Paper short abstract:

Based on a case study of mining in Zambia, I suggest that taxation increased mineworkers’ engagement in public politics and, furthermore, the struggle to impose taxes on multinational corporations sparked a broad, public debate on the state’s capacity to collect and redistribute national revenue.

Paper long abstract:

According to the resource curse debate, mineral rich states developed stronger bonds with corporations than with their citizens because they did not rely on domestic taxation (Karl 2007). Yet, in the Zambian case, mining taxation played a big role in the creation of a political sphere.

A wage tax was relatively easily imposed because companies collected the tax. Mineworkers considered their tax payment as part of a social contract and demanded welfare benefits in return. To articulate collective claims, workers joined trade unions and political parties.

Mineworkers' political criticism evolved into a broad debate when the country experienced its second mining boom and it came out that, between 2000 and 2008, mining corporations had contributed less than one percent to the total tax revenue. The government responded to the public pressure and started a tax reform, but mining towns demanded radical changes and voted an opposition party into office in 2011.

In this paper, I will describe how taxation induced a broad political mobilisation in Zambia because, first, wage-workers started going on strike, engaging in public debate and joining political parties and, second, because civil society organisations pressed the government to launch a series of tax reforms to collect more revenue from multinational corporations.