Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T01:13:50.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From the global to the local? Governance and development at the local level: reflections from Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2008

Graham Harrison
Graham Harrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TU, United Kingdom
*
Email: g.harrison@sheffield.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Governance reform practice has mostly focused on building up and transforming central state institutions. Furthermore, the politics of aid has often constructed a very ‘introverted’ politics based in large cities. This article explores the means through which governance ideas are implemented outside this ‘governance realm’, by looking at the ways in which the Lushoto District government in Tanzania has mediated a range of policy changes that have emanated from the state/donor centre. Identifying three distinct but inter-related repertoires of political practice, it argues that governance at the local level has been largely about financial management, and that this aspect of reform is in tension with local developmentalism and is more starkly opposed to local veranda politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 169 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bayart, J.-F. 1993. The State in Africa: the politics of the belly. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Boone, C. 2003. Political Topographies of the African State. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braathen, E. 2003. Social Funds: support or obstacle to local government reform. Oslo: NIBR Working Paper 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, F. & Packard, R. eds. 1997. International Development and the Social Sciences. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Coulson, A. 1982. Tanzania: a political economy. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Craig, D. & Porter, D.. 2003. ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: a new convergence’, World Development 31, 1: 53–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, S. 1989. ‘Tuning into pavement radio’, African Affairs 88, 352: 321–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, A. & Ngalewa, E.. 2003. ‘Tanzania’, Development Policy Review 21, 2: 271–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feierman, S. 1974. The Shambaa Kingdom. Dar es Salaam: Kapsel Educational Publisher.Google Scholar
Feierman, S. 1990. Peasant Intellectuals: anthropology and history in Tanzania. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Feierman, S. 2005. ‘On socially composed knowledge: reconstructing a Shambaa royal ritual’, in Maddox, & Giblin, eds. In Search of a Nation, 14–33.Google Scholar
Ferguson, J. 1994. The Anti-politics Machine: ‘development’, depoliticisation and bureaucratic power in Lesotho. London: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Gould, J. 2005. ‘Capacity as governmentality in Tanzania’, in Mosse, D. & Lewis, D. eds. The Aid Effect: giving and governing in international development. London: Pluto Press, 61–85.Google Scholar
Gould, J. & Ojanen, J. 2003. ‘Merging the Circle’: the politics of Tanzania's poverty reduction strategy. Policy Paper 2/2003, University of Helsinki: Institute of Development Studies.Google Scholar
Green, M. 2003. ‘Globalizing development in Tanzania’, Critique of Anthropology 23, 2: 123–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G. 2004a. The World Bank and Africa: the construction of governance states. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G. 2004b. ‘The World Bank, and theories of political action in Africa’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7, 2: 215–40.Google Scholar
Harrison, G. 2005. ‘Economic faith, social project, and a misreading of African society: the travails of neoliberalism in Africa’, Third World Quarterly 26, 8: 1303–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G. & Mulley, S.. 2008 ‘Tanzania: a genuine case of recipient leadership in the aid system?’ in Whitfield, L. ed. The New Politics of Aid: barriers to ownership in Africa. Oxford University Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Helleiner, G. 1999. Changing Aid Relationships in Tanzania. ms. Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
Helleiner, G., Killick, T., Lipumba, N., Ndulu, B. & Svendsen, K.. 1995. Report of Independent Advisors on Development Cooperation Issues between Tanzania and its Donors. ms Dar es Salaam.Google Scholar
Herbst, J. 2000. States and Power in Africa: comparative lessons in authority and control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Johansson, L. 2001. Ten Million Trees Later. Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische.Google Scholar
Kelsall, T. 2000. ‘Governance, local politics, and districtisation in Tanzania: the 1988 Arumeru tax revolt’, African Affairs 99, 397: 533–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsall, T. 2002. ‘Shop windows and smoke-filled rooms: governance and the repoliticisation of Tanzania’, Journal of Modern African Studies 40, 4: 597–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsall, T. 2004. Contentious Politics, Local Governance and the Self: a Tanzanian case study. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutuet.Google Scholar
Kiondo, A. 1995. ‘When the state withdraws: local development, politics and liberalisation in Tanzania’, in Gibbon, P. ed. Liberalised development in Tanzania. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 109–77.Google Scholar
Kothari, U. 2005. ‘Authority and expertise: the professionalisation of development and the ordering of dissent’, in Laurie, N. & Bondi, L. eds. Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 32–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lushoto District Council. no date. Council Situation Report: service delivery performance and stakeholders' valuations. Lushoto: Lushoto District Council.Google Scholar
Maddox, G. & Giblin, J. L. eds. 2005. In Search of a Nation: histories of authority and dissidence in Tanzania. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Max, J. A. O. 1991. The Development of Local Government in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: Educational Publishers & Distributors.Google Scholar
Mercer, C. 2002. ‘The discourse of maendeleo and the politics of women's participation on mount Kilimanjaro’, Development and Change 33, 1: 101–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosse, D. 2005. Cultivating Development. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Mosse, D. & Lewis, D. eds. 2005. The Aid Effect. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Mushi, R. & Melyoki, L.. no date. Financial Transparency in LGAs in Tanzania. Draft Report, Dar es Salaam: REPOA.Google Scholar
Ngwilizi, H. 2002. The Local Government Reform Programme in Tanzania: country experience. ms.Google Scholar
Nyerere, J. K. 1974. Man and Development. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peck, J. & Tickell, A.. 2002. ‘Neoliberalizing space’, Antipode 34, 3: 388–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
President's Office Regional and Local Government (PORALG). 2000. Restructuring Manual. Dar es Salaam: mimeo.Google Scholar
Semboja, J. & Therkildsen, O. eds. 1995. Service Provision under Stress in East Africa. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Shivji, I. & Maina Peter, C.. 2000. The Village Democracy Initiative: a review of the legal and institutional framework of governance at sub-district level in the context of local government reform programme. Dar es Salaam: Ministry of Local Government Reform/UNDP.Google Scholar
Smoke, P. 2003. ‘Decentralisation in Africa: goals, dimensions, myths and challenges’, Public Administration and Development 23, 1: 7–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder, K. 2005. The Iraqw of Tanzania: negotiating rural development. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Steffensen, J., Tidemand, P., Naitore, H., Ssewankambo, E. & Mwaipopo, E.. 2004. A Comparative Analysis of Decentralisation in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda: country study: Tanzania. Dar es Salaam: NCG/Danish Trust Fund/World Bank.Google Scholar
Transparency International. 2007. Corruption Perceptions Index. Berlin: TI.Google Scholar
Williams, D. 1999. ‘Constructing the economic space: the World Bank and the making of homo oeconomicus’, Millennium 28, 1: 79–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Bank. 2001. ‘Tanzania: an impact evaluation of World Bank-country partnership in curtailing corruption’, unpublished mimeo, Dar es Salaam: Operations Evaluations Department.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2004a. Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Credit to the United Public of Tanzania for the Local Government Support Project. Dar es Salaam: Report No. 29751-TZ.Google Scholar
World Bank. 2004b. Project Information Document, Local Government Support Programme. Dar es Salaam: PID project no. P070736.Google Scholar

Newspapers

The Citizen, Dar es Salaam.

Interviews (all conducted in Lushoto)

Former Chair, Ubiri Women's Group, August 2005

Chamdoma, Eva, Councillor, August 2005

Director, Tanzanian Irrigation Project (TIP), 15.8.2005

Goroi, Elias, District Commissioner, 16.8.2005

Mwakabana, Andakise, Planning Officer, 16.8. 2005

Shemndolwa, Lucas, Vice Chair of Council, 4.8.2005

Stephen, Tumaini, District Administrative Officer, 5.8.2005

Tito, Zubeda, Councillor, 11.8.2005

Twakyondo, Paul, Councillor, August 2005