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Structural Adjustment and the Fragile Nation: the Demise of Social Unity in Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Paul J. Kaiser
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Extract

Tanzania is one of the few African countries that has remained relatively calm since independence. However, its long history of ethnic, racial, and religious cohesion has begun to fray as the Government attempts to reform its ailing economy in accordance with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities. This process offers an opportunity to explore the degree to which there is a causal link between liberal economic reform and social unity. This is especially relevant as many African régimes are implementing similar policy prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), the terms of which often depend on the minimal financial leverage that African negotiators have vis-à-vis the advanced industrial countries of the North.1 York Bradshaw and Zwelakhe Tshandu have argued that ‘the burgeoning debt crisis may represent the “new dependency” for many African countries which cannot acquire capital from other sources besides the IMF and the World Bank.’

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 227 - 237
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 The term ‘North’ refers throughout this article to the advanced industrialised countries, while ‘South’ refers to ‘developing’, ‘less-developed’, or third-world countries.

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