Conclusions

The party has used the government in its bid to expand its control, first by declaring supremacy over the National Assembly in 1975 and over the government in 1977 and then by increasing the government's role in directing development to an even greater extent than before. What emerged was a highly interventionist state, which, in spite of its professed goals of self-reliance and popular participation in development, intervened in the economy and in regulating social relations in a manner unacceptable to large numbers of Tanzanians. At its worst, the state was coercive, as seen in its attempts to forcibly remove people from their homes during the massive Operation Vijijini campaign to resettle the rural population in villages in the early 1970s. Its more benign manifestations involved the paternalism that leaders expressed in their interactions with local people.

Party and government efforts to crush independent organizations were not entirely successful. Many independent associations persisted, and some, such as informal, community voluntary associations, even proliferated during the years of crisis. Moreover, people found ways to work around government and party restrictions that interfered with their ability to obtain a living income. Selling crops on parallel markets and many other such strategies, which I explore in detail in chapter 6, undermined the capacity of the state and began to seriously threaten its viability. External shocks to the economy exacerbated these internal conflicts. These factors, coupled with mounting pressures from external donors, left the government with little alternative but to retreat from the kind of interventionist policies it had maintained throughout the 1970s. How this crucial transition from state expansion to state retreat was engineered is explained in greater detail in the following chapter.