Tax administration beyond enforcement tools: Political settlements, bureaucratic discretion, and fiscal capacity in the Global South

Tax administration is central to fiscal capacity and public accountability in the Global South, yet enforcement is often treated as a technical problem of compliance, information, and administrative tools. This structured critical review argues that enforcement is shaped jointly by organisational capacity, bureaucratic discretion, informal institutions, and political power. Drawing on Political Settlements Theory and comparative public administration, it develops an enforcement-pipeline framework that locates political exposure across sequential stages from discrepancy detection and audit selection, through audit execution, assessment, sanctioning, appeals, and settlement, to post-audit follow-up. The framework elevates political economy from a background condition to observable administrative mechanisms. Evidence from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East shows that audits, third-party reporting, digital data, and algorithmic tools can strengthen compliance, but their effects often depend on who enters the enforcement system, how discretion is exercised, and whether authorities follow through consistently against politically influential taxpayers. The review further shows that digitalisation can reduce some forms of discretion while relocating others into data construction, risk scoring, case selection, overrides, and appeals. Future research should therefore examine enforcement stage by stage, combine causal designs with process tracing and frontline evidence, and test where political exposure alters administrative treatment. For policy, the findings point to the importance of protecting audit-selection integrity, limiting opaque overrides, strengthening appeal and accountability mechanisms, and designing digital reforms around institutional safeguards rather than technological capability alone.