Paper short abstract:

This paper explores and contrasts the effects that different types of cross-border trade networks have on the practical norms of state performance through border trade taxation along the South Sudan - Uganda border

Paper long abstract:

This article provides a detailed ethnographic account of how state performance through the practical norms of taxation along the South Sudan - Ugandan border is shaped by interactions between state officials and traders. It is argued that the day-to-day practices of negotiation with state officials are embedded in different types of cross-border trade networks, consequently shaping state performance in different ways. Here we consider two stages of state performance: the national stage on which customs officials interact with large-scale regional cross-border traders and the local stage on which State and County officials interact with small-scale traders native to the border region. The different outcomes in state performance are considered in relation to the literature on negotiated statehood and the sociology of economic life in fragile and conflict-affected areas.