Continuity and change in Tanzanian politics: a critique of the behavioural analysis

The initial interest resulting into tis work was to examine the 1980 General Elections. I followed the election process from the presidential convocation address at the university on the 29th of August until the reconstitution of the National Assembly, the Cabinet and the party’s “stock-taking” after the election process, around January 1981. It became evident at this period that emerging trends in the 1980 elections could not be comprehended sufficiently on the basis of the indication and suppositions of the behavioral analytical framework of the earlier election studies. At this point, a choice existed either one would ignore the previous studies and analyse the 1980 elections on their own, from entirely new premises, or seek to comprehend the previous elections in order to come up with a methodology deemed sufficient for a comprehension of the trends of the 1980 elections on the basis of the suggested prima facie evidence. I chose the second option for the reason that hitherto there has not been a sufficient or even documented discussion on the assumptions and implications of the behavioural analysis which were depicted in the major analysis of the 1970 elections. The aim was establish the justification for not proceeding from the conclusions and trends reported in the 1970 study. Some kind of critique of the study had to be attempted before one could proceed with any independent perspective for the 1980 elections. The question was what kind of critique had to be provided. In resolving this question, a particular feature that determined the method of critique was the fact that the 1970 study was not as integrated piece of work with a single theoretical and analytical focus. It had no integral projection of analysis and conclusions, and as such could not be easily analyzed in a summary form. Leaving out the case studies, each aspect analyzed stood on its own quezi-independent theoretical foundation. It meant that one had to take up these aspects on their own if justice was to be done for the subject matter, given that the various aspects were relatively disconnected with the others, and also to the particular writer since their outlooks were not necessarily the same in their respective chapters. The problem had been reduced to the interpretation of elections as a whole, rather than the interpretation of the 1980 elections in particular. The method of doing that had been resolved, that is, by the separate critique of each of the major elements in the main work. This made the task somewhat wider, since the basis of the 1970 study is not elections as such, but the application of a behavioral approach to the study of politics within a particular although somewhat diversified theoretical interpretation of the political system. The point is that election politics could not be understood outside a broader comprehension of the political system, and thus this element had to be sufficiently treated. Since the 1970 study was confined mainly to election politics as a pivotal instrument of socialist transformation, it was possible to cover the aspects of politics of elections and politics of socialism within the study, and aided somewhat by the 1965 study. It was accessary however to look around for some basic studies of the major aspects of the political system, and in that context the works of henry bionen on the party, John Nellis on the ideological context. Saul and pratt/ in their influential exchange on president Nyerere’s role in the political system, and Goran Syden’s pioneering study of the rural context of the polity made integral study elements which were given a preliminary chapter before the main critiques. For purposes of simplification politics of socialism and election politics were separated and analyzed in that context, with some chapters notably that of Anthony Rweyemanu being split to accord to this demand, while most of the other chapters tended to fit inclusion into one or other of the divisions. The case studies were left out, except for references relating to elections in the local context. Similarly, the prima faces evidence from the 1980 elections was carried into the analysis as part of the critiques, by the logical extension of the suppositions and hence the significance of the subsequent evidence, though preliminary. The critique of behaviourism was necessary I order to establish a different framework where historical movement in terms of the process of transformation of Tanzania politics could be comprehended. Behaviourism had frozen the structural and systematic characteristics of the Tanzania political system, including the goal of socialism and the elements characterizing the unity of the polity since 1962. From this perspective only one kind of analysis could rationally proceed, that of continuity of the elements of political behavior. One therefore had to transform the assumptions of the analytical perspective of Tanzania politics, through a consistent critique of the internal logic of the various literatures to enable a positive re-understanding of the political system. This also enables an inferential interpretation of the 1980 elections, by extension of the logic of the critique of previous studies and prima faces evidence from 1980. The behavioural approach based itself on empirical evidence substantiating positive behavior, which implied acceptability of the goals and capacity of the persuade of those goals by the political system. The historical perspective of this analysis first took for granted national unity, in the 1965 study where cliffe points to Kiswahili as the most significant unifying factor apart from leadership, etc. The 1970 study supposed that the Arusha Declaration was of a fundamental systemic transformation character. This was not that much corroborated by the evidence, and a strong note of skepticism is raised in the Voter Level Surveys precisely about this question. It nevertheless constituted a fundamental dimension in the theoretical introduction of John Saul and Jonathan Barker. The transition from politics of unity and leadership to those of socialism and democracy as the framework of analysis was not altogether evenly comprehended by the researchers, and one finds see singly clear division where the expatriate group, Saul and Barker in particular, but also Kjekshus to some extent, see the role of president Nyerere from the ideological viewpoint, that is, as a leader of socialism based on democracy. The local researchers notably Mushi and Anthony Rweyemama but also Dismarck Mwansasu, tended to see Nyerere in the role of the National leader, as in the 1965 study. But this dimension did not parse constitute a theoretical issue, except that it surface from the implications of the various suppositions, treated on their own. Given the democratic imperatic imperative of developmentalist theory, at least up to the Huntingtonian critique, the aim was to assess the balance achieved between ideal one-party democracy implement socialism. A changed comprehension of both these elements, unity and socialism, is necessary. One has to question the supposition that rational system-maintenance elements existed, the supposed positive attitude to the elections as they are, the dual position of the president as a leader based on national unity and socialism as a partisan policy, and other elements like political communication and the role of symbols. The picture that emerges is one of a particular form of politics based on a condition of low differentiation of classes and the national movement as a whole. This is the point of departure of the critique. It continually seeks to establish its different view with regard to each element and major proposition contained in each element or aspect of the major studies of the political system, politics of socialism and election politics. The uniting thread of the critique is the constant effort to transfers the behavioral assumptions into somentary political balances, and therefore of a changing and withering character rather than a consolidating and present character. This is not argued by a different perspective, but forced out of the behavioural analysis by logical criticism, as interpretable from the very elements of the political structure and the very evidence included in the behavioral analysis. Partial additions from the 1980 elections brought some change in the evidence, and also a re-look into the use of some of the evidence in the major studies, in particular for the interviews conducted by Hyden in his study of “the Bahaya”, the political logic of the construction of some of the tables in the Voter Level Surveys, and the interpretation of the evidence on symbols in the 1965 and 1970 studies. The rest of the parameters of the 1970 study and the substantiation remained the same, with only the transformation of interpretation. The first section traces the behavioural perspective from the idea of political development. It simply establishes a definition or working concept of political development and decolonization, as raised in particular by the critique of political development by Martin Deornbos. A link is established between the idea of political development and the behavioural tools of its concrete examination, and an alternate concept or model, defined as unitarism, is brought up as a conception of the particular form of politics in Tanzania in the existing phase of the national movement. Section to traces the main arguments and method of analysis of the studies of the political system, in terms of the way the ideology, party, polity and president as constituent elements have been analyzed. Sections three and four cover the 1970 study by dividing it into two areas, politics of socialism and election politics, and discussing them separately but within the analytical context of a particular chapter or part of a chapter. It is the same institutional elements and categories which recur, but in a different dimension of analysis.