Abstract
Understanding fiscal relations demands an exhaustive knowledge of politics. Without a doubt, the tax system is one of the clearest reflections of power relations within a given society. Yet to go beyond such general remarks and to understand concretely the current situation in Morocco and Tunisia we must take a detailed look at recent changes in fiscal relations and the events associated with them. This means integrating them into a historical perspective. For example, the way in which tax (or legitimate extraction) has been modeled historically depends on the particularities of a specific context and on specific sociopolitical configurations. Tax cannot be taken merely as an economic concept; it is simultaneously a historically constructed political concept. In order to understand contemporary transformations in fiscal relations in the North African contexts of Morocco and Tunisia, we must first clarify the historical processes through which some forms of extraction became legitimate while others did not and some forms of taxation became accepted while others did not.1
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Notes
See Janet Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience: Economic Regulation in Central Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).
For a convergent analysis, even if it is not based on the same anthropological ref-erences, see John Waterbury, “Endemic and Planned Corruption in a Monarchical Regime,” World Politics 25 (July 1973): 534–555.
This is not unique to the Moroccan political regime: in sub-Saharan Africa, e.g., all operations against fraud must also be read as central events in political life (especially in the resolution of political conflicts) and anticorruption commissions must be seen as quintessential places for the affirmation of presidential power. On this subject, see Louis Gouffern, “Les limites d’un modèle? A propos d’Etats et bourgeoisie en Côte d’Ivoire, ” Politique africaine no. 6 (May 1982); Jean-François Bayart, L’Etat en Afrique: La politique du ventre (Paris: Fayard, 1989);
Béatrice Hibou, L’Afrique est-elle protectionniste? Les chemins buissonniers de la libéralisation extérieure (Paris: Karthala, 1996);
and Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis, and Béatrice Hibou, La criminalisation de l’Etat en Afrique (Brussels: Complexes, 1997).
Béatrice Hibou, “De la privatisation de l’économie à la privatisation de l’Etat,” in B. Hibou, ed., La privatisation des Etats (Paris: Karthala, 1999).
Pierre Guillen, Les Emprunts marocains, 1902–1904 (Paris: Editions Richelieu, 1971);
Ganiage, “North Africa,” in Olivier and Sanderson, eds., The Cambridge History of Africa 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985);
and El Mansour, Morocco in the Reign of Mowlay Sulayman (New York: Middle East and North African Studies Press, 1990).
Leland Bowie, The Impact of the Protégé System in Morocco, 1880–1912 (Ohio University, Papers in International Studies, Africa Series no. 11, 1970);
Mohammed Kenbib, “Protection et subversion au Maroc (1885–1912),” in Jean-Claude Santucci and Mohammed Kenbib, eds., Le système des protections au Maroc (1996);
Mohammed Kenbib, “Protection et subversion au maroc (1885–1912),” in Jean-Claude Santucci, ed., Le Maroc actuel (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1992).
On the 26.26, see Salvatore Lombardo, Un printemps tunisien: Destins croisés d’un peuple et de son président (Marseille: Editions Autres Temps, 1998), and the Tunisian newspapers for official discourses and justifications as well as the amounts officially received. For a critical analysis, see the French and Belgian (Le Monde, Libération, Croissance, La Croix, Le Soir, La Libre Belgique). The best article is no doubt that of Chédly Ayad, “Le 26.26, c’est le président Ben Ali!” Le Soir, August 2, 1999.
There are very few scientific accounts: see Khalil Zamiti, “Le fonds de solidarité nationale: pour une approche sociologique du politique,” in Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord 35 (Paris: CNRS, 1996), 705–712
and Béatrice Hibou, “Tunisie, le coût d’un miracle,” Critique Internationale 4(June 1999): 48–56.
S. Benedict, “Le mirage de l’Etat fort,” Esprit (March–April 1997): 230–231, and J. P. Bras, “Tunisie: Ben Ali et sa classe moyenne,” Pôles 1 (April–June 1996): 174–195.
Béatrice Hibou, “De la privatisation de l’économie à la privatisation de l’Etat,” in Béatrice Hibou, ed., La privatisation des Etats (Paris: Karthala, Collection “Recherches internationales,” 1999).
Michel Camau, “Politique dans le passé, politique aujourd’hui au Maghreb,” in Jean-François Bayart, ed., La greffe de l’Etat (Paris: Karthala, 1996), 63–93; “D’une République à l’autre: refondation politique et aléas de la transition libérale,” Monde arabe, Maghred-Machrek (July–September 1997), 157:3–16.
Lucette Valensi, Fellahs tunisiens. L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes aux 18 et 19 emes siècles (Paris: Mouton, 1977).
Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, vol. 2, 1990 edition (Paris: Armand Colin, 1949).
Abdelamid Hénia, Le Grîd, ses rapports avec le beylick de Tunis (1676–1840), doctoral thesis (Tunis: Université de Tunis, 1980);
Anne-Marie Planel, “Etat réformateur et industrialisation au XIX siècle,” Monde arabe, Maghreb-Machrek (July–September 1997), 157:101–114;
M. Hédi Chérif, “Fermage (lizma) et fermiers d’impôts (lazzam) dans la Tunisie des XVII–XVIII siècles,” Etats et pouvoirs en Méditerranée, Les Cahiers de la Méditerranée (Université de Nice, 1898), 1:19–29.
On this point see Khayr ed-Din, Essai sur les réformes nécessaires aux Etats musulmans, Paris, 1868 (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1987). Throughout time, these bonds were strengthened to the point that the reformism constituted an initial handing-over of waqf assets to the state, which indeed finished by being completely brought under the control of the state at the moment of independence.
See L. Carl Brown, The Tunisia of Ahmed Bey, 1835–55 (Princeton University Press, 1974)
and A. Hourani, La pensée arabe et l’Occident (Paris: Naufal Europe, 1991) (1983 for the second English edition).
Ariel Salzmann,“An Ancient Régime Revisited: ‘Privatization’ and Political Economy in the Eighteenth Century Ottoman Empire,” Politics & Society 21, no. 4 (December 1993): 393–423.
Jocelyne Dakhlia, Le divan des rois (Paris: Aubier, 1998);
M. Hédi Chérif, Pouvoir et société dans la Tunisie de H’usayn Bin’Ali (1705–1740) (Tunis: Publications de l’Université de Tunis I, 1984 and 1986);
Taoufik Bachrouch, Le Saint et le Prince en Tunisie (Tunis: Faculté des Sciences Humaines et Sociales de Tunis, 1989).
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© 2004 Steven Heydemann
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Hibou, B. (2004). Fiscal Trajectories in Morocco and Tunisia. In: Heydemann, S. (eds) Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982148_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982148_7
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