ABSTRACT

Campaigning to transform agricultural practices in order to increase production, it trumpets self-reliance. A commitment to reducing inequality, a founding leader who practiced and insisted on austerity, and Tanzania's underdevelopment combined to restrict individual accumulation and to characterize visible entrepreneurial success as antisocial behavior. Several features of the Tanzanian political economy combined to limit the effectiveness of populist nationalism in maintaining elite support. The dominant conception of modernization, a perspective that has prevailed through the various redefinitions of Tanzanian socialism, favors official expertise over participation. Democracy has always been a primary value in Tanzanian political ideology. Successive political reforms have regularly been presented and justified as the institutionalization of democracy. Liberalization has compounded the decline of democracy. Deference to technical and administrative expertise has become even more persuasive. The centrality of politics at the periphery of world capitalism and the character of the state in particular African settings is one concern.