External publications

Triggers and strategies of revenue bargaining: evidence from Mozambican municipalities

von Schiller, Armin
External Publications (2024)

in: Anne Mette Kjær / Marianne S. Ulriksen / Ane Karoline Bak (Hrsg.), The Politics of Revenue Bargaining in Africa, Oxford: Oxford University Press , 83-105

ISBN: 9780192868787
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192868787.003.0004
Open access

What triggers municipalities to engage in revenue bargaining with citizens and what strategies do they use? These questions are explored here based on a comparative case study design in Mozambique which include more than 100 interviews with representatives from public administration, political institutions and civil society in 11 municipalities. The results indicate that there are two particularly strong triggers for municipalities’ efforts to engage with citizens in revenue bargaining: the unreliability of the fiscal transfer system and political competition. Furthermore, in terms of strategies the results show that municipalities’ outreach activities remain predominantly unidirectional and limited, whereby they are largely unsuccessful in engaging revenue providers broadly in a bargaining process. Also, some doubts arise concerning ownership and sustainability of initiatives when they appear to be driven by external actors, in particular by donors. Finally, civil society organizations are identified as generally too weak to play an essential role as third party supporting and coordinating revenue providers’ voices. Overall, the results provide insights into the predisposition of government to conduct revenue bargaining, but also point to the preconditions required for meaningful revenue bargaining to emerge and influence the definition of new fiscal contracts.