In partnership with the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups (CSAG) at ODI, ICTD explores in this project the logic of armed group taxation. It seeks to capture broad themes of how and why armed groups collect taxes, which may vary according to underlying variables, such as territorial control, capacity, ideology, political goal, and their relationship with taxed population.
By exploring heterogenous outcomes and tracing causal pathways, the research team aims to contribute nuance to the discussion of armed group taxation, showing the ways in which armed groups may have multiple and overlapping motives and interconnected underlying constraints to tax.
The main source of data for the project is the existing literature on armed groups and revenue extraction. It will primarily involve a wide scoping of cases of armed groups in the contemporary period, with case studies on the ways in which identified armed groups engage in taxation and revenue extraction.