Acknowledgements 1. The study of politics in Africa 2. The movement legacy 3. The problematic state 4. The economy of affection 5. Big man rule 6. The policy factor 7. The agrarian question 8. Gender and politics 9. Ethnicity and conflict 10. The external dimension 11. So what do we know? 12. Quo vadis Africa? References Index.

African Politics in Comparative Perspective

This 2006 book reviews fifty years of research on politics in Africa. It synthesizes insights from different scholarly approaches and offers an interpretation of the knowledge accumulated over the years. It discusses how research on African politics relates to the study of politics in other regions. It focuses on such key issues as the legacy of a movement approach to political change, the nature of the state, the economy of a location, the policy deficit, the agrarian question, gender and politics and ethnicity and conflict. It ends by reviewing what scholars agree upon and what the accumulated knowledge offers as insights for more effective political and policy reforms. This book is for undergraduate and graduate courses in African and Comparative Politics as well as development-oriented courses in Political Science and related disciplines. It is also of great relevance to governance and development analysts and practitioners in international organizations.

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African politics in comparative perspective

Through an examination of the Tanzanian experience, this article takes up a challenge forcefully posed by Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject to examine connections between late colonial and postindependence state power on the African continent. The discussion is critical of Mamdani's argument that postindependence authoritarianism in Africa can be understood as an institutional legacy of late colonialism. However, connections to colonial times did exist in the frames of legitimation that underpinned the frequently authoritarian actions of the postindependence Tanzanian state. One such connection was the persistent paternalism vis-a-vis their “subjects” that characterized the political imagination of state elites; another was the fact that “the colonial past” served as an important reference point in the construction of a deeply Manichean discourse and practice of politics after independence.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0002020600025087

Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial Authoritarianism in Tanzania: Connects and Disconnects

1. The Rural Sector 2. Traditional Rural Production Systems 3. Rapid Rural Change: Traditional Systems Under Pressure 4. Rural Poverty: Explanations and Solutions 5. Redistribution of Resources 6. Increasing Productivity 7. Assessments, Achievements and Alternative Approaches.

Rural Development in the Third World

This article presents a critical assessment of James Scott's portrayal, in Seeing Like a State (1998), of Tanzanian villagisation as a ‘high modernist scheme’. In particular, the article seeks to t...

High on Modernity? Explaining the Failings of Tanzanian Villagisation1

Government and Rural Development in East Africa

I. Introduction 'Penetration' and the East African Context.- The Concept of Political Penetration.- 'Penetration' and Rural Development in the East African Context.- II. The Colonial Legacy and the Dynamics of Political Control.- Teso in Transformation: colonial penetration in Teso District, Eastern Uganda, and its contemporary significance.- Local Participation in National Politics: Ugugo, Tanzania.- The Legitimacy of the Uganda Government in Buganda.- III. Institutions and Strategies for Rural Development.- Creating and Expanding Organizations for Rural Development.- Economics, Incentives and Development Penetration.- Leadership and Institutions for Rural Development: a case study of Nzega District.- IV. District Politics and Rural Transformation.- Promoting Agrarian Change: penetration and response in Murang'a, Kenya.- Political Engineering and Social Change: a case study of Bukoba District, Tanzania.- Improving Nutrition in Bukedi District, Uganda.- V. The Dynamics of Rural Societies.- Staff Kulaks and Peasants: a study of a political field.- The Social Structure of the Agricultural Extension Services in the Western Province of Kenya.- Legitimacy and Coercion in Bena Politics and Development.- A Low Status Group in Centre-Periphery Relations: Mbai Sya Eitu.- VI. Conclusion.- Recurring Penetration Strategies in East Africa.

M. R. Doornbos

Papers

Government and Rural Development in East Africa

Government and Rural Development in East Africa: Essays on Political Penetration