Field Heteronomy and Contingent Expertise: The Case of International Tax Justice

Abstract

The international tax system is targeted by a diverse range of networked civil society actors, from critical professionals mobilizing their expertise to anti-austerity protestors targeting the consequences of tax dodging. The years following the 2008 financial crisis saw an increase in the range of these actors and their cooperation with one another. This paper argues that a transnational field analysis complements existing expertise-oriented approaches, by identifying the overarching objective of the tax justice agenda as increasing heteronomy in the international taxation field relative to political fields. This objective requires the mobilization of diverse resources across different fields, resulting in network relationships crossing field boundaries to contest inter-field relations, rather than any single bounded field struggle. The findings are supported by an analysis of tax justice advocacy after the 2008 financial crisis in the United Kingdom and Australia, including thirty-seven in-depth interviews with different organizations involved in the network.