Useful instruments of participation? Local government and cooperatives in Tanzania, 1940s to 1970s

International Journal of African Historical Studies

Volumn 40, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 97-118

  Eckert, Andreas ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60949602077     PISSN: 03617882     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (75)

1. Quoted by Philip Mawhood, "The Search for Participation in Tanzania," in Philip Mawhood, ed., Local Government in the Third World: The Experience of Decentralization in Tropical Africa (Pretoria, 1993), 101.
2. For the origins of this term, see D. Anthony Low and John Lonsdale, "Introduction; Towards a New Order," in D. Anthony Low and Alison Smith, eds., History of East Africa, Vol. III (Oxford, 1976), 12.
3. For an excellent analysis of colonial initiatives, see Joanna Lewis, Empire State-Building: War & Welfare in Kenya 1925-52 (Oxford, 2000).
4. The best survey of British policy during the immediate postwar period is Ronald Hyam, "Introduction," in Ronald Hyam, ed., The Labour Government and the End of Empire, Part I (London, 1992), xxiii-lxxviii.
5. For Tanzania see also relevant chapters in John Iliffe, A Modern History of Tanganyika (Cambridge, UK, 1979);
6. Stephen McLoughlin, "Reckoning without the African: British Development Policy in Tanganyika, 1925 to 1950" (Ph.D. thesis, London [ICS], 1995);
7. Nicholas J. Westcott, "The Impact of the Second World War on Tanganyika, 1939-1949" (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1982).
8. See Frederick Cooper, "Modernizing Bureaucrats, Backward Africans, and the Development Concept," in Frederick Cooper and Randal Packard, eds., International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge (Berkeley, 1997), 64-92;
9. idem, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge, UK, 2002).
10. Low and Lonsdale, "New Order," 14.
11. For local government in Tanganyika after 1945, see e.g., Cranford Pratt, The Critical Phase in Tanzania 1945-1968: Nyerere and the Emergence of a Socialist Strategy (Cambridge, UK, 1976);
12. John A.O. Max, The Development of Local Government in Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, 1991);
13. Iliffe, Modern History;
14. Stanley Dryden, Local Administration in Tanganyika (Nairobi, 1968);
15. Athumani Juma Liviga, "Local Government in Tanzania, 1926-1992" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1993);
16. Andreas Eckert, "'A Showcase for Experiments.' Local Government Reforms in Colonial Tanzania, 1940s and 1950s," Afrika Spectrum 34, 2 (1999), 213-35;
17. idem. Herrschen und Verwalten. Afrikanische Bürokraten, staatliche Ordnung und Politik in Tanzania, 1920-1970 (Munich, 2006), esp. 111-23.
18. Quoted in Hyam, Part I, 120. Another important programmatic article by Creech-Jones was "The Place of African Local Administration in Colonial Policy" Journal of African Administration 1,1 (1949), 3-6.
19. See Pratt, Critical Phase, 18f. Governor Twining argued in this respect: "Progress is being made but before the indigenous people as a whole can assume any responsibilities in the sphere of central government, the local government system now being built up on the foundations of the native administrations must be fully and firmly established. Only thus can the great mass of the people be assured of true representation in the counsels of government. Critics may suggest that this envisages too slow a rate of progress but those responsible for carrying out the policy in Tanganyika have no doubt that the future will bear witness to its soundness. The truth is that there is no safe shortcut to the establishment of full democratic government among Bantu peoples." (PRO/CO/691/210: Twining to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 20 September 1950).
20. According to official sources, there were 20,598 Europeans, 71,760 Asians, and 8,665,336 Africans in Tanganyika in 1959. See Cranford Pratt, "'Multi-Racialism' and Local Government in Tanganyika," in Race 2, 1 (1960), 33.
21. The best explanation of the rise of the government's "multi- racial" strategy is given by John Iliffe, "TANU and Colonial Office," in Tanzania Zamani 3 (1997), 1-62
22. reprinted in Gregory Maddox and James L. Giblin, eds., In Search of a Nation: Histories of Authority and Dissidence in Tanzania (Oxford, UK, 2005), 168-97.
23. On this ordinance and its preparation, see e.g., J. Clagett Taylor, The Political Development of Tanganyika (Stanford, 1963), 101ff.
24. John P. Moffett, ed., Handbook of Tanganyika (Dar es Salaam, 1958), 328f.;
25. Mawhood, "The Search for Participation in Tanzania," 77-79.
26. Margaret Bates, "Social Engineering, Multi-Racialism, and the Rise of TANU: The Trust Territory of Tanganyika, 1945-1961," History of East Africa 3, 165.
27. On the disconnection between Colonial Office reform plans and ideas of "old hand" colonial officials, see, at the example of social policies, Andreas Eckert, "Regulating the Social: Social Security, Social Welfare, and the State in Colonial Tanzania," Journal of African History (hereafter JAH) 45, 3 (2004), 467-89.
28. See G. Andrew Maguire, Toward "Uhuru" in Tanzania: The Politics of Participation (Cambridge, UK, 1969), esp. 17-42.
29. In some areas such as the Uluguru mountains, forced terracing caused violent conflicts. See Pamela A. Mack, "'We Don't Want Terraces!' Protest & Identity under the Uluguru Land Usage Scheme," in Gregory Maddox, James Giblin, and Isaria N. Kimambo, eds., Custodians of the Land: Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania (London, 1996), 152-69.
30. See also Achim von Oppen, "Matuta. Landkonflikte, Oekologie und Entwicklung in der Geschichte Tanzanias," in von Oppen, Ulrich van der Heyden, eds., Tanzania: Koloniale Vergangenheit und neuer Aufbruch (Hamburg, 1996), 7-45.
31. See Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison, Wisc., 1990), Ch. 9.
32. Rhodes House MSS/Afr./S.1230: Donald Barton, Some Problems in Local Government, manuscript, January 1962.
33. The following paragraphs on co-operatives mainly rely on Gero Erdmann, Jenseits des Mythos: Genossenschaften zwischen Mittelklasse und Staatsverwaltung in Tanzania und Kenia (Freiburg i.Br., 1996), 54ff. This book provides by far the most comprehensive account of cooperatives in Tanzania.
34. The articles in Carl Gosta Widstrand, ed., African Co-operatives and Efficiency (Uppsala, 1972) and most other studies mainly focus on the supposedly incompatibility of modern organizations (co-ops) and "traditional" societies, but rarely reflect on the relationship between co-ops and the state.
35. On the relations between the British labor movement and co-ops in Tanzania, see Paul Kelemen, "Modernising Colonialism. The British. Labour Movement and Africa," Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34, 2 (2006), 223-44.
36. One notable exception was the Bukoba Native Co-operative Union. See Andrew Coulson, Tanzania: A Political Economy (Oxford, UK, 1982), 66.
37. The predecessor of the KNCU, the Kilimanjaro Native Planters' Association (KNAP), founded in January 1925, was the first modern peasant cooperative in Tanganyika. It was an African initiative, though Charles Dundas, previously an official in Moshi, but by then posted to Dar es Salaam, provided important assistance. In 1932 the government transformed the association into the KNCU, which was Tanganyika's first "formal" cooperative society. For details on the KNAP, see Susan G. Rogers, "The Kilimanjaro Native Planters Association: Administrative Responses to Chagga Initiatives in the 1920s," Transafrican Journal of History 4 (1974), 94-114; generally on co-ops in the pre-World War II period
38. See Coulson, Tanzania, 115f.
39. There is to date no adequate history of the Kilimanjaro area in the twentieth century. For a comprehensive account (including a lot of information on co-ops) until the early 1950s, see still Susan Rogers, "The Search for Political Focus on Kilimanjaro: A History of Chagga Politics, 1916-1952" (Ph.D. thesis, University of Dar es Salaam, 1972).
40. Especially on the TAA/TANU in Sukumaland, see Andrew Maguire, "The Emergence of the Tanganyika African National Union in the Lake Province," in Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, eds., Protest and Power in Black Africa (New York, 1970), 639-70.
41. On the Sukuma Union see Maguire, Toward "Uhuru.".
42. Judith Listowel, The Making of Tanganyika (London 1965), 233;
43. See ibid.; Maguire, Toward "Uhuru," 185f.
44. On Bomani, the crucial figure in the Lake Province co-op movement, see Eckert, Herrschen, 211ff.
45. See e.g., for Dar es Salaam, Deborah F. Bryeeson, "A Century of Food Supply in Dar es Salaam: From Sumptuous Suppers for the Sultan to Maize Meals for a Million," in Jane I. Guyer, ed., Feeding African Cities: Studies in Regional Social History (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), 177ff.
46. See Erdmann, Jenseits, 157, 164.
47. On this elite see Patrick J. McGowan and Patrick Bolland, The Political and Social Elite of Tanzania: An Analysis of Social Background Factors (Syracruse, N.Y. 1971);
48. Raymond F. Hopkins, Political Roles in a New State: Tanzania's First Decade (New Haven, Conn., 1971);
49. Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals.
50. See Michael Jennings, "We Must Run While Others Walk. Popular Participation and Development Crisis in Tanzania, 1961-66," Journal of Modern African Studies 41, 2 (2003), 163-87.
51. See Jwani T. Mwaikusa, "Local Government Policies in Tanzania: The Political Guinea Pig," in Donald Rothchild, ed., Strengthening African Local Initiative: Local Self-Governance, Decentralisation and Accountability (Hamburg, 1996), 63. The Government of Tanganyika abolished all hereditary chieftainships in 1963.
52. See Robert Martin, Personal Freedom and the Law in Tanzania: A Study of Socialist State Administration (Nairobi, 1974), 57;
53. Dryden, Local Administration in Tanganyika, 104;
54. See Athumani J. Liviga, "Local Government in Tanzania: Partner in Development or Administrative Agent of the Central Government," Local Government Studies 18, 3 (1992), 212;
55. See William Tordoff, Government and Politics in Tanzania (Nairobi, 1967), 95ff.;
56. In the run-up to the 1965 national elections, Nyerere had claimed that since more than one individual (pre-selected by the party) would generally be allowed to contest each seat, this would still be democracy, in that it would allow the people to reject individuals they did not like. The election was indeed a diplomatic success, being hailed by students of politics all over the world as "one party democracy." See Lionel Cliffe, ed., One Party Democracy: The 1965 Tanzania General Elections (Nairobi, 1967).
57. See Michael Jennings, "'A Very Real War': Popular Participation in Development in Tanzania During the 1950s & 1960s," International Journal of African Historical Studies 40, this issue (2007). More general discussion is provided by Leander Schneider, "Developmentalism and Its Failings: Why Rural Development Went Wrong in 1960s and 1970s" (Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 2003).
58. For a good case study see Joel Samoff, Tanzania. Local Politics and the Structure of Power (Madison, Wisc., 1974).
59. Nyerere's speech, entitled "Things We Must Correct," in Julius Nyerere, Freedom and Development: A Selection from Writings and Speeches 1968-1973 (Dar es Salaam, 1973), 72-79. The quote is from p.72.
60. Julius Nyerere, President's Inaugural Address, 10 December 1962, in Nyerere, Freedom and Unity: A Selection from Writings and Speeches 1952-65 (Dar es Salaam, 1966), 185.
61. These latter characteristics seemed fundamental to embryonic notions of Ujamaa, the Tanzanian version of "African socialism." See Viktoria Stöger-Eising, "Ujaniaa Revisited: Indigenous and European Influences in Nyerere's Social and Political Thought," Africa 70, 1 (2000), 118-43.
62. Quotes from Paul Bomani, "Foreward," in Randal Sadleir, The Co-operative Movement in Tanganyika (Dar es Salaam, 1961)
63. as quoted in Erdmann, Jenseits, 165.
64. See more generally Daniel R. Smith, The Influence of the Fabian Colonial Bureau on the Independence Movement in Tanganyika (Athens, Ohio, 1985).
65. In his characteristic way, in October 1969 Nyerere stated in this regard: "Government activity in support of the cooperative movement is absolutely essential if progress is not to be delayed for generations, with widespread exploitation being suffered in the meantime." Nyerere, "The Co-operative Movement," in Freedom and Development, 123.
66. See Jennings, "A Very Real War."
67. There is now an abundant literature on ujamaa and villagization. The following paragraph heavily relics on the brilliant though problematic analysis by James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 223-61.
68. A fierce critique of Scott's approach can be found in Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley, Calif., 2005), 140-42;
69. See Schneider, "Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial Authoritarianism in Tanzania: Connects and Disconnects," African Studies Review 49, 1 (2006), 93-118.
70. For a still very useful account of rural policy in Tanzania see Andrew Coulson, "Agricultural Policies in Mainland Tanzania," Review of African Political Economy 10 (1977), 74-100;
71. and for a more recent analysis of Nyerere's political thinking and its application, see Leander Schneider, "Freedom and Unfreedom in Rural Development: Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa Vijijini, and Villagization," Canadian Journal of African Studies 38, 2 (2004), 344-93.
72. The construction of the TAZARA railway between 1969 and 1974 was also part of a state-led rural modernization project. See Jamie Monson, "Defending the People's Railway in the Era of Liberalization: TAZARA in Southern Tanzania," Africa 76, 1 (2006), 113-30.
73. See Suleimnan Ngware and Martin Haule, The Forgotten Level: Village Government in Tanzania (Hamburg, 1993).
74. Quoted in Erdman, Jenseits, 638.
75. See Oda van Craneburgh, The Widening Gyre: The Tanzanian One-Party State and Policy towards Rural Cooperatives (Delft, Nether., 1990).