Tanzania: An African Experiment Rodger Yeager (Profile/Nations of Contemporary Africa Series), Westview Press (Boulder, Colorado) and Gower (Hampshire), 1982, ISBN (U.S.) 0‐89158‐923‐6 ISBN (U.K.) 0‐566‐00554‐9, 114 pp.
| Date | 01 April 1985 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230050208 |
| Published date | 01 April 1985 |
| Author | Andrew Coulson |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
Vol.
5,
NO.
2,
177-186
(1985)
Book
Reviews
TANZANIA: AN AFRICAN EXPERIMENT
Rodger Yeager
(Profile/Nations of Contemporary Africa Series), Westview Press (Boulder, Colorado) and
Gower (Hampshire),
1982,
ISBN
(U.S.)
0-89158-923-6
ISBN (U.K.)
0-566-00554-9, I14
pp.
It is difficult-probably impossible-to write a salisfying introduction to
a
country in
I14
pages. The inevitable result
is
that most of the evidence is omitted, controversy
is
suppressed,
and only generalizations and summaries remain. If such a study is to be saved, this can only
be by its specialized coverage of
a
few aspects of particular interest to the author. Rodger
Yeager is an American political scientist who spent two years in the Tanzanian Ministry of
Lands, Settlement and Water Development between
1964
and
1966.
and then kept abreast of
development through consultancy and
a
succession of Tanzanian graduate students at the
University of West Virginia. He has the benefit of access to U.S. government assessments of
Tanzania and other East African countries.
These sources produce some strange results-such as a rainfall map on p.
31
which shows
the semi-desert thorn scrub around Dodoma to be wetter than most of the
Mwanza/Shinganga cotton area
or
the tobacco/maize/rice
of
Tabora region: was it this map
that persuaded the World Bank and U.S. Government to support
a
large maize project in
Dodoma in the
1970s,
when
all
earlier experience showed that it was bound to fail?
Like many liberal-minded political scientists (Bienen, Pratt, Hyden), the author has great
faith in President Nyerere, worries about who will succeed him, and wishes that the U.S. and
other Western governments would give him more support. Kind interpretations of his
aspirations and actions are accepted. Mistakes and weaknesses are treated very considerately.
Photographs look posed.
The historical introduction is Euro-centric, and shows little knowledge of recent historical
writing, e.g. by Iliffe, Kjekshus
or
Sheriff. The most interesting information is about
Tanzania’s relationships with other East African countries and Zanzibar, and with foreign aid
donors. The strongest criticism is reserved for the organization of the
1975
‘villagization’
(blamed on Kawawa and Rwegasira rather than Nyerere), and for Kenya’s (sic) failure to
accept the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda in
1978.
But no answer is given to the question
of
where the country goes from here. Can things only
get worse? What is needed to give economic growth and prosperity that will remove the need
for handouts of food
or
money from foreign governments?
1s
no contribution
to
be expected
from industrialization-which has
a
fundamental role in Tanzanian thinking about
development and underdevelopment?
Is
the country over-bureaucratized-a consequence
of
developing salaried administration (often to support,
or
supported by, projects from overseas
governments, and rationalized by political scientists committed
to
‘institution building’) far
faster than the tax base
or
the economy can grow?
ANDREW
COULSON
Institute
of
Local Government Studies
University
of
Birmingham
01985
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
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