Why have efforts to improve tax compliance in low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, failed? Existing policy and research ignore the central importance of non-state institutions in low-income countries, which both mediate interactions between states and citizens and provide governance in their own right. Can Social Intermediaries Build the State? presents a new theory of how non-state institutions shape tax collection and state-building. Drawing on a field experiment, qualitative work, and survey data from Lagos, Nigeria, the book argues that the strength of social intermediaries and their role in clientelistic exchange makes taxation and state-building more difficult. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Adrienne LeBas (PhD, Columbia University) joined American University's Department of Government in the fall of 2009. Prior to joining AU, LeBas was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and Assistant Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University. Her research interests include democratic institutions, political violence, and the rule of law. She is the author of the award-winning From Protest to Parties: Party-Building and Democratization in Africa (Oxford University Press, 2011) and articles in the American Political Science Review, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Democracy, and elsewhere. LeBas also worked as a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Zimbabwe, where she lived from 2002 to 2003.

Dr. LeBas's research has been supported by grants from the EGAP Metaketa program, the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Department for International Development (UK), among others. During the 2015-2016 academic year, LeBas was a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. She is currently working on her second solo-authored book, which investigates the reasons for persistent election violence in some democratizing countries. With Jessica Gottlieb of the University of Houston, she is also writing a book on taxation and contradictory logics of state-building in Lagos, Nigeria. In spring 2024, she is a visiting professor at Sciences Po's Centre de recherches internationales in Paris.