Again, making Tanzania great

Magufuli’s restorationist developmental nationalism

Bibliographic Data

ID6253164
AuthorsDan Paget (0000-0002-3883-1649, University of Aberdeen, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume27
Issue7
Pages1240-1260
Publication date2020-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDemocratization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1351-0347 • E-ISSN: 1743-890X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13510347.2020.1779223
OpenAlexW3030479121
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited36

This article is about how ideologies legitimize authoritarianism. The literature argues that liberation nationalists discursively construct "liberation" as an ongoing struggle and justify their authoritarian rule until its completion. By recurrently postponing liberation, they extend this justification of authoritarianism. Nonetheless, their claim that the nation is part-way through liberation becomes less plausible over time. Liberation nationalism shares a discursive structure with a parallel class of developmental nationalisms. I analyse the ideology of President Magufuli and CCM in Tanzania. Instead of claiming that the nation is mid-transformation, they constructed the status quo as a corrupt deviation from a past order: "Nyerere's Tanzania". They conceived of this past order as a nation dedicated to industrial development which would lead to a transformed future. They advocated rupture with the present, the restoration of the past and the resumption of this transformative journey. Restorationism relieves liberation and developmental nationalisms of the rising rhetorical challenge of claiming that the nation has been on a transformative path since liberation. Therefore, Magufuli and CCM developed a variant upon liberation and developmental nationalisms, which also justifies authoritarianism. Unlike them, it remains rhetorically viable as the moment of liberation or development becomes distant. I call it restorationist developmental nationalism

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Ideology · Liberation movement · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Status quo · Transformative learning · Gender Studies · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · International Development and Aid · Law · South African History and Culture