Between  past  and  present  -­  civil  society  and  citizenship  after  socialism

Regarding the institutional context in Tanzania it is noteworthy to consider the relatively

weak role of its civil society. Having distinctively suffered during the socialist era until the 1980s Tanzanian civil society, both CSOs and social arena at large have up to today been unable to take a strong position in the institutional sphere.

Green (2010, 16) defines governance as a relation between different levels of government and its recognized institutions that actively involves ordinary citizens to situate themselves to government and power. Yet, Tanzanian government has been reluctant in involving the civil society in policy processes. Direct budget support has not changed the attitude of government officials towards the valuable contributions civil society representatives have to offer. Since Tanzanian governance has officially moved from central to decentralized governance, the culture of post-socialist setting cannot be disregarded because it significantly modifies the models of governing. Yet, the content of the transition and the adjustments in CCM have led to an exceptional synthesis of old and new forms of governance. State’s relation with rural communities reminds the socialist period. Next to this model particularly international organizations have taken a role of post-socialist promotion through CSOs. (Green 2010, 16.) As part of the neoliberal change, the CSO sector has become a service creator for the government. This agency was previously assumed for district officials and representatives of village governments, which still continue to represent government positions and CCM positions, in the village. Because of the aspects of business and politics in development relations it is difficult to clearly separate NGOs, civil society, private businesses and government representatives from each other. (Green 2012, 310-311.)

During the change from socialism towards more neoliberal governance the culture of Tanzanian governance and the political relationships between tiers of government have not changed much in practice. It is debatable whether the village governance has been democratized or not. Local governments continue to be seen as representing the next higher-up level of government and essentially implementing national government’s development vision. Local policies are still directed from top to bottom. Village is seen as a unit of development action and responsibility. This naturally strengthens inequality in professional relations between districts and villages, district staff and village residents and between agents and subjects of development. Also government officials still differentiate themselves from peasants as responsible for telling them how to develop because ‘they don’t know anything’. (Green 2010, 26, 29.)

When discussing citizens as ‘target populations’ of state-driven development it is easy to forget that active citizenship and disempowerment may operate hand in hand. It is important to separate the development policy driven normative assumptions of citizenship from the empirical every day political life. Although paternalistic regimes such as Tanzanian, bear negative consequences for empowerment one should not forget the multiple ways of how ordinary citizens work within civil society and state spaces.

Discussing citizenship as clientelism distracts from seeing strategies of survival and well-being, which in a developing country context are built on multiple strategic relationships.

For an outsider such relationships may seem to create dependency and disempowerment if one views them in the light of liberal individualist conceptions of citizenship. Yet for locals they can provide access to vital resources. The link between citizens and the state in a Third World setting does not often go hand in hand with the democratic models of participation that donors and NGOs promote. Citizens can simultaneously act as target populations for state-led development as well as active agents of clientelistic political relations. (Robins et al 2008, 1075.)

As discussed in chapter 3.2., neoliberal shift in governance is present in the promotion of the global ‘good governance’ agenda in which the civil society plays an integral role. The certain definition of good governance on the agendas of the World Bank and the MDGs is likely to produce pre-defined understandings for Tanzanian governance. In neoliberal representation governance is about apolitical management needed to support national strategies for poverty reduction. For example, the attempt to develop autonomous local organizations between the state and the people was built on the belief that democratic transition would happen naturally if only certain technical support was given to grassroots as promoted in poverty reduction strategy papers. This outlook was typical among development practitioners in many post-socialist development interventions and still prevails to some extent. The content of this technical support is referred to with ‘capacity building’. It serves the expectations of international development institutions and ensures the channeling of development funds. It also upholds the old dependency structure where citizens have needs to be fulfilled by the government rather than rights to be acclaimed by it. This particular culture of governance typically also concerns itself more with adherence to forms and specific practices rather than concern with content. Organizing offices in a particular manner and holding on to the particular rituals, she writes, is key to the

constitution of governance as modalities of power in Tanzania. Such practices also maintain the national order founded on the idea that village is the basic building block of planned development and thus an object of governance. (Green 2010, 17-20.)

For realizing how the neoliberal policies have shaped the societal sphere that Tanzanian citizens live in, it is also essential to pay attention to the certain cultural balancing between past and present. Kamat (2008) has studied how the residents of Mbande, a community close to Dar es Salaam, articulate their understanding of the effects of neoliberal policies in their everyday lives. Their narratives are an infusion of nostalgic remembrance of the socialist past and a melancholic view of the present. Remembering the past is a jointly social and cultural process that is more reconstructive than simply reproductive. When people talk of their experiences, past events are reconstructed with current understanding, the present is explained in light of the reconstructed past and both generate expectations of the future. Nostalgia is a way to respond to the ongoing changes and discontinuity in the society in order to live with present struggles. Kamat (ibid.) found nostalgic discourses of social solidarity of Tanzania’s socialist past. This nostalgia includes loss of community values, loss of respect for elderly people in the post-socialist era and a change in reciprocal exchange and mutual assistance on the community level. The transition from the Ujamaa socialism to privatization had intensified social and economic inequalities and feelings of deprivation in the community. Especially the elderly discussed the old time when government used to genuinely care for its citizens. This was linked to loss of social cohesion. (Kamat ibid, 361-364.) Yet, younger generations discussed the past in a different light especially the ones self-employed. Young people saw that there now exists political and economic opportunities followed by the government’s decision to ease its socialist ideology. They represented a neoliberal worldview that offers opportunities for those who work hard. Although in reality the Ujamaa-policies were controversial and included large-scale failures, majority of the people Kamat studied felt that social cohesion, support and people’s trustworthiness had since diminished. (ibid, 368, 372.) However, it needs to be noted that this is not to suggest that life for ordinary people would have been better than it is present-day Tanzania. As Kamat (ibid, 376) notes, today the problem is not anymore the availability of essential commodities but more the lack of purchasing power to access them.

According to a recent study on Tanzanians’ confidence towards different authorities in the country it was further confirmed that Tanzanians trust religious leaders, their own

community, themselves and their relatives. Yet trust towards formal institutions, politicians and the central and local level government continues to stay low. The research by Twaweza is notable since it is the first countrywide enquiry that concentrates on ordinary citizens’ perceptions. The study informs that although Tanzanians are often held as passive in societal advocacy they are active on community level. Self-confidence and feeling of being able to change things are strong among the citizens, which is especially important for empowerment. As the study states, the difficulty with empowerment is not the attitude as such but the fact that official channels for influencing the present state of development are not used. When citizens face issues that do not function they come up with solutions outside the official sphere. (Twaweza 2014.)

4.5. Tanzanian development policy context for the post-2015