The history of prosperous democracies has taught us how state-society negotiations over taxes forge participatory politics, state capacity and accountable governance. Taxes are not inherently socially beneficial but can become powerful social instruments in this way.
Sansia started her career as economist in 1989, as a junior academic at the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria (UP). During her early years as an academic, she specialised in international and exchange-rate economics. She published broadly in these fields and co-authored several textbooks. In 1999 , after a decade of teaching and research, she entered private practice. She remained involved in research projects and teaching in the doctoral programme at UP, and also served as Managing Editor of the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences. She returned to academia in 2017 and joined the African Tax Institute, specialising in the role of taxation in developing contexts. She has published several papers on development and poverty, institutional and cultural economics, and a multidisciplinary understanding of state-society relationships, of which fiscal contracts are a critical component. From 2025, she practises as tax policy consultant.