there's not overwhelming support for a kind of public finance view here,
17:23 but you can sort of think,
17:24 OK,
17:25 fine,
17:25 but the Sierra Leoneans,
17:27 there's a lot of problems with governance in Sierra Leone,
17:29 with kind of clientelism and corruption and diversion of
17:33 state resources.
17:34 So of course,
17:34 Sierra Leoneans,
17:35 you know,
17:36 don't want to pay more taxes,
17:37 they're worried that it's not gonna be spent on things that benefit them.
17:40 OK,
17:41 next slide.
17:42 So
17:42 that's part of the problem,
17:45 OK,
17:45 but
17:46 I wanna argue it's not the whole
17:48 uh
17:48 part of the,
17:49 it's not the whole story,
17:50 and there are good kind of profound reasons for why it's not the whole story,
17:54 which is related to what Vancina was talking about.
17:56 So there's a very clever question,
17:58 if you go to the next slide,
18:00 which the Afrobarometer
18:01 also asked in the following way.
18:04 Which of the following statements is closest to your view?
18:07 Statement 1,
18:08 it's better to pay higher taxes
18:09 if it means that there will be more services provided by the government.
18:14 Statement 2,
18:14 it's better to pay lower taxes if it means
18:17 there will be fewer services provided by the government.
18:20 So the whole point of this question,
18:21 which they asked everywhere.
18:22 Is to try to kind of get round this problem of,
18:25 well,
18:26 of course you want
18:27 lower taxes,
18:28 because you think the money's all gonna be misappropriated,
18:30 all right,
18:30 so they're sort of saying hypothetically,
18:33 if you were absolutely sure this would be spent on public goods,
18:36 would you be in favor of higher taxes?
18:38 And remarkably,
18:40 it seems to me.
18:41 And this is the sort of start of the whole paper,
18:43 and this is true right the way across sub-Saharan Africa.
18:47 41% of Sierra Leoneans prefer lower taxes and lower levels of services,
18:53 or lower levels of public goods,
18:54 OK?
18:55 And that's
18:56 48% of people in rural areas where public goods are,
18:59 you know,
18:59 public goods provision in rural Sierra Leone is a lot worse than it is in Freetown,
19:03 for example,
19:04 or in Bow.
19:05 Or McKenny,
19:06 uh,
19:07 uh,
19:07 but nevertheless,
19:08 almost half of people would like lower taxes and
19:11 lower
19:12 public goods.
19:13 OK,
19:13 so that's,
19:14 to me,
19:15 that's a puzzle,
19:16 OK,
19:16 so,
19:16 so,
19:17 and,
19:18 and it's not explicable by these mechanisms
19:20 of problems of corruption and accountability,
19:23 and so,
19:24 uh,
19:24 so the paper is really about
19:26 providing an explanation for this puzzle,
19:28 so let's go.
19:30 I think it's a puzzle,
19:31 and I think,
19:32 you know,
19:32 to understand that,
19:34 what I propose is you have to think about Africans' ideas,
19:37 you know,
19:38 like people don't talk about political philosophy in
19:40 Africa or Africans' ideas about legitimate authority or,
19:44 you know,
19:44 if we were talking about England,
19:46 you know,
19:47 we'd be talking about John Locke and Thomas Hobbes,
19:49 if we were talking about the United States,
19:50 we'd be talking about Montesquieua and James
19:52 Madison and Alexander Hamilton and stuff,
19:54 but when it comes to Africa,
19:56 we don't think about.
19:57 Africans' ideas about authority,
19:59 but I think that's absolutely critical because we know that Africans organized
20:03 their polities in extremely different ways,
20:06 historically and in not very ways which are very distinct from
20:09 Western
20:10 societies,
20:11 and that was exactly uh
20:13 Van
20:13 Seena's point.
20:14 OK,
20:15 so,
20:15 you know,
20:16 what he points out
20:17 is that Africans grappled in an original way with the question of how to maintain.
20:21 Contained local autonomy paramount,
20:23 while enlarging the scale of society.
20:25 OK,
20:26 so people understood that there were benefits from scale,
20:29 cooperation,
20:30 you know,
20:30 it,
20:31 it kind of facilitating trade and providing,
20:34 you know,
20:34 public goods,
20:36 but
20:36 they were worried about their autonomy.
20:39 OK,
20:39 so,
20:40 yeah,
20:40 familiar pressures such as population growth or
20:42 the need to provide public good did.
20:44 Lead to the birth of some chiefdoms,
20:46 even kingdoms,
20:47 mostly
20:48 they led to the birth of new forms of association to safeguard
20:51 the autonomy of the basic community in a time of expansion.
20:54 So what you see
20:55 throughout,
20:56 you know,
20:56 Africa is a very big place,
20:58 Africa's not a country,
20:59 there's a lot of heterogeneity here,
21:01 you know,
21:01 and I'm happy to talk about that,
21:02 and,
21:03 you know,
21:03 it so obviously I'm kind of riding over that in this discussion,
21:06 so I should just apologize for that and.
21:08 You know,
21:09 uh,
21:09 but just to give you,
21:10 you know,
21:11 he's talking about Bantu Africa,
21:12 he's talking about Central Africa,
21:14 the kind of areas of Bantu expansion,
21:16 and,
21:17 you know,
21:17 so obviously Ethiopia's very different,
21:19 the *** Bend is very different,
21:20 you know,
21:21 so,
21:21 so,
21:21 but
21:22 we can talk about all of that,
21:23 but if I start talking about all the heterogeneity,
21:25 we'll never,
21:26 I'll never get anywhere,
21:27 you know,
21:27 and I think.
21:28 There are a lot of similarities in many different
21:31 African societies in these kind of issues,
21:33 and we know,
21:34 we,
21:34 I talk about a lot of the specifics in the paper.
21:36 OK,
21:37 so,
21:37 so what does he mean by
21:39 new forms of association and kind of alternatives to
21:42 the type of centralized state that emerged in,
21:45 you know,
21:45 in East Asia or emerged,
21:47 you know,
21:48 in,
21:48 in Western Europe?
21:50 Next slide.
21:52 Uh,
21:53 this is what,
21:53 you know,
21:53 modern anthropologists,
21:54 this is not the,
21:55 the,
21:55 the word that,
21:56 uh,
21:57 Vancini uses,
21:58 but would call
21:59 hybrid institutions.
22:00 So,
22:01 so
22:02 institutions that try to take advantage of some of the,
22:05 you know,
22:05 try to kind of reap some of the advantages of scale or states,
22:09 but in different
22:10 ways,
22:10 OK?
22:11 So the first part of the paper,
22:12 I point out that
22:14 these kind of hybrid institutions.
22:17 Rarely,
22:18 rarely involve taxation,
22:20 OK,
22:20 so uh,
22:20 let me get,
22:21 talk,
22:21 talk a little bit about the kind of canonical example of this from anthropology,
22:25 which is from,
22:26 uh,
22:26 which is from Uganda,
22:27 it's one of the best studied examples of this,
22:30 which is the Aur
22:32 uh
22:33 polity.
22:34 So next slide please.
22:36 OK,
22:36 just,
22:36 uh,
22:37 you know,
22:37 without insulting anyone's intelligence,
22:39 these,
22:39 this is a,
22:40 this is an ethnographic map,
22:42 a map of of,
22:43 of Uganda,
22:43 which,
22:44 which
22:44 I can't point to it,
22:45 but
22:46 the Aor country is up,
22:47 you know,
22:47 right at the top of Lake Albert,
22:49 uh,
22:49 at the top,
22:50 uh,
22:50 you know,
22:50 the northwest corner of the map.
22:52 Uh,
22:53 that's just to give you a sense of where the Aor.
22:55 is,
22:56 OK,
22:56 so,
22:57 so the,
22:57 the,
22:58 the formation of the Allor
23:00 state,
23:00 if you like,
23:00 was studied by Aidan Southall,
23:02 uh,
23:03 an
23:04 anthro social anthropologist in the late 1940s and early 1950s
23:07 who kind of transcribed a lot of the oral history
23:09 of the origins of the institution.
23:11 So if you go to the next slide,
23:13 you know,
23:13 I'll just tell you the story.
23:15 That part of uh
23:16 Uganda
23:18 was,
23:18 was inhabited by,
23:19 by kind of what,
23:20 uh,
23:21 you know,
23:21 what you could call stateless societies,
23:23 sort of acephalous societies,
23:24 you know,
23:25 the Lendu,
23:26 the Lugbara,
23:27 uh,
23:27 uh,
23:28 some of them very well studied by other anthropologists.
23:30 So,
23:31 so they were,
23:31 they were trying to reap the benefits of scale,
23:34 uh,
23:35 and they were suffering from.
23:36 Some of the problems,
23:37 you know,
23:37 connected to the lack of state institutions,
23:40 particularly uh conflict,
23:42 OK,
23:43 so what did they do?
23:44 They
23:44 sent a,
23:45 a,
23:46 a delegate to the Allur,
23:48 the Alo were more centralized,
23:49 and they said,
23:50 come and rule us,
23:51 OK,
23:52 so they brought the Alo chiefs in from outside.
23:55 To kind of rule them,
23:57 so they,
23:57 they created a kind of layer on top of these segmentary,
24:01 sort of stateless societies,
24:03 you know,
24:04 so here's,
24:04 you know,
24:04 this is just some of the oral history that Southall transcribed,
24:08 uh,
24:09 you know,
24:09 uh,
24:10 Amato was the,
24:11 was the son of Chief Nziri of Ukuru,
24:14 OK,
24:14 so
24:15 Eleu.
24:16 Uh,
24:17 went to petition Ziri,
24:18 who's an Allur chief,
24:20 uh,
24:20 because he said,
24:21 you know,
24:22 uh,
24:22 we need a son to rule us,
24:24 because the people are scattering because of all the fighting.
24:26 OK,
24:27 so,
24:27 you know,
24:27 think of Thomas Hobbes and the state of nature,
24:30 you know,
24:30 people are fighting,
24:32 they need more centralized authority,
24:34 uh,
24:34 uh,
24:35 so,
24:35 so what do they do,
24:36 they send to the Allor to bring,
24:38 you know,
24:39 they go to Chief Mazuri and say,
24:40 you know,
24:41 send us a son.
24:42 Uh,
24:42 and he sends a son,
24:43 Amafo,
24:44 and says,
24:45 you go break that land,
24:46 guard the subjects there.
24:47 So he sends a son to become,
24:49 uh,
24:49 the chief.
24:50 So,
24:51 so
24:51 the lender invited that Allor in,
24:53 uh,
24:53 to rule them.
24:54 OK.
24:55 So,
24:55 so this is just one example,
24:56 but it's incredibly common in the oral history
24:59 of African polities to have these rule,
25:01 rule from outside.
25:02 So
25:03 either rule from outside or,
25:05 you know,
25:05 you can create the same thing
25:07 ritually,
25:08 that's,
25:08 you know,
25:08 that's what,
25:09 what,
25:09 what historians call a divine monarchy,
25:11 you know,
25:12 which we have in Britain,
25:13 by the way,
25:13 but don't let me get started on that,
25:15 OK?
25:15 So I'm gonna come back to John Locke if I had time in the end,
25:18 but this is really an instance of,
25:20 you know,
25:20 John Locke's inconvenience at what Locke called the inconvenience.
25:23 of the state of nature,
25:25 but the Allo came up with a different solution than the one that uh Locke did.
25:29 They came up with a hybrid,
25:30 uh,
25:31 that came up with a hybrid state.
25:32 So let me emphasize a few things about this hybrid state,
25:35 this kind of fusion of more centralized institutions
25:39 with,
25:39 with these segmentary lineage societies like the Lendu or the Lugbara.
25:44 So if we go to the next slide,
25:46 uh,
25:46 you know,
25:47 what were the advantages of this?
25:49 Social contract that was forged,
25:51 well,
25:51 one were the Alo were outsiders,
25:53 you know,
25:54 so they were not embedded in these quarrels,
25:56 uh,
25:57 they were like independent third parties who
25:59 were there to mediate and resolve disputes,
26:02 OK,
26:02 this happened in European history too,
26:04 you know.
26:04 Most,
26:05 uh,
26:05 most medieval Italian city-states
26:07 were,
26:08 the executive was a Podesta who was brought in from outside the city,
26:11 you know,
26:12 that's how Florence and Siena was governed,
26:14 you know,
26:14 they brought in a Podesta from outside the city
26:16 to govern the city because that was like a neutral third party.
26:19 They also,
26:21 important for the later discussion,
26:22 had supernatural powers,
26:24 so they were rainmakers,
26:25 so they brought supernatural power,
26:27 and they were intrinsically limited,
26:29 you know,
26:29 so this is what Southall points out,
26:31 they had very limited jurisdictions,
26:33 they didn't have a monopoly of force,
26:35 they had no claim to land.
26:37 Uh,
26:37 and
26:38 they had no right to collect taxes,
26:40 OK,
26:40 so,
26:40 so taxes were not part of this social contract,
26:44 alright?
26:44 So,
26:44 so,
26:45 so,
26:45 so,
26:46 so
26:46 there were,
26:47 uh,
26:47 you know,
26:47 and there was no,
26:48 I think just what,
26:49 you know,
26:49 just the idea to get across here is that,
26:51 you know,
26:52 there's no expectations or desire for an invasive state.
26:55 They,
26:55 they,
26:55 they,
26:55 they,
26:56 they,
26:56 they,
26:56 they created this hybrid institution which brought some benefits.
27:00 Dispute resolution,
27:01 rainmaking,
27:03 uh,
27:03 without threatening their autonomy,
27:05 that's the kind of key thing,
27:06 so if we go to the next slide,
27:08 um,
27:09 Uh,
27:09 this is way too many words on the slide,
27:11 this is Southall's whole kind of definition of what he called a segmentary state,
27:16 OK?
27:16 Uh,
27:17 uh,
27:17 and you're thinking to yourself,
27:19 oh my gosh,
27:19 you know,
27:20 but like,
27:20 how is that relevant for thinking about Africa today?
27:23 It is,
27:23 I'm gonna convince you by the end of the talk,
27:25 alright,
27:25 so,
27:26 so,
27:26 so,
27:26 so I won't go into all the bits and pieces of this,
27:29 you know,
27:29 but,
27:29 but,
27:30 but he talks,
27:30 Southfield talks about how this sort of state was kind of constructed.
27:34 And it has many elements,
27:36 you know,
27:36 of modern African states,
27:37 if you ask me,
27:38 you know,
27:39 like
27:39 I've been working in the DRC for many years,
27:41 I'm gonna show you some data from the DRC later,
27:44 uh,
27:44 but,
27:45 but,
27:45 you know,
27:46 he sort of points out there's like a core and a periphery,
27:48 and.
27:49 The state in the periphery really,
27:51 you know,
27:52 has what he calls ritual hegemony,
27:54 you know,
27:54 the Congolese state has ritual hegemony,
27:57 you know,
27:57 in eastern
27:58 DRC.
27:59 Many African states have a kind of,
28:01 yeah,
28:01 there's some sort of sovereignty,
28:03 which is recognized,
28:04 but it's not actually kind of anything is implemented in reality,
28:08 you know,
28:08 uh,
28:09 there's limited control over the periphery,
28:12 and,
28:12 you know,
28:12 one of the points of his definition here is actually,
28:14 you know,
28:15 states don't have a monopoly of violence,
28:17 OK,
28:17 so,
28:18 so.
28:18 Uh,
28:19 legitimate force of a more restricted order inheres,
28:22 inheres in all the peripheral,
28:23 uh,
28:24 foci.
28:24 This is not just in Africa,
28:25 by the way,
28:26 the Colombian state looks exactly like this.
28:28 So,
28:28 so,
28:29 so,
28:29 so I won't,
28:30 I won't go into this in detail,
28:31 but the idea I want you to get is,
28:33 you know,
28:33 there's this problem,
28:34 you want to maintain autonomy,
28:35 you want to take advantage,
28:36 this is some
28:37 cooperation,
28:38 some aspects of scale,
28:39 dispute resolution,
28:40 maybe supernatural power.
28:42 You create this hybrid institution which has limited jurisdictions,
28:46 and it doesn't involve
28:47 the right to tax.
28:49 OK,
28:49 let's go.
28:50 So,
28:51 um,
28:52 so and I,
28:52 you know,
28:52 I wanna say.
28:54 I wanna call,
28:54 this is why I call it tax aversion,
28:56 not evasion.
28:57 Maybe I should have called it tax refusal,
28:58 you know,
28:59 maybe that would have been even better.
29:00 OK.
29:01 Now,
29:01 that's a historic thing,
29:03 um,
29:03 you know,
29:04 and it was made worse by what,
29:06 you know,
29:06 it was made worse by colonialism,
29:08 you know,
29:08 so here's my favorite Nigerian,
29:10 uh,
29:11 Nigerian example from eastern Nigeria.
29:13 So in Igbo,
29:14 I'm told,
29:14 uh,
29:14 I don't speak Igbo,
29:15 of course,
29:16 but,
29:16 uh,
29:16 in Igbo I'm told
29:18 the job for a civil service position
29:20 is basically.
29:21 White man's job.
29:22 If you take the literal Igbo and you translate it into English,
29:25 it means white man's job.
29:27 So that's,
29:27 that's how Igbo people think about
29:30 working for the government,
29:30 you know,
29:31 it's like a white man's job.
29:32 So obviously colonialism
29:34 made this antagonism,
29:35 colonial states were unaccountable,
29:37 they were violent,
29:38 you know,
29:38 they were coercive,
29:39 they were extractive.
29:40 That made this
29:42 antipathy towards
29:43 power
29:44 much worse in Africa.
29:46 And I think it's also been exacerbated.
29:48 By,
29:49 by post-colonialism,
29:50 because why?
29:51 Because think of a country like Nigeria.
29:53 So for me,
29:54 you know,
29:54 Nigeria is made up of hundreds of different
29:56 social contracts.
29:57 The social contract in Igbo land,
29:59 actually the social contract in one part
30:00 of Igboland is different from the social contract
30:03 in a different part of Igbo land.
30:05 You know,
30:05 Yoruba social contracts were different.
30:07 The Hausa social contract,
30:08 the,
30:09 you know,
30:09 the Nupe,
30:09 the Tiv,
30:10 the,
30:11 you know,
30:11 so
30:11 there were many different social contracts.
30:13 So
30:14 how do you.
30:15 Aggregate those to create a legitimate way of governing Nigeria.
30:19 For me,
30:19 that's the massive,
30:20 the most massive post-colonial problem.
30:22 So of course
30:23 it's incredibly difficult to adjust to a world,
30:26 you know,
30:26 where you have this completely arbitrary country created.
30:29 Africans have all sorts of different ideas about legitimate power and authority,
30:33 and you have to just
30:34 find a way of aggregating that,
30:36 you know,
30:36 uh,
30:37 and I should say,
30:37 you know,
30:38 many of these social contracts
30:40 were deliberately designed,
30:41 you know,
30:41 not to.
30:42 Be aggregated,
30:43 I can come back to that,
30:44 you know,
30:44 because of this,
30:45 this desire for autonomy,
30:46 OK,
30:47 you don't want large
30:48 coercive
30:49 states,
30:50 and so,
30:50 so,
30:51 and as I,
30:52 you know,
30:52 I,
30:52 I don't have time to talk about this,
30:53 but,
30:53 but,
30:54 you know,
30:54 even
30:55 the most centralized states in Africa don't
30:57 look anything like Western European states.
31:00 You know,
31:00 you look at Rwanda,
31:01 for example.
31:02 You know,
31:02 Rwanda had no bureaucracy whatsoever,
31:05 you know,
31:05 there was nothing,
31:06 there was no bureaucracy whatsoever.
31:08 There was the army.
31:09 There were the ritualists,
31:10 yeah,
31:10 there was the Mwami,
31:11 the king,
31:12 and the kind of the pyramid of,
31:14 you know,
31:14 authority,
31:15 but it had nothing like a,
31:17 a,
31:17 a bureaucracy,
31:18 and there was no taxation
31:20 either.
31:20 Uh,
31:20 of course the army had herds and stuff,
31:22 whatever.
31:22 OK,
31:23 so,
31:23 so I just say,
31:24 you know,
31:25 the,
31:25 what the paper does is to sort of talk about some of the social,
31:29 historical social contracts and some more aspects of
31:31 that that I'm not gonna get into.
31:33 And then
31:34 sort of try to show how this has flowed into sort of contemporary Africa.
31:38 OK,
31:38 now I know you're all skeptical that this has anything to do
31:41 with the state in Africa today,
31:43 so let me keep,
31:43 let's keep going,
31:45 and I'll try to convince you it does,
31:46 OK?
31:47 So,
31:47 so,
31:48 my own personal experience is that,
31:50 you know,
31:50 if you look,
31:50 or my understanding of the history,
31:52 if you look at post-colonial Africa,
31:54 you see how.
31:56 State builders,
31:57 institution builders,
31:58 tried to adjust,
31:59 you know,
31:59 to this history,
32:00 and they tried to build
32:02 different types of societies in these post-colonial nations,
32:06 taking into account this,
32:08 the way Africans thought about
32:09 politics and political institutions.
32:11 I think,
32:11 you know,
32:12 if you read about,
32:13 How and Kruma thought,
32:14 you know,
32:14 if you read conscientism or you read Nerere or the Arusha Declaration,
32:19 they thought that there was a kind of synergy between
32:22 the community,
32:22 you know,
32:22 different aspects of African society,
32:25 this more kind of,
32:26 you know,
32:26 communitarian nature,
32:28 sort of socialistic and,
32:31 Modern,
32:31 a kind of modern socialism,
32:33 that a socialist state was gonna somehow be able to
32:37 cut across many of these differences and tap into common
32:40 aspects of African society
32:42 in a way that would allow them to build a,
32:45 a state,
32:46 OK,
32:46 so
32:47 what I,
32:47 I.
32:48 Talk about that in the,
32:49 in the paper,
32:50 you know,
32:50 what I talk about is sort of three examples which I find extremely interesting.
32:54 You know,
32:54 one is
32:55 I,
32:55 I try to reinterpret the way Mobutu ran uh
32:58 the Congo through the lens of the Allor state.
33:01 OK,
33:02 I'm gonna start with that because that's maybe the most outrageous.
33:05 Then I talk about,
33:05 you know,
33:06 why did Sierra Leone end up being governed the way it was after 1960.
33:11 And then I'll talk a little bit about,
33:12 uh,
33:12 Botswana,
33:13 because,
33:13 you know,
33:14 Botswana was the first place I started doing
33:16 serious research in Africa back in the 1990s.
33:19 And it's
33:20 fascinating because Botswana's one place where
33:22 there's been fantastic institution building,
33:24 where it's very difficult to argue
33:26 that,
33:27 you know,
33:27 that,
33:27 that,
33:28 that,
33:28 that Africans think,
33:29 you know,
33:30 that the money is gonna be stolen or there's no accountability,
33:33 you know,
33:33 that,
33:33 that institutionally,
33:35 Africa uh Botswana works extremely well,
33:37 but you'll see when I look at the data
33:39 that,
33:40 you know,
33:40 when I go to the Afrobarometer,
33:41 you see that the opinions of Botswana about.
33:44 You know,
33:45 taxation and public good provision are remarkably similar to Sierra Leoneans,
33:49 and I don't think that can be explained by the fact that,
33:51 you know,
33:52 people think
33:53 there's massive corruption or whatever because there isn't.
33:55 Alright,
33:56 so let me talk a little bit about
33:57 each of these examples,
33:59 and I'll,
33:59 I'll try to,
34:00 I,
34:00 I'm,
34:00 I,
34:00 we started late and so let me try to
34:03 keep it fast and
34:04 provocative.
34:05 So let's go and talk about,
34:06 so,
34:06 so the argument in the paper,
34:07 I go through it really fast,
34:08 you know,
34:09 about President Mobutu is that,
34:10 you know,
34:10 in some sense President Mobuto,
34:12 if you think about how he
34:13 ruled.
34:14 You know,
34:15 the,
34:15 the image in Western political science,
34:17 you know,
34:18 uh,
34:18 is,
34:18 is,
34:19 is this sort of kleptocratic dictator,
34:21 you know,
34:22 whatever,
34:22 unchecked,
34:23 unbalanced,
34:24 you know,
34:24 stealing,
34:25 whatever.
34:25 I don't think that provides much insight into the way he governed at all.
34:29 Uh,
34:29 if you read
34:30 how,
34:30 about how he governed and how he organized things,
34:33 to me it looks like,
34:34 and this is what I try to argue in the paper,
34:35 it looks like a scaled up version of a high.
34:37 Hyd state.
34:38 OK,
34:39 so,
34:39 so
34:39 he took
34:40 a kind of traditional model of
34:42 how things were organized,
34:44 and he tried to scale it up,
34:45 you know,
34:45 on this massive scale of the Congo,
34:48 you know,
34:48 so that was a very unlikely project,
34:51 uh,
34:51 and it didn't work very well,
34:53 but my point is it was a logical thing to do,
34:55 you know,
34:55 he had to find a way of governing this place,
34:58 and
34:59 he had a model.
35:00 And it didn't work very well,
35:02 but I think it was a sensible thing to do,
35:03 and I don't think it's just about kleptocracy or stealing whatsoever.
35:08 OK,
35:08 I think it's a much more genuine
35:10 project than that,
35:11 and let me just say a few things about that.
35:13 Keep going.
35:14 Uh,
35:15 you know,
35:15 the leopard skin hats,
35:16 so first of all,
35:18 everything you see about Mobutu,
35:19 he's endlessly kind of
35:21 making salient traditional symbols of authority,
35:24 power,
35:25 uh,
35:26 you know,
35:26 which were connected,
35:27 you know,
35:28 including
35:28 supernatural authority,
35:30 as I'll talk about.
35:31 The leopard skin hat,
35:32 the leopard is power,
35:33 the leopard is a symbol of.
35:35 Of,
35:35 uh,
35:36 political power,
35:36 you know,
35:36 so this is from Van,
35:37 this is from Vancina's book,
35:39 you know,
35:39 uh,
35:40 uh,
35:40 the leopard is thoroughly identified with political leadership,
35:43 you know,
35:44 so that's not just a kind of fashion,
35:46 uh,
35:47 accessory,
35:48 that's,
35:48 that's the chief,
35:49 that's what the chief,
35:50 and we'll see,
35:51 I'm gonna come back to King Karma later on.
35:52 That's the chief,
35:53 OK,
35:54 so keep going.
35:55 Uh,
35:56 so,
35:57 here's,
35:57 you know,
35:57 this is one of the,
35:58 the most famous political science books about,
36:00 um,
36:01 the Mobutu State by Turner and Young.
36:03 They sort of produced this praise poem as a sort of laughable kind of,
36:07 you know,
36:07 like,
36:07 look at the guy,
36:08 he was just so out of,
36:09 out of touch with reality,
36:11 you know.
36:11 Here's the,
36:12 today we're going to admire the guide Mobutu,
36:14 if you see him,
36:15 admire him,
36:16 if everyone sees him,
36:17 let them admire him.
36:18 It's a praise poem,
36:19 like,
36:20 big deal.
36:21 That's everywhere in Africa,
36:23 go to the next slide,
36:24 OK?
36:24 Here's the here's a praise poem,
36:26 uh,
36:27 they,
36:27 they were transcribed,
36:28 uh,
36:28 in the 1960s for Botswana by the great anthropologist Isa Shapira,
36:32 you know,
36:33 Shikedi Karma,
36:34 this was Seretsi Karma,
36:35 the first president,
36:36 you know,
36:36 the great state builder,
36:38 you know,
36:38 uh
36:39 uh uh in Botswana.
36:41 Uh,
36:41 this was his uncle who was also a great.
36:43 States builder in many ways,
36:45 uh uh uh I won't go into that,
36:46 but let just let me show you,
36:48 you know,
36:48 the lion roared in wonder at Shikedi,
36:51 he saw the chief challenge it,
36:53 uh,
36:54 the wind pierced the young men's bones,
36:56 OK,
36:56 it pierced the young men's joints.
36:58 Shikedi alone did not shiver,
37:01 OK,
37:02 so
37:02 he's,
37:03 he he faces down the lion in the,
37:05 in,
37:06 in the bush,
37:06 OK,
37:07 so,
37:07 praise poem,
37:08 big deal,
37:09 next,
37:09 next slide,
37:10 uh,
37:11 and how does this,
37:11 how does this one end?
37:13 Give us rain,
37:14 son of Karma,
37:15 we are nourished by the water of your rain,
37:18 OK,
37:19 rainmaking.
37:20 Next slide,
37:21 OK.
37:22 Who are these guys?
37:24 Prime Minister Matata's praise singers,
37:25 you know,
37:26 I was at,
37:26 uh,
37:26 I was at a conference in Kinshasa,
37:28 you know,
37:29 uh thanks to the World Bank,
37:30 uh organized with the Prime Minister Matata,
37:32 you know,
37:33 uh,
37:33 well,
37:34 who are these guys?
37:35 He's praise singers,
37:36 you know,
37:36 big deal,
37:37 it's just,
37:37 uh,
37:37 this is how,
37:38 this is,
37:39 this is the trappings of authority,
37:40 you know,
37:41 uh like a crown,
37:42 like,
37:43 you know,
37:43 all the stuff the British Royal Family.
37:45 This is the trappings of authority,
37:46 there's nothing weird or kleptocratic about it,
37:48 this is just.
37:49 How it is,
37:50 OK,
37:50 keep going,
37:51 I'll show you some more praise singers in a minute.
37:53 Alright,
37:53 witchcraft,
37:54 alright,
37:55 so this is the,
37:55 this is,
37:56 you can check this out,
37:56 it's on,
37:57 it's on YouTube,
37:58 this is the famous uh song Franco,
38:00 the great uh kind of Congolese rumba artist,
38:03 wrote
38:03 about Mobutu,
38:04 he wrote a real.
38:04 Election song,
38:05 and,
38:06 you know,
38:06 I just emphasize the lyrics,
38:07 the lyrics are about witchcraft,
38:09 uh,
38:10 so our candidate,
38:11 Mobutu,
38:11 uh,
38:12 God sent you,
38:13 Central Committee,
38:13 watch out for sorcerers,
38:15 you know,
38:15 the Ndoki,
38:16 uh,
38:17 their provocations have not stopped.
38:19 Next slide,
38:20 um.
38:21 I'm,
38:22 I'm sorry to be doing this to Andrew,
38:23 you're,
38:23 you're probably a terribly important person,
38:25 and I'm,
38:25 I'm getting you to move my slides.
38:27 I'm feeling very anxious about that,
38:29 you know,
38:29 so,
38:29 uh,
38:30 uh,
38:30 I'll make it up to you.
38:32 Alright.
38:32 After you vote for him again,
38:34 look at one another in the eyes,
38:35 Mobutu,
38:36 the sorcerers are still here,
38:38 OK?
38:38 Now,
38:39 this is not something exotic.
38:40 I learned this by doing research in Congo for the last 12 years.
38:43 Let,
38:44 let me show you some real data.
38:46 Next slide,
38:47 OK,
38:47 so this is work,
38:48 ongoing work in Ecuador with Sarah Lowes,
38:50 Nathan Nunn,
38:51 and Eduardo Montero,
38:52 and we've been collecting a lot of data on,
38:54 uh,
38:55 on witchcraft,
38:56 and especially the role of witchcraft in
38:58 politics,
38:59 OK,
38:59 so,
39:00 so this is not some exotic weird thing,
39:02 OK,
39:02 it's absolutely central in politics in the,
39:05 in Congo,
39:05 OK,
39:06 so,
39:06 so here's a question,
39:07 this is uh in Equator,
39:09 where PresidentBubutu was.
39:10 From
39:11 in the north of the country up by Central African Republic,
39:13 does your village have,
39:15 uh,
39:15 sorcerers?
39:16 Basically,
39:16 1000% of people say,
39:19 yes,
39:19 the village has sorcerers.
39:20 Do you have diviners?
39:21 So,
39:22 you know,
39:22 if you think you're being attacked by witchcraft,
39:24 you go to a diviner
39:25 to sort of figure out what's going on and provide a cure.
39:28 So
39:29 everywhere has divi,
39:30 most most places,
39:31 over 80% of villages have diviners.
39:33 OK,
39:34 keep going.
39:36 Uh
39:37 How many people in your village believe in witchcraft?
39:40 None.
39:41 Basically
39:42 nothing,
39:43 OK?
39:43 So one third of people say everyone believes in witchcraft in our village,
39:48 and,
39:48 you know,
39:48 or close to 50% say most people believe in witchcraft.
39:52 So,
39:52 so if you ask people,
39:53 do people,
39:54 basically everybody
39:56 believes in witchcraft,
39:56 that's,
39:57 that's a reasonable generalization,
39:59 OK,
39:59 so
40:00 big deal,
40:01 how does that affect my life?
40:02 Go to the next slide.
40:04 Uh,
40:05 how important is Bokoko for a village chief?
40:08 So Bokoko means,
40:09 uh,
40:09 power of the ancestors.
40:11 So this is,
40:11 you know,
40:11 the,
40:12 the,
40:12 the power of a chief,
40:13 the supernatural authority of a chief
40:15 comes
40:15 from the ancestors,
40:17 you know,
40:17 so,
40:17 so ancestors are very important everywhere,
40:20 you know,
40:20 in Africa,
40:21 uh,
40:21 and,
40:21 and so they endow power,
40:24 you know,
40:24 there's a sort of hierarchy,
40:25 god,
40:26 deity,
40:26 ancestors,
40:27 humans.
40:28 You know,
40:28 and so
40:29 they endow you with supernatural power.
40:31 So
40:32 how important is the power of,
40:33 you know,
40:34 so how important is it for the chief to have supernatural power?
40:37 Very important,
40:38 40% of people say it's extremely important,
40:40 OK?
40:41 30% say it's somewhat important,
40:43 you know,
40:44 and so
40:45 it's extremely important for the chief to have
40:48 power,
40:48 OK,
40:48 supernatural power.
40:50 Next slide.
40:52 OK,
40:52 so
40:53 we asked,
40:54 uh,
40:54 you know,
40:55 what are the top 3 problems in the village,
40:57 and we included,
40:58 you know,
40:58 you're the World Bank,
40:59 you might think
41:00 public services are a problem,
41:01 the quality of the school is a problem.
41:03 You didn't think to ask,
41:04 was weak Bokoko of the chief a problem?
41:08 OK.
41:08 So,
41:09 so,
41:09 you know,
41:09 why did we end up studying this?
41:10 Because all the Congolese,
41:11 we were doing something else,
41:12 and all,
41:13 all the Congolese people kept telling us,
41:15 well,
41:15 you're interested in politics,
41:16 why aren't you studying Bokoko,
41:17 like you should be studyingbokoku,
41:19 like this is.
41:19 The elephant,
41:20 they would like,
41:21 our Congolese enumerators
41:22 told us we should study this,
41:24 so we started studying it,
41:25 OK,
41:25 so
41:26 close to 50% of people
41:28 mark
41:29 the chief has weak bokoko as being one of the top 3 problems in the village.
41:34 OK,
41:34 this is a problem.
41:35 If your chief doesn't have strong bokoko,
41:37 he can't protect the village,
41:39 you can't get stuff done.
41:40 OK,
41:40 this is just,
41:41 you know,
41:41 I'm not gonna show you regressions or anything.
41:43 I'm just to say,
41:44 I'm talking about that stuff about President Mobutu,
41:46 but this.
41:47 This is a real thing,
41:47 OK,
41:48 this is how people think.
41:49 This is the,
41:50 the ontology,
41:51 you know,
41:51 this is not a Western ontology.
41:53 The notion of
41:54 what there is,
41:55 is different,
41:56 and we have to accept that and we have to respect it,
41:58 and we have to try to understand how it shapes their ideas about
42:02 power and legitimate political institutions,
42:04 and I think this helps you understand
42:06 many things that Mobutu did.
42:08 This is not just about stealing money or kleptocracy,
42:10 and yeah,
42:11 that did go on,
42:11 OK,
42:12 it went on,
42:12 why?
42:13 You know,
42:13 because.
42:14 Because,
42:15 because there's a lot of,
42:16 there's a lot of room for,
42:17 there's a lot of wiggle room,
42:18 you know,
42:18 at the top of that thing trying to
42:20 organize all these different historic social contracts,
42:23 like I was saying in Nigeria.
42:24 Same problem in Congo,
42:25 OK,
42:26 so.
42:27 Let's go.
42:28 Um,
42:29 I feel I should shut up at 12:30,
42:30 otherwise I'm really,
42:31 you know,
42:31 violating talking of social contracts.
42:33 Alright,
42:34 so,
42:34 so you got the idea,
42:35 OK,
42:36 so my idea of Mobutu,
42:37 this,
42:37 you know,
42:37 read the,
42:38 you can read the paper,
42:39 it's on my webpage,
42:40 is that,
42:40 is that
42:42 this is understandable from this perspective.
42:45 Of scaling up this traditional social contract.
42:48 OK,
42:48 Mobutu didn't tax much,
42:50 or at all,
42:52 or provide a lot of services,
42:53 but I guess the pro the provocative conclusion here is maybe he wasn't expected to,
42:58 you know,
42:59 maybe that wasn't part of this social contract,
43:02 and he
43:03 wasn't expected to.
43:04 OK,
43:05 so that's,
43:05 that's,
43:06 that's the provocative bottom line.
43:07 All right,
43:08 so let's,
43:08 let's go.
43:10 Limited jurisdictions,
43:11 remember limited jurisdictions.
43:12 What about Sierra Leone,
43:13 I think Sierra Leone is very different,
43:15 you know,
43:15 Sierra Leone
43:16 is it the way Sierra Leonean societies,
43:19 Were organized,
43:20 was different,
43:21 you know,
43:21 there's a lot of heterogeneity in Africa.
43:23 So the way Mende or Temne
43:25 society,
43:25 for instance,
43:26 which we know much more about in the 19th century,
43:28 was organized,
43:29 was different.
43:30 You know,
43:30 there were
43:31 more centralized polities,
43:32 there were kind of nascent social contracts,
43:35 not involving taxation,
43:37 OK.
43:38 So the way Sierra Leone was run after independence was
43:40 power was shifted
43:42 to where it was legitimate,
43:43 which was out of Freetown and down into the chieftaincies,
43:46 you know.
43:46 Everybody ran the state like that,
43:49 the Sierra Leone People's Party,
43:50 Saka Stevens,
43:51 the one party state
43:52 was sort of run
43:54 like that,
43:54 OK?
43:55 And
43:55 for me,
43:56 you know,
43:56 that,
43:57 again,
43:57 that was a sort of plausible model,
43:59 uh,
44:00 but it didn't work well because it fails to provide some public goods
44:04 which turned,
44:05 you know,
44:05 which made it extremely vulnerable to invasion from Liberia,
44:08 you know,
44:09 which is what started the,
44:10 the civil war,
44:11 and it,
44:11 you know,
44:11 so,
44:12 and it was very bad at providing.
44:14 Lots of types of public good,
44:16 but my,
44:16 my point is just that was a logical thing,
44:18 they didn't have a model,
44:19 they were kind of improvising,
44:21 you know,
44:21 and trying to build institutions.
44:23 Again,
44:23 I'm sort of saying,
44:24 I don't think you want to think about this,
44:26 you know,
44:26 people talk about Saka Stevens,
44:28 oh he was kleptocratic,
44:29 blah blah blah.
44:30 I don't think that clarifies
44:32 why he did
44:33 what he did.
44:34 To me,
44:34 what he did makes a lot of sense,
44:36 it didn't work well,
44:36 but give the guy a break,
44:38 you know,
44:38 this was a heck of a problem he was trying to solve,
44:40 you know,
44:40 it was a heck of a problem.
44:42 If you go on to the next slide.
44:44 Uh,
44:45 more praise singers,
44:46 this is President Karoma's praise singers.
44:48 I was in Mackenny,
44:49 you know,
44:49 when he was handing out staffs to paramount chiefs,
44:52 it was a beautiful bit of political theater.
44:54 And
44:55 what else does President Koroma do?
44:56 You know,
44:57 he's head of the Masonic lodge in Mackenny,
45:00 there it is,
45:00 the Wusa Masonic Temple.
45:02 What the heck is that about?
45:03 It's the modernization of tradition.
45:05 Secret societies are incredibly big all over Sierra Leone,
45:09 OK?
45:10 The Freemasons are a.
45:11 Politic uh uh are,
45:12 are a secret society.
45:13 The Freemasons are massive in Brazzaville,
45:15 in Congo,
45:15 in Gabon,
45:16 everywhere,
45:16 you know,
45:17 President Bongo,
45:18 they're all free in the Freemasons.
45:20 Like what is that?
45:21 That's
45:22 deeply connected to,
45:23 to,
45:23 to,
45:24 to political and social traditions,
45:26 uh,
45:27 in that part of Africa.
45:28 Uh,
45:29 OK,
45:29 keep going.
45:31 All right.
45:32 Who's trusted in Sierra Leone,
45:33 back to the Afrobarometer.
45:35 Traditional leaders are far more trusted than national politicians,
45:38 OK,
45:38 so,
45:39 so that's where the power and legitimimacy
45:41 is,
45:42 you know,
45:42 I did a lot of work in Sierra Leone with your,
45:45 your colleague at the World Bank,
45:46 Tristan Reed,
45:47 I don't know if Tristan's there today,
45:48 but
45:48 Tristan.
45:49 I spent a lot of time
45:50 studying the kind of deep history of these chieftaincies
45:53 when he was a PhD student at Harvard,
45:54 and you know,
45:55 there's all these connections.
45:56 So,
45:57 so
45:57 traditional leaders,
45:58 paramount chiefs,
45:59 they're still trusted far more than national politicians.
46:02 Uh religious leaders are also very trusted.
46:04 OK,
46:05 keep going.
46:07 Um,
46:07 alright,
46:09 uh,
46:10 Botswana,
46:10 just go to the next,
46:12 next figure.
46:14 Uh,
46:14 so here's the great state builder in Botswana.
46:17 I was reading something by Mo Ibrahim this morning,
46:19 and he was talking about Festus Mohai,
46:21 you know,
46:21 who was a great president in Botswana,
46:23 but I think
46:24 you have to go back 100 years before Festus Mohai.
46:26 This was the guy who created modern Botswana,
46:29 OK,
46:29 this was Soretsi Karma's grandfather,
46:31 King Karma,
46:32 you know,
46:32 who,
46:33 in,
46:33 in.
46:34 In,
46:34 created all these innovations,
46:36 OK,
46:36 but
46:37 what,
46:37 look,
46:37 what's he sitting on,
46:38 a leopard skin.
46:39 He's sitting on a leopard skin,
46:40 he's dressed like an Englishman,
46:41 he started a business,
46:42 you know,
46:43 he,
46:43 he was an incredible innovator,
46:45 institutions,
46:46 uh,
46:46 in many different sorts of institutions,
46:48 uh,
46:49 you know,
46:49 uh,
46:50 but he never managed to create a fiscal system.
46:52 Uh,
46:52 that's my point.
46:53 No right to tax,
46:54 still sitting on a leopard skin,
46:55 you know,
46:56 in fact,
46:56 the genius of Botswana,
46:57 right,
46:58 is
46:59 their ability to tap into.
47:01 Tradition,
47:01 you know,
47:01 and
47:02 scale it up
47:03 into the modern nation state,
47:05 and how could they do that?
47:06 Well,
47:07 because
47:07 what ended up as Botswana
47:09 had some institutional commonalities,
47:12 you know,
47:12 uh,
47:13 which was not true about Nigeria,
47:14 which was not true about the Congo.
47:16 So,
47:16 so I don't wanna say,
47:18 you know,
47:18 what these guys did was not
47:20 amazing,
47:21 it was,
47:22 but
47:22 the problem was easier to solve than the problem in Nigeria and Congo,
47:26 I would say.
47:26 OK,
47:27 keep going.
47:28 And if I go back to the Afrobarometer,
47:30 again,
47:30 you know,
47:30 this is what I think is interesting about the Botswana case,
47:33 if I go back to the Afrobarometer,
47:35 you see that
47:36 39% of Botswana prefer lower taxes and lower services.
47:40 OK,
47:40 there's,
47:40 you know,
47:41 you,
47:41 you could say,
47:42 OK,
47:42 yeah,
47:42 but they have more services in Botswana,
47:44 so,
47:44 OK,
47:45 that's fine,
47:45 you know,
47:46 so if we run,
47:46 start running regressions,
47:47 we'll need to control for things or whatever,
47:49 but again.
47:50 You know,
47:50 this is pretty much like Sierra Leone,
47:52 and you can't explain this by corruption or,
47:55 you know,
47:55 because,
47:56 because that's things don't work like that in Botswana,
47:58 you know,
47:58 the state,
47:59 the,
47:59 the civil service,
48:00 it's very
48:01 well run and,
48:02 and,
48:02 you know,
48:03 and they take resources and diamond wealth and they
48:05 spend it on roads and health and public goods and
48:08 OK,
48:08 so.
48:09 Um,
48:10 I wanna shut up because I feel I've gone on too long,
48:12 but I,
48:12 OK,
48:12 so
48:13 let's,
48:13 let's jump on that.
48:14 I,
48:14 let's jump over that.
48:15 I kind of had that idea.
48:17 I,
48:17 I sort of
48:18 threw it out.
48:19 I won't give Mende proverbs.
48:20 Let's keep going.
48:22 Um,
48:22 I want,
48:23 I want,
48:23 OK,
48:24 and let me jump over this,
48:25 you know,
48:25 the,
48:25 uh,
48:26 Vaninna never sort of clarifies why Africans
48:29 are so worried about autonomy.
48:31 So this is,
48:31 this is,
48:32 I have lots of ideas on this.
48:33 I've actually been teaching a class.
48:35 This year with uh Professor Fran Francis Njoku,
48:37 who's a professor of philosophy from the University of Nigeria at Nsukka.
48:41 He's been here and we're working on this.
48:42 So I have lots of ideas,
48:43 but let me not talk about it because,
48:45 cos it'll get,
48:46 get us all sidetracked.
48:47 Um,
48:48 let me,
48:48 let me,
48:48 I wanna shut up.
48:49 Autommy for women as well as men,
48:51 that's the Aba
48:52 Women's war in the south of Nigeria,
48:54 let me keep going.
48:55 I think I just wanna end with a photograph,
48:56 you know,
48:57 so,
48:57 you know,
48:58 you know,
48:58 let's keep going,
48:59 let's keep going.
48:59 I'm gonna end with,
49:00 let's,
49:00 I wanna
49:01 keep going.
49:02 I,
49:02 you know,
49:02 this is just
49:04 keep going.
49:06 Keep going,
49:07 keep going,
49:08 stop,
49:08 alright,
49:09 great.
49:09 No,
49:10 no,
49:10 no,
49:10 no,
49:10 back,
49:10 back,
49:11 back,
49:11 back to Twitter.
49:12 OK,
49:13 so let me,
49:14 no,
49:15 let's,
49:15 let's get,
49:16 that's it,
49:16 that's it,
49:16 great.
49:17 So,
49:17 so you've got the idea,
49:18 you know,
49:19 I could elaborate on this,
49:20 we could talk more,
49:20 I wanna hear what other people have to say,
49:23 uh,
49:23 but
49:24 I think you're still skeptical that these historic
49:27 practices or ideas influence the way things happen.
49:31 In Africa today,
49:32 so I'm gonna give you one example
49:34 which you can't possibly disagree with,
49:36 alright,
49:36 like,
49:36 no way,
49:37 just,
49:37 just no way,
49:38 like,
49:39 what is this?
49:39 This is a tweet
49:41 from
49:41 Muhuzi
49:42 Kae Rugaba,
49:43 who's a Ugandan,
49:45 some of you may know who he is,
49:46 he's a Ugandan military officer,
49:48 uh,
49:48 and,
49:49 uh,
49:50 he says,
49:51 I received my cows from
49:53 His Excellency Paul Kagame,
49:55 the day before yesterday.
49:56 I am now.
49:57 Out officially in Kottai,
49:58 OK,
49:59 um,
49:59 that's like,
50:00 uh,
50:00 my understanding is that means he's a member of the party,
50:03 OK,
50:03 the Rwandan,
50:04 uh,
50:04 party,
50:05 alright,
50:05 so,
50:06 so
50:06 how,
50:07 you know,
50:07 if you go and read about how the traditional state was organized in Rwanda,
50:12 OK,
50:12 uh,
50:13 how was it organized through.
50:15 Kind of
50:16 system of clientalism based around cows,
50:19 OK,
50:20 I give you cows,
50:21 you know,
50:21 you're,
50:22 you're my,
50:22 we now we have this relationship,
50:24 OK,
50:24 you support me,
50:25 you work for me,
50:26 so,
50:26 so,
50:27 so,
50:27 you know,
50:28 if you look at the way the state works in Rwanda,
50:30 how does the state implement policy?
50:33 It has nothing to do with taxation,
50:34 OK?
50:35 Most people who work for the state don't get paid at all,
50:38 so you don't.
50:38 You don't need any resources to pay them,
50:40 OK,
50:41 that it works through these incredibly dense
50:43 social
50:44 networks,
50:45 you know,
50:45 the way presidents,
50:46 the biggest kind of policy implementation scheme
50:48 that they have,
50:49 you know,
50:50 works through this very traditional,
50:52 these very traditional practices of reciprocity,
50:56 OK,
50:56 it cascades all the way down into the village.
50:58 Imehigo is the,
50:59 the system,
51:00 it's called Imohiko,
51:01 OK?
51:02 You don't need any money for that.
51:03 I mean you do because you have to provide public goods and things like that,
51:05 but a vast amount of
51:08 stuff is people working for free,
51:10 you know,
51:10 and that's how
51:11 the pre-colonial state worked as well,
51:13 you know,
51:14 so,
51:14 so
51:15 I'm not,
51:16 uh,
51:16 you know,
51:17 I think this is just,
51:17 you could say,
51:18 oh it's Rwanda,
51:19 everyone knows Rwanda is different.
51:20 Yeah,
51:20 it is different,
51:21 everywhere is different in Africa,
51:22 you know,
51:23 and,
51:23 and we have to take that all seriously,
51:24 but I think like.
51:26 I don't think anyone can deny that
51:28 if you wanna understand how the state works in Rwanda today,
51:31 you need to understand the history and the ideas of Rwandans
51:35 about legitimate authority and how things ought to be done,
51:38 so.
51:39 I shut up then.
51:42 Oh,
51:42 and I could talk about Cameroon too,
51:44 but that's even more outrageous.
51:48 OK,
51:48 you,
51:49 you're done.
51:50 Yeah,
51:50 I'm done.
51:50 I'm done.
51:51 I'm done.
51:51 Thank you so much,
51:52 and that is fascinating,
51:54 uh,
51:54 tour de force.
51:55 Um,
51:56 let me now,
51:57 can I stop sharing this now?
51:59 Is that OK?
52:00 Yes,
52:00 please.
52:01 Yes,
52:01 thank you,
52:01 and thank you so much.
52:03 No,
52:03 no problem.
52:04 It's my pleasure.
52:05 Um,
52:05 OK,
52:05 so let me,
52:06 let me call on,
52:07 uh,
52:07 Stuti,
52:08 uh,
52:09 to,
52:09 uh,
52:09 give her remarks,
52:11 uh,
52:11 and then I'll go to,
52:12 uh,
52:13 Oyebola.
52:15 Thank you.
52:16 Thank you,
52:16 Andrew,
52:17 for inviting me to be a discussant.
52:19 Jim Robinson is my,
52:21 one of my gurus,
52:22 so it's an honor to be here,
52:24 listen to him and
52:26 have the opportunity to share
52:28 some thoughts on his paper.
52:30 Let me see if I can share some slides I did prepare.
52:35 Uh,
52:35 is that visible?
52:37 Yep,
52:38 I can see it.
52:38 All right,
52:39 super.
52:41 Um,
52:42 so,
52:43 uh,
52:43 Jim's paper really inspired me to go and look at the World Bank's,
52:49 uh,
52:49 data page on government financing.
52:53 And here's what I found.
52:55 So,
52:56 uh,
52:56 using,
52:56 I'm sure this is data that has a lot of measurement errors.
53:00 So all the numbers here though are comparable.
53:03 They're all from this data source.
53:05 So it seems that there is quite a,
53:08 there's quite a bit of variation across countries,
53:12 uh,
53:13 including within Africa in tax to GDP.
53:16 Issues.
53:17 Jim alluded to the IMF saying there's some kind of magic number of 15%,
53:23 and in fact,
53:25 uh,
53:26 at some point in the early 2000s,
53:28 the world average almost touched that 15%,
53:32 but in general it's been between
53:35 13 to 14.5% of GDP.
53:38 And how does Africa look?
53:40 Well,
53:41 as we've learned from Jim's work,
53:43 Botswana is indeed an outlier in Africa,
53:47 very,
53:48 uh,
53:49 uh,
53:49 strong institutions,
53:51 very well governed,
53:52 and,
53:53 uh,
53:53 in fact,
53:54 no surprise,
53:55 um,
53:55 Botswana is off the charts in its tax to GDP ratio,
54:00 uh,
54:00 in this,
54:01 um,
54:02 from this data.
54:03 Uh,
54:03 it's,
54:04 uh,
54:04 I have to move this so I can read my own,
54:06 uh,
54:07 OK.
54:07 Uh,
54:08 it's,
54:08 uh,
54:08 uh,
54:09 it's at 22.3%,
54:11 and very much along the lines of Denmark,
54:14 which is,
54:15 has,
54:16 uh,
54:16 traditionally been at the,
54:18 the top of the rankings in
54:20 size of government.
54:22 So Denmark is at 34%.
54:24 Nothing really comes close to Denmark,
54:26 France,
54:27 Austria,
54:28 Australia
54:29 are around 24%,
54:31 which Botswana is quite close to.
54:33 And if you want another point of comparison,
54:36 India and Brazil are much,
54:38 much smaller
54:39 in their tax to GDP ratio.
54:42 Uh,
54:43 the other interesting thing that jumped out at me from looking at this data,
54:47 uh,
54:47 uh,
54:47 and,
54:48 you know,
54:48 linking it to the other
54:50 country that Jim focused on,
54:52 Congo.
54:53 That is much lower at 8.9%,
54:56 but it's actually quite comparable to China.
54:59 Uh,
55:00 uh,
55:00 at China has a slightly lower tax to GDP ratio.
55:04 So just from that,
55:05 it's not quite clear that looking at tax to GDP ratios.
55:10 Is telling us something about preference for autonomy.
55:13 I don't think
55:15 one would characterize
55:17 the Chinese polity as one
55:20 where there is a lot of autonomy among citizens,
55:23 and yet China has a very low tax to GDP ratio.
55:30 Uh,
55:31 try to go down
55:32 and,
55:33 OK.
55:37 Does it move?
55:42 I'm glad it's not just me.
55:45 Today is a day for like technical problems gremlins are in the works,
55:50 yeah,
55:51 as I say.
55:52 I hit enter,
55:53 I hit the down button.
55:55 OK,
55:56 let me just
55:57 talk
55:58 through it,
55:58 uh.
56:03 One share and then reshare
56:05 in case something is wrong.
56:06 OK.
56:11 So I,
56:11 you're saying stop sharing,
56:14 that's what I'm suggesting and reshare,
56:16 OK.
56:26 Then I go
56:28 down.
56:29 Yes,
56:29 OK,
56:30 thank you,
56:30 Ebola.
56:32 Um,
56:33 so is,
56:33 is tax aversion,
56:35 the argument that Jim is,
56:37 uh,
56:38 furthering in this paper?
56:39 Is that an explanation among many others,
56:41 as Jim recognized
56:43 for this variation?
56:45 So I am actually
56:47 not persuaded that an argument based on a single survey item
56:52 that uh uh inspired Jim in the Afrobarometer can really
56:56 throw light at this question.
56:58 Maybe there is something very important
57:00 about tax aversion,
57:01 but so far I've not been convinced by the evidence.
57:05 So you know,
57:05 if one gets into survey questions,
57:08 I mean,
57:08 just imagine if the question.
57:10 slightly differently.
57:12 Is it better to pay higher taxes if it means the government
57:16 can help grow the economy,
57:17 create jobs?
57:18 It's anyone's bet um how
57:21 the pattern of responses might look for this.
57:24 Uh,
57:24 the way the statement in the Afrobarometer that Jim is relying on is,
57:28 is worded,
57:29 there could be so many different interpretations
57:32 across how different respondents heard that statement.
57:36 And in fact,
57:37 using the question as is,
57:40 I was actually persuaded in the entirely opposite direction.
57:45 So if I look at Jim's table,
57:47 table 2 I think,
57:48 on Sierra Leone,
57:49 what really struck me is the big difference between urban and rural
57:54 respondents.
57:55 And in fact that 56% of urban Sierra Leoneans are
58:00 willing to pay more taxes if it means more services.
58:04 And uh from other work,
58:06 uh,
58:06 a lot of it that colleagues have done at the bank,
58:09 uh,
58:09 rapid urbanization is a big story in the African continent.
58:14 And as climate change and other forces disappearing water,
58:20 degrading land
58:21 begins to create these forces of internal migration away from villages
58:27 to urban centers.
58:30 That rapid urbanization was exactly the path to
58:35 building state fiscal capacity in the history of other countries.
58:40 One story which is well documented in research is,
58:44 in fact,
58:44 the United Kingdom.
58:46 And uh
58:47 with urbanization and the need for urban public services,
58:51 uh,
58:52 uh,
58:52 it,
58:54 it seems as though the data is not
58:56 inconsistent with the,
58:58 with the expectation that indeed,
59:02 uh,
59:02 taxation is going to rise and as urban public goods are demanded by people.
59:09 Uh,
59:09 but the other,
59:10 the one interesting thing that uh uh I did take
59:13 away from the data on this Afrobarometer question that Jim shared
59:18 is there does seem to be enormous variation across responses.
59:23 And in fact,
59:24 there's a very interesting clustering between
59:27 high shares of respondents
59:30 saying they strongly
59:32 agree with.
59:32 The statement of better to pay higher taxes,
59:36 as well as lumping of respondents or strongly agree
59:41 with the second statement that it is
59:43 better to not pay higher taxes.
59:46 And so I wonder whether
59:48 there is something going on in that question that is in
59:52 fact showing as we see in other places around the world.
59:55 And Jim concludes with that,
59:57 alluding to uh political polarization in the United States,
1:00:01 for example,
1:00:02 uh,
1:00:03 that there could be very different views a polity has.
1:00:07 Now I have something
1:00:08 more to say on that,
1:00:09 but before going there,
1:00:11 here is
1:00:12 my personal survey question that has always excited me.
1:00:15 It is not from the Afrobarometer,
1:00:18 it's from the,
1:00:19 the World Values Survey.
1:00:21 And it's a statement where disagree disagree statement
1:00:26 about having honest elections is very or rather important for whether
1:00:32 their country develops economically.
1:00:35 And what is really striking across all regions,
1:00:40 all countries in which the World Values Survey asked this question.
1:00:44 Is,
1:00:45 uh,
1:00:45 that
1:00:46 there's very little variation
1:00:48 in how people respond to this.
1:00:50 Uh,
1:00:51 most people respond saying that honest elections are very important.
1:00:56 And recently,
1:00:57 uh,
1:00:58 Shanta Devirajan and I revisited this in a paper we just did,
1:01:03 uh,
1:01:03 for the LSC Press,
1:01:05 and,
1:01:05 uh,
1:01:06 you know,
1:01:06 we try to at this while people answer that having honest elections is very,
1:01:11 or rather
1:01:12 important,
1:01:13 um,
1:01:14 uh,
1:01:14 they also answer that they have little or no confidence
1:01:18 in elections as they are.
1:01:20 And in fact,
1:01:20 there's another module in the World Values Survey.
1:01:23 Which uh shows why they have good reason not to have confidence in elections as is,
1:01:30 because those elections are not honest,
1:01:31 they're the opposite.
1:01:32 They are,
1:01:33 they have highly dishonest practices.
1:01:36 Uh,
1:01:37 and but what this scatter plot is showing you
1:01:40 is that regardless of
1:01:42 what the average response rate on no confidence in elections is,
1:01:48 the minimum,
1:01:49 um,
1:01:50 uh.
1:01:50 The Share of respondents in any country
1:01:53 that
1:01:54 the
1:01:55 respondents say they believe in honest elections is at least 70%,
1:01:59 and there's a ton of variation.
1:02:01 So even,
1:02:02 even with very high,
1:02:04 uh,
1:02:05 lack of confidence in elections,
1:02:07 you have respondents saying nevertheless they hope elections could
1:02:12 become honest because that's really important to whether countries
1:02:16 develop economically.
1:02:18 So,
1:02:19 um,
1:02:20 uh,
1:02:21 one other reason it's always a privilege and an honor to,
1:02:24 uh,
1:02:25 to be on a panel with Jim,
1:02:27 is that,
1:02:28 uh,
1:02:28 he endorsed one of the first,
1:02:31 uh,
1:02:31 analytical pieces that we produced in the development research group of the bank,
1:02:37 uh,
1:02:37 by
1:02:38 tackling politics directly.
1:02:40 What do we know from the literature
1:02:42 on.
1:02:43 The role of elections.
1:02:45 If elections are so important to people,
1:02:47 if elections are spreading,
1:02:49 however,
1:02:50 um,
1:02:50 uh,
1:02:51 imperfect and dishonest they might be,
1:02:54 what do we know about
1:02:55 the role of elections?
1:02:57 So I would like,
1:02:58 I would like to advertise Jim's generous endorsement of this book
1:03:04 because uh this was.
1:03:05 Published in 2016,
1:03:08 and uh it's been six years,
1:03:10 and I feel this is more relevant today than when it was published,
1:03:16 and I do not see the lessons of um
1:03:19 of the literature that we distilled in this book
1:03:23 being sufficiently taken up and applied in our programs.
1:03:28 Now,
1:03:28 uh,
1:03:29 I just want to end,
1:03:30 uh,
1:03:30 uh,
1:03:31 with this,
1:03:32 that,
1:03:32 um,
1:03:34 So,
1:03:35 I understand what Jim is trying to say about the historical roots
1:03:40 of uh how people behave,
1:03:42 uh,
1:03:42 which
1:03:44 need not show up in formal incentives,
1:03:47 uh,
1:03:48 but
1:03:48 uh there are
1:03:49 um.
1:03:51 There
1:03:52 there is a whole with these forces of urbanization,
1:03:55 with the uh role of elections and citizens,
1:03:59 and there's lots of other work which shows uh extensive citizen participation
1:04:04 in electoral institutions,
1:04:06 not just as voters,
1:04:08 but also as
1:04:10 candidates for local leadership positions in
1:04:13 in local elections.
1:04:15 How will these institutions work in practice?
1:04:18 Uh,
1:04:18 will it allow government institutions to reconcile
1:04:22 the different policy preferences or views among citizens?
1:04:26 So that this is where I'm going back to,
1:04:28 uh,
1:04:29 the question on the Afrobarometer that Jim focuses on,
1:04:32 uh,
1:04:33 this interesting feature that it has of uh uh a little bit of polarization.
1:04:39 Uh,
1:04:40 and this is,
1:04:41 uh,
1:04:41 this is the defining challenge of government,
1:04:45 as,
1:04:45 uh,
1:04:46 in the polit the political marketplace is the place where
1:04:50 society tries to resolve
1:04:52 it's very different ways of looking at the world,
1:04:55 uh,
1:04:56 of determining what kind of,
1:04:58 uh,
1:04:59 private space are they going to be willing to cede to the public sphere.
1:05:03 Uh,
1:05:03 so while Jim gave us such fascinating stories about rural Africa,
1:05:09 uh,
1:05:10 I do wonder whether,
1:05:13 uh,
1:05:13 like in every other country in the world,
1:05:15 including the United States,
1:05:17 there is,
1:05:18 there are highly divergent views between rural areas and urban areas,
1:05:24 uh,
1:05:24 and how,
1:05:25 uh,
1:05:25 the leadership that emerges through
1:05:28 political institutions in these countries,
1:05:31 uh,
1:05:31 the leader.
1:05:31 Leadership that has traditionally been part
1:05:34 of the bureaucracy in these countries,
1:05:37 how are they going to reconcile these differences?
1:05:40 How are they going to
1:05:42 find some common ground and win legitimacy for policy decisions,
1:05:47 even from people who may not agree with it?
1:05:50 Um,
1:05:51 so I feel as though we have
1:05:54 the tools of examining these relationships
1:05:57 apply equally to Africa.
1:06:00 Um,
1:06:01 I,
1:06:01 uh,
1:06:02 the,
1:06:03 the sources of
1:06:04 how people think about things may be different in
1:06:07 Africa than they are in the United States,
1:06:10 for example,
1:06:11 but
1:06:12 our analytical tools to examine how those affect
1:06:16 which policies get selected and how they are implemented,
1:06:20 uh,
1:06:20 that remains,
1:06:21 uh,
1:06:22 the same and needs to be used
1:06:24 more,
1:06:25 um,
1:06:26 uh,
1:06:27 to,
1:06:28 uh.
1:06:30 As Jim said,
1:06:31 that the World Bank should.
1:06:32 So let me end with that.
1:06:33 Thank you.
1:06:35 Thank,
1:06:35 thank you so much,
1:06:35 Studi,
1:06:36 and I know we're running
1:06:38 close to the hour,
1:06:39 uh,
1:06:40 when we usually stop,
1:06:41 so let me give,
1:06:41 uh,
1:06:43 space now to
1:06:44 Oyebola and then Jim,
1:06:46 I'll ask you
1:06:47 maybe
1:06:48 I'll,
1:06:49 I'll take a few questions.
1:06:50 It will be very few questions,
1:06:51 and then you can respond to both Studi and Ayebola,
1:06:54 is that,
1:06:54 if that's OK,
1:06:55 OK.
1:06:56 Ayebola,
1:06:57 so if you could please limit maybe
1:07:00 your remarks to a few
1:07:02 more minutes,
1:07:03 so.
1:07:07 Hi
1:07:07 everyone.
1:07:07 Thank you again to you,
1:07:08 Andrew,
1:07:09 for inviting me here
1:07:11 and um to Jim for this very thought provoking presentation.
1:07:15 And I think for me,
1:07:16 this line in the paper about
1:07:18 even if states were accountable,
1:07:20 non-corrupt,
1:07:21 And have the capacity to turn tax revenues into public goods,
1:07:25 people do not necessarily want this to happen.
1:07:27 To me,
1:07:27 that's
1:07:28 really define um calls for a lot of
1:07:31 careful thoughts and,
1:07:32 and reflection.
1:07:33 And we all heard the arguments that's about the
1:07:36 smaller um
1:07:38 state's policies and the desire for autonomy being one reason,
1:07:41 and then the second being like
1:07:43 African states post-colonial,
1:07:45 have this task of aggregating different social contracts.
1:07:48 So,
1:07:50 What I'm gonna be doing today is not to go
1:07:52 step by step into trying to do like some deep review
1:07:55 um the paper that he presented to us,
1:07:57 but instead,
1:07:58 I'll be asking
1:07:59 some questions that are trying to put this in a
1:08:01 broader context of what we know about the tax literature
1:08:04 and of um
1:08:06 tax compliance in Africa.
1:08:08 And the first question is,
1:08:09 does Africa have a tax problem?
1:08:11 Uh,
1:08:12 2 is tax collection limited by technical or by political constraints.
1:08:16 3,
1:08:17 Africans who experience better public services,
1:08:19 more accepting of the state's authority to tax.
1:08:22 And 4,
1:08:23 what further evidence could help us better understand the role
1:08:26 of tax aversion.
1:08:27 And so,
1:08:28 given the time that we have,
1:08:29 I might not be able to go through all of this,
1:08:31 but I will do what I can
1:08:32 in the next few minutes.
1:08:35 So this is um.
1:08:39 Where,
1:08:39 where studies started from.
1:08:40 Funny,
1:08:41 we didn't compare notes.
1:08:42 So basically,
1:08:42 this shows
1:08:44 the relationship between on the Y-axis,
1:08:46 tax revenue as a share of GDP and on the X axis,
1:08:49 how um the GDP per capita of the country.
1:08:51 And we do see this cluster of African countries in the bottom.
1:08:54 So,
1:08:54 lowest revenue,
1:08:56 lowest per capita GDP but then always,
1:08:58 also lower um
1:09:01 share of taxes collected as GDP.
1:09:03 Um,
1:09:04 this is just grouping this by region.
1:09:06 And yes,
1:09:07 Africa is here,
1:09:08 but then South Asia is right here,
1:09:10 right about that 12%,
1:09:11 Middle East,
1:09:12 North Africa,
1:09:13 Latin America is here,
1:09:14 and they
1:09:16 The story here is that I'm not seen as very specific Africa
1:09:20 tax problem here.
1:09:21 It seems that lower-income countries in general,
1:09:24 collect less taxes.
1:09:25 Um,
1:09:26 this is um
1:09:27 the high
1:09:28 in developed countries of today,
1:09:31 France,
1:09:31 Sweden,
1:09:31 these
1:09:32 high tax
1:09:33 areas.
1:09:34 100 years ago,
1:09:34 1920,
1:09:35 they were right about that 10%.
1:09:37 So,
1:09:38 It seems to me that there is something about the whole
1:09:40 development process and then you do develop all kinds of institutions,
1:09:43 including um
1:09:44 dispute resolution like he discusses in the paper,
1:09:46 including tax capacity,
1:09:48 and that that happens in this process of
1:09:51 uh of development.
1:09:53 So that's question one.
1:09:54 Question two,
1:09:55 and
1:09:56 is tax collection limited by technical issues or by political constraints?
1:10:00 And this is something that I work on a lot.
1:10:02 A lot of my work in the last 10 years,
1:10:03 I've been working with tax authorities
1:10:05 in places like Liberia,
1:10:06 Tajikistan,
1:10:07 really trying to help them understand how do we increase our tax collection.
1:10:11 And
1:10:12 one of the first things you have to do is to know what needs to be taxed.
1:10:16 Um,
1:10:17 who are the people that
1:10:18 are in the labor force,
1:10:19 who are the businesses?
1:10:21 For the
1:10:22 case of Liberia,
1:10:22 we're working on property taxes.
1:10:24 And the first thing we had to do was to know
1:10:26 what are the properties in the city and creating a database.
1:10:28 And so,
1:10:29 when we're talking about tax capacity,
1:10:30 a big part of it is even just knowing
1:10:32 what needs to be taxed,
1:10:33 which I'm calling detection capacity.
1:10:36 But then,
1:10:37 I completely agree with Jim that that's not enough
1:10:39 because what you find is that in many places,
1:10:42 they are known
1:10:43 unpaid tax liabilities.
1:10:45 So,
1:10:45 properties,
1:10:46 you can see them,
1:10:46 I can see them,
1:10:47 everybody can see them.
1:10:49 And they just go uncollected for decades.
1:10:52 And
1:10:52 in these cases,
1:10:53 it seems there really is something about the political climate.
1:10:56 And one thing I hear a lot of tax officials that
1:10:58 I talked to say is that there's no political will.
1:11:01 And by this,
1:11:02 almost going back to where stood it stopped.
1:11:04 It's talking about,
1:11:05 they know they're just a part of the whole puzzle.
1:11:08 Above them sits the political actors,
1:11:10 and they cannot,
1:11:11 in fact,
1:11:11 even though the law says you can lock up people's houses,
1:11:14 or you can sell them,
1:11:15 they know that their political climate cannot support that.
1:11:17 So I
1:11:18 completely agree that there is this element of political will.
1:11:22 And then the question then is,
1:11:24 um,
1:11:25 How big that is.
1:11:26 Actually,
1:11:26 I wanted to show this very quick graph.
1:11:29 And it is in a case where political will
1:11:32 was present and miraculously,
1:11:34 um,
1:11:35 the technical capacity showed up.
1:11:37 So,
1:11:37 this is Lagos in
1:11:39 mid 2000s when the federal government and
1:11:41 Lagos went Some kind of political dispute,
1:11:43 and Lagos got cut off from the oil revenues
1:11:45 that they got every month from the government.
1:11:48 And within 2 years,
1:11:49 tax revenues generated within Lagos more than doubled.
1:11:52 And so,
1:11:53 I feel like this is one example that if African countries
1:11:56 want to collect taxes,
1:11:57 they find a way to do it.
1:11:59 And um
1:12:00 the next
1:12:01 The
1:12:02 question is about,
1:12:03 um,
1:12:03 there is this image in the paper,
1:12:05 he didn't have the time to discuss it,
1:12:06 but basically,
1:12:07 looking at the relationship between
1:12:09 better public services
1:12:11 and people's um acceptance of the state authority to tax.
1:12:15 And I saw this paper the first time at the AARC when Jim showed it.
1:12:19 And I was stunned because I work with this data quite a lot.
1:12:22 And this did not
1:12:24 resonate with the other work that I've done um
1:12:26 in looking at social contracts in Africa.
1:12:28 And these are the averages of on the
1:12:30 left side is people's acceptance of the question.
1:12:32 And about the state
1:12:33 has the rights to always
1:12:35 tax people
1:12:36 and on the rights of the services that they enjoy.
1:12:38 And
1:12:39 based on this,
1:12:40 the paper just discussed that,
1:12:42 you know,
1:12:42 it really doesn't matter whether the services are high
1:12:45 or low,
1:12:46 on average,
1:12:46 Africans um
1:12:48 do not really
1:12:49 It doesn't shift their acceptance of the authority of the state.
1:12:53 And so,
1:12:53 what I do here is just take the same data and look at it
1:12:56 at the individual.
1:12:57 And this is actually work that I've done um
1:12:59 on this other paper.
1:13:00 And
1:13:01 it seems that there is something going on among the people that get nothing,
1:13:05 where they still have a really high
1:13:07 acceptance of the state's authority to tax.
1:13:09 But the otherwise,
1:13:10 there seems to be this positive correlation
1:13:13 in what individual people enjoy
1:13:16 and what
1:13:17 um
1:13:18 the The relationship and their acceptance of the state's right to tax them.
1:13:21 So this I find hard to reconcile and I've been trying to think,
1:13:24 and I don't know if there are other ideas about how you reconcile this picture
1:13:28 with this one,
1:13:29 where at the average of the country,
1:13:30 there is not,
1:13:31 and it might have to do with polarization of some of these other
1:13:34 um thoughts that we have had where um
1:13:36 you have people on different extremes,
1:13:37 and if uh
1:13:39 the way that the relationship between services and scale,
1:13:42 if there is something that's nonlinear about that,
1:13:44 then maybe that's it.
1:13:45 But it's a puzzle.
1:13:47 And this is the same relationship,
1:13:49 but just here adding country fixed effects.
1:13:50 So if we put in
1:13:51 country institutions,
1:13:52 then we'd still do,
1:13:53 still do have this relationship.
1:13:55 Um,
1:13:56 and here,
1:13:57 all of that over is very descriptive kind of correlations.
1:13:59 There is a paper that I thought was useful to add to this conversation in Haiti,
1:14:03 where there's very low public services,
1:14:05 and the intervention is an RCT
1:14:08 where they actually tried to tax people.
1:14:10 And then there is another arm where they actually
1:14:12 try to provide public goods that people really want,
1:14:13 which is garbage collection.
1:14:15 And here,
1:14:16 actually try
1:14:17 tax people makes tax payments go down
1:14:18 and increases protests.
1:14:20 So there really is something about this being a political problem,
1:14:23 but where there's um providing those public goods,
1:14:26 tax payments goes up and then the political
1:14:29 violence goes down and when they do both,
1:14:31 then they do have this um
1:14:33 uh
1:14:34 the
1:14:35 providing the public goods and collecting the garbage it's.
1:14:38 this negative effects from just trying to tax people.
1:14:40 So,
1:14:40 I think it is,
1:14:42 without doubt,
1:14:42 a tension that governments have to deal with.
1:14:45 And um
1:14:46 part of what as I read the paper,
1:14:48 I just started trying to think about it is,
1:14:50 is this something about tax aversion or is this something
1:14:52 really
1:14:53 about um
1:14:54 what the,
1:14:55 the kind of more generic and quote social
1:14:57 contracts of the government providing public goods.
1:14:59 And finally,
1:15:00 I just had uh some thoughts about
1:15:02 What type of evidence might help us to better
1:15:05 think about this role of tax aversion?
1:15:07 Because I do not doubt,
1:15:08 I mean,
1:15:08 I,
1:15:09 all of these anecdotes and,
1:15:10 and the historical literature and the anthropological literature that he shared,
1:15:15 that there is something about how
1:15:17 states were
1:15:19 in pre-colonial times and the,
1:15:21 and the attitudes of people today.
1:15:23 But I think even just from the presentation,
1:15:25 he.
1:15:27 Give today,
1:15:27 there is clearly it originates about this,
1:15:29 not every
1:15:30 um
1:15:32 Where I have the same.
1:15:33 And so,
1:15:33 one question,
1:15:34 and maybe this is part of the research agenda,
1:15:36 but I think it will be really nice to think about how the variation
1:15:39 from the pre-colonial state presence or whether
1:15:41 there was pre-colonial taxation or maybe there's
1:15:43 kind of autonomous preferences,
1:15:45 whether this does map into Current rates of tax aversion,
1:15:49 or better yet,
1:15:50 actual tax collection today when people are within the same country institution.
1:15:54 So,
1:15:54 these are just some kind of general thoughts to help to frame broader,
1:15:57 the broader conversation.
1:15:58 But thanks again to the very thought-provoking presentations.
1:16:01 I'm glad I had the chance to discuss it.
1:16:05 Thank you.
1:16:06 Excellent,
1:16:06 fascinating.
1:16:07 So,
1:16:08 look,
1:16:08 um,
1:16:09 we have about
1:16:10 3 minutes,
1:16:11 but if I,
1:16:12 if you don't mind,
1:16:12 I can ask
1:16:14 the 1st 2 people who want to
1:16:17 Post the questions,
1:16:18 only 2 questions,
1:16:19 and then we'll turn to Jim and then close after that,
1:16:21 um.
1:16:23 So,
1:16:24 who wants to raise their hand,
1:16:27 um,
1:16:28 and ask a question?
1:16:37 Hello.
1:16:42 Anyone?
1:16:46 OK.
1:16:47 So if there are no questions then um
1:16:50 no people praising their hands.
1:16:52 Jim,
1:16:52 why don't you,
1:16:54 since we're running close to,
1:16:55 why don't you respond to the discussions and then we'll close.
1:16:57 Yeah,
1:16:58 OK,
1:16:58 great,
1:16:58 yeah,
1:16:58 so I won't be able to do justice to all the,
1:17:01 all the points,
1:17:02 you know,
1:17:02 but which,
1:17:02 you know,
1:17:03 and you know I think like in terms of Stussi.
1:17:05 I think,
1:17:06 you know,
1:17:06 there's,
1:17:06 there's lots of sources of variation
1:17:08 in tax rate,
1:17:09 tax relative to GDP so I think it's,
1:17:12 it's kind of difficult to think about these numbers of like China,
1:17:15 compared to Congo or whatever,
1:17:17 you know,
1:17:17 in Dubai,
1:17:18 Sheikh Maktoum,
1:17:19 you know,
1:17:20 owns everything.
1:17:21 So,
1:17:22 so he,
1:17:22 you know,
1:17:23 like,
1:17:23 so enormous,
1:17:24 you know,
1:17:24 you build a hotel,
1:17:25 it's on Sheikh Maktoum's land,
1:17:26 you know,
1:17:27 so,
1:17:27 so the money goes straight into his bank account,
1:17:30 you know,
1:17:30 so,
1:17:30 so there,
1:17:31 there's,
1:17:31 there's almost like no separation between.
1:17:34 The personal finances and the finances of the state,
1:17:37 so of course,
1:17:38 you know,
1:17:38 tax revenues,
1:17:39 you know,
1:17:39 leaving aside all the oil in Abu Dhabi or whatever,
1:17:42 you know,
1:17:42 so,
1:17:42 so I think,
1:17:43 like,
1:17:44 so there's many sources of variation like that,
1:17:46 so it's kind of hard to,
1:17:48 you know,
1:17:48 of course I,
1:17:49 I,
1:17:49 I sort of,
1:17:50 you know,
1:17:50 I try to justify it by quoting that number,
1:17:53 but,
1:17:53 you know,
1:17:53 if we were gonna look at that,
1:17:54 we'd have to try to pin down
1:17:56 some of those other sources of variation.
1:17:58 I think like 56% of people,
1:18:01 you know,
1:18:01 to me,
1:18:02 that's like very small,
1:18:03 you know,
1:18:03 like,
1:18:04 these are,
1:18:04 these,
1:18:05 you know,
1:18:05 Freetown is a place with terrible public goods,
1:18:08 you know,
1:18:08 like have you ever been in Freetown when it rains?
1:18:10 I mean,
1:18:11 so,
1:18:11 like,
1:18:12 I,
1:18:12 you know,
1:18:12 I think for me,
1:18:13 like the null hypothesis in public finance would,
1:18:16 you know.
1:18:16 The value of public goods should be enormously
1:18:18 higher than the resources necessary to provide them,
1:18:21 it seems to me,
1:18:22 you know,
1:18:22 so,
1:18:23 so I guess I would say,
1:18:24 you say 56 is high,
1:18:26 you know,
1:18:26 it's like maybe the glass is half empty,
1:18:28 or,
1:18:28 you know,
1:18:28 I would say 56 is small.
1:18:30 It seems to me like you've come at that from public finance imagining.
1:18:34 There should be like
1:18:36 massive,
1:18:36 massive,
1:18:37 you know,
1:18:37 supermajority in favor of this,
1:18:39 you know,
1:18:39 of course we can disagree
1:18:40 about this,
1:18:41 and like,
1:18:41 so 11 thing that's sort of common about both of your comments,
1:18:45 and I,
1:18:45 I did say that about your book and the,
1:18:47 and the book that you edited,
1:18:48 and the book,
1:18:49 the book is great,
1:18:50 you know,
1:18:50 but,
1:18:50 but there's many things about the world we don't understand.
1:18:53 I mean,
1:18:53 at least I,
1:18:54 there's many things about the world I don't understand.
1:18:56 Let me give you some examples.
1:18:58 You know,
1:18:58 uh,
1:18:59 there's one outlier in the Afrobarometer,
1:19:02 uh,
1:19:02 on that question.
1:19:03 You'll never guess which country it is.
1:19:05 Swaziland.
1:19:06 OK,
1:19:06 so it turns out in Swaziland,
1:19:08 Swaziland is
1:19:10 really in favor of higher taxes and more public goods,
1:19:13 OK?
1:19:14 Why is that?
1:19:15 Cause I think
1:19:16 Swaziland has a legitimate political system,
1:19:19 it's deeply rooted in 200 years of history,
1:19:21 you know.
1:19:22 The king of Swaziland is a sort of laughing stock,
1:19:25 you know,
1:19:25 of many people in the West,
1:19:27 but I think that's just cos they don't understand,
1:19:29 like how people in Swaziland think about the political
1:19:32 institutions.
1:19:33 So I didn't mention Swaziland,
1:19:34 but I think that like I don't really understand Swaziland myself,
1:19:38 but I think.
1:19:38 It
1:19:38 gives you pause
1:19:40 for thought.
1:19:41 Here's another example,
1:19:42 you know,
1:19:42 the Taliban,
1:19:43 OK,
1:19:44 how do you think about
1:19:45 the notion of authority in Afghanistan,
1:19:48 you know,
1:19:48 or the Islamic State,
1:19:49 you know,
1:19:50 how is that organized,
1:19:51 how is
1:19:52 the fiscal system organized?
1:19:54 Well,
1:19:54 the Quran,
1:19:55 you know,
1:19:55 justifies some sorts of taxes,
1:19:58 so
1:19:58 you can legitimately raise some types of taxes
1:20:02 through,
1:20:02 according to the Quran.
1:20:04 That's it.
1:20:05 OK,
1:20:05 so
1:20:06 where's the elasticity of the fiscal
1:20:08 system,
1:20:08 where's the,
1:20:09 you know,
1:20:09 where,
1:20:10 like that,
1:20:10 like.
1:20:11 OK,
1:20:12 that you cannot think of the Taliban state as some sort of kleptocratic,
1:20:16 failed Western liberal,
1:20:18 it isn't,
1:20:18 you know,
1:20:19 there's no concept of legislation,
1:20:21 you know,
1:20:22 in Islam.
1:20:22 I mean,
1:20:23 it's totally different,
1:20:24 OK,
1:20:25 so,
1:20:25 so I think you have like,
1:20:27 and to me,
1:20:27 that's the same with Rwanda,
1:20:29 you know,
1:20:29 it's the same with,
1:20:30 it's not like Western liberal,
1:20:32 we have lots of ideas about
1:20:34 how to make Western liberal democracies work better.
1:20:36 I don't think we have good ideas about how to make.
1:20:39 The Taliban
1:20:40 state worked better,
1:20:41 or the Rwandan state worked better,
1:20:44 and so we have to kind of engage with that,
1:20:46 you know,
1:20:47 I mean,
1:20:47 I understand there's lots of problems with the Taliban,
1:20:49 we can all think about it,
1:20:50 but I have to think,
1:20:51 you have to think it's a real
1:20:52 serious
1:20:53 project,
1:20:54 you know,
1:20:54 under different,
1:20:55 working under different rules,
1:20:57 you know,
1:20:57 than Western
1:20:58 liberal democracy,
1:20:59 and I think that's true in
1:21:01 Rwanda.
1:21:01 It's true
1:21:02 everywhere in Africa,
1:21:04 you know,
1:21:04 so that you could say the Taliban's an extreme example,
1:21:06 but I think it's kind of illustrates
1:21:08 kind of what I have in mind,
1:21:10 I guess,
1:21:10 here,
1:21:10 you know.
1:21:11 Um,
1:21:12 and I just think like,
1:21:13 you know,
1:21:13 in terms of Oyebola's comments,
1:21:15 you know,
1:21:15 like,
1:21:15 uh,
1:21:15 and there there are lots of things to talk about here.
1:21:17 I,
1:21:18 you know,
1:21:18 I would say,
1:21:19 and we could,
1:21:19 you know,
1:21:19 we,
1:21:19 I could look at that data,
1:21:20 I didn't even present that data here,
1:21:22 cos that's,
1:21:23 you know,
1:21:23 that's not.
1:21:24 The main thing,
1:21:25 maybe there's,
1:21:26 you know,
1:21:26 if you slice it in different ways,
1:21:28 that's just what I did,
1:21:28 and
1:21:29 maybe I liked
1:21:30 what I found when I did it that way and I
1:21:32 should have pushed harder and done it a different way,
1:21:34 and you know,
1:21:34 but,
1:21:35 but,
1:21:35 but that,
1:21:35 that's just,
1:21:36 that's why I didn't really talk about it.
1:21:38 But I say like modernization again,
1:21:39 you know,
1:21:40 like,
1:21:41 I've done a lot,
1:21:41 I don't,
1:21:41 you know,
1:21:42 this
1:21:42 modern,
1:21:43 I don't believe in modernization,
1:21:44 like,
1:21:45 it just,
1:21:45 it doesn't work in the data,
1:21:46 you know,
1:21:46 I bet if you look at changes,
1:21:48 that pattern goes away,
1:21:49 you know,
1:21:50 we did a lot of work on this with Daron and Simon.
1:21:52 I don't believe in this idea of modernization at all,
1:21:55 uh,
1:21:56 so,
1:21:56 you know,
1:21:56 the fact that in some cross section,
1:21:58 yeah,
1:21:58 as you know,
1:21:59 you know,
1:21:59 the fact that you have that in that cross section,
1:22:01 I don't think
1:22:02 tells you that,
1:22:03 that much,
1:22:04 uh,
1:22:04 to be honest with you.
1:22:05 And,
1:22:05 you know,
1:22:06 just let me say,
1:22:06 a couple of things,
1:22:07 Lagos,
1:22:08 yeah,
1:22:08 yeah,
1:22:09 lots of interesting.
1:22:09 Things went on in Lagos.
1:22:11 Governor Tinubu privatized,
1:22:13 you know,
1:22:13 the revenue service
1:22:14 to his own company,
1:22:16 you know.
1:22:16 So,
1:22:17 so yeah,
1:22:17 he had a great incentive to raise taxes.
1:22:20 It was flowing into the same accounts as his,
1:22:23 you know,
1:22:24 of his company,
1:22:25 you know,
1:22:25 so,
1:22:25 so,
1:22:26 I think,
1:22:26 you know,
1:22:27 there's more to it
1:22:28 than that in Lagos,
1:22:29 I agree.
1:22:29 But like a lot of that
1:22:31 incentive to raise taxes
1:22:33 was direct
1:22:34 material incentives of Governor.
1:22:36 Tinubu,
1:22:37 you know,
1:22:37 so that's,
1:22:38 that's,
1:22:38 that's an interesting model,
1:22:39 and you could sort of say,
1:22:40 well,
1:22:41 maybe that's a model that works well,
1:22:42 you know,
1:22:43 uh,
1:22:43 and,
1:22:43 and,
1:22:44 you know,
1:22:44 and we should think about it,
1:22:45 but,
1:22:45 but that's,
1:22:46 that's a,
1:22:46 you know,
1:22:47 there's a kind of different set of,
1:22:49 I don't know that that's saying much about people in Lagos,
1:22:51 it's saying a lot about the incentives of,
1:22:53 you know,
1:22:53 Governor Tinubu,
1:22:54 uh,
1:22:55 perhaps,
1:22:55 and,
1:22:56 and,
1:22:56 um,
1:22:57 and I think,
1:22:57 you know,
1:22:57 I think
1:22:58 these examples are interesting,
1:23:00 you know,
1:23:00 I think,
1:23:01 should we be looking at,
1:23:02 you know,
1:23:02 pre-colonial tax systems and how that influences,
1:23:05 you know,
1:23:06 attitudes today?
1:23:07 Yes,
1:23:07 absolutely,
1:23:08 that's on my agenda,
1:23:09 yes,
1:23:10 absolutely,
1:23:10 yes,
1:23:11 so great,
1:23:11 yes,
1:23:12 you read my mind.
1:23:13 And I think Haiti,
1:23:14 you know,
1:23:14 like,
1:23:14 I mean,
1:23:15 I know,
1:23:15 you know,
1:23:15 Ben,
1:23:16 I know Ben's work,
1:23:17 um.
1:23:18 And I think it's interesting,
1:23:19 but I,
1:23:19 but I wouldn't say I understand the political culture in Haiti whatsoever,
1:23:23 you know,
1:23:23 and,
1:23:24 and,
1:23:24 and how
1:23:25 Haitians think about this,
1:23:27 and I guess,
1:23:27 you know,
1:23:27 like
1:23:28 if I could provoke one thought,
1:23:30 you know,
1:23:30 I would provoke the thought that
1:23:32 political will is not just about the rulers,
1:23:34 you know,
1:23:34 or the leaders who we talk to,
1:23:36 you know,
1:23:36 in the ministry of this or the ministry of that,
1:23:38 it's about,
1:23:38 it's about the people,
1:23:39 you know,
1:23:40 it's about the people and it's like about the people.
1:23:42 You know,
1:23:43 more in Africa maybe than anywhere else,
1:23:45 you know,
1:23:45 it's,
1:23:46 you know,
1:23:46 because,
1:23:46 because,
1:23:47 because African
1:23:48 politics historically is incredibly,
1:23:51 you know,
1:23:51 participatory,
1:23:52 and maybe participatory in ways that are
1:23:54 surprising and we don't really understand,
1:23:56 you know,
1:23:56 I once asked a Kuba,
1:23:57 a Kuba chief,
1:23:58 you know,
1:23:58 we,
1:23:58 I did,
1:23:59 we did all this work in the Kuba Kingdom in,
1:24:01 in Congo,
1:24:01 you know,
1:24:02 they have all these drums,
1:24:03 they have the royal drums,
1:24:04 OK,
1:24:05 so
1:24:05 the drums,
1:24:06 like it looks cute,
1:24:07 you know,
1:24:07 the royal drum,
1:24:08 and I'd like,
1:24:08 and he said to me,
1:24:09 I said like,
1:24:10 you know,
1:24:10 what's the.
1:24:11 The drum,
1:24:12 the thing about,
1:24:13 and everywhere,
1:24:13 you know,
1:24:13 all over East Africa,
1:24:15 the,
1:24:15 the Buganda,
1:24:16 Rwanda,
1:24:17 they have these royal drums.
1:24:18 What's the thing about the drum?
1:24:19 Oh,
1:24:20 you play the drum,
1:24:21 people,
1:24:22 people hear the drum.
1:24:23 It's a sym symbol to assemble,
1:24:25 people assemble,
1:24:25 you know,
1:24:26 you assemble,
1:24:26 you deliberate,
1:24:27 that's how legitimate authority is established.
1:24:30 It's not a coincidence that a drum is a symbol of legitimate authority,
1:24:33 because it's about assembling
1:24:35 and.
1:24:36 Participating and,
1:24:38 you know,
1:24:38 and,
1:24:38 and,
1:24:39 and,
1:24:39 and,
1:24:39 and,
1:24:40 and being accountable,
1:24:41 you know,
1:24:41 not being an accountable,
1:24:42 you know,
1:24:42 he's a chief,
1:24:43 he's a hereditary Bouon chief,
1:24:45 you might think,
1:24:45 well,
1:24:46 how is that guy accountable,
1:24:47 you know,
1:24:47 the Queen of England's not accountable,
1:24:49 and,
1:24:49 you know,
1:24:49 but
1:24:50 he may be accountable in different ways,
1:24:51 you know,
1:24:52 that may be extremely significant,
1:24:54 you know,
1:24:54 for,
1:24:54 for,
1:24:55 for the way things work.
1:24:57 So I guess that's,
1:24:58 I don't know how that works in Haiti,
1:24:59 that's so complicated,
1:25:00 Haiti,
1:25:01 um,
1:25:01 but,
1:25:02 but,
1:25:02 but,
1:25:02 but,
1:25:03 but,
1:25:03 you know.
1:25:06 I should shut up.
1:25:07 Thank you,
1:25:07 thank you,
1:25:08 the,
1:25:08 the,
1:25:08 the,
1:25:08 I didn't,
1:25:09 I couldn't do justice to all the
1:25:11 interesting points.
1:25:13 OK.
1:25:13 So,
1:25:14 thank you so much,
1:25:15 uh,
1:25:16 Jim,
1:25:17 uh,
1:25:17 to Stuti and Oyebola.
1:25:19 Look,
1:25:20 I'm sorry that,
1:25:21 uh,
1:25:21 we started a bit late and didn't have a lot more,
1:25:25 you know,
1:25:26 conversation and,
1:25:27 uh,
1:25:27 and,
1:25:28 and for the participants,
1:25:29 but,
1:25:29 uh,
1:25:29 I hope that,
1:25:30 uh,
1:25:31 they went away with
1:25:32 Lots of insights about,
1:25:34 uh,
1:25:34 you know,
1:25:35 this very complex issue,
1:25:36 um,
1:25:38 and,
1:25:38 uh,
1:25:38 I
1:25:39 hope that we'll get you back,
1:25:40 Jim,
1:25:41 uh,
1:25:41 and have,
1:25:42 um,
1:25:43 a less complicated,
1:25:44 technically complicated,
1:25:45 uh,
1:25:46 start to the,
1:25:46 to the process,
1:25:47 um,
1:25:48 yeah,
1:25:48 sorry,
1:25:48 my competence,
1:25:49 so
1:25:50 no,
1:25:50 no,
1:25:50 no,
1:25:50 that's all,
1:25:51 not at all,
1:25:51 um,
1:25:52 but anyway,
1:25:52 so thank you.
1:25:53 So much and I want to thank everyone who joined and stayed on.
1:25:57 Uh,
1:25:57 we had
1:25:58 close to 75 people and,
1:26:01 uh,
1:26:02 more than half of them are still here,
1:26:03 so it was,
1:26:04 it definitely shows that there's a lot of interest and I can see hands clapping.
1:26:08 So,
1:26:09 uh,
1:26:09 thank you so much for everyone else.
1:26:11 Um,
1:26:12 so
1:26:12 take care and have a good day,
1:26:14 uh,
1:26:15 the rest of the
1:26:16 day.
1:26:17 Thank you very much,
1:26:17 yeah,
1:26:18 thank you.
1:26:19 Brilliant.
1:26:19 Thank you very much.
1:26:20 Thank you.
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