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Local Legitimacy and Tax Policy: Qaids as Part of a Composite State in Colonial Tunisia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2021

Antoine Perrier Open the ORCID record for Antoine Perrier [Opens in a new window]
Antoine Perrier*
Affiliation:
Aix Marseille University, CNRS, IREMAM, Aix-en-Provence, France
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: antoine.perrier@sciencespo.fr
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Abstract

The colonial history of Tunisia has long been dictated by colonial sources that made the qaid (an official in charge of fiscal attributions), from the viewpoint of the capital city, a local notable and often a prevaricator. This study proposes to reconsider the relationship between government and regional power in the colonial context by drawing on the recent work of Ottoman studies about provincial elites. The article studies the fiscal reforms of the interwar period in a cereal-growing region of Tunisia, relying on sources in Arabic produced by the qaids, namely the administrative correspondence between local authorities, the prime minister, and colonial controllers. This article describes the role of qaids in the negotiation between national law and local specificities and finally highlights the role of decentralization and a local way of thinking about the state in the 1930s. It contributes to colonial history and the history of taxation by highlighting the territorial fractures in North Africa and the agency of local actors under the protectorate.

Keywords

colonialismfiscal reformqaidsregional administrationtaxationTunisia
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 655 - 671
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

A correction has been made to this article since its initial publication. For details, see doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743822000514

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